I saw that an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion early Sunday morning. Happily Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were evacuated to safety, but there was significant damage done to the structure. And there’s a person in custody.

Sadly, that’s the world we live in these days.

But it reminded me of the late 70s when I lived at 2412 Green Street in Harrisburg, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Governor’s Mansion, or a little over three blocks as you can see on this map.

I wrote about that apartment previously, as it was one of the all time favorite places that I’ve lived. In fact, I’d be happy to live there today except its kitchen has even less counter space than the one I have now, if you can believe it. Otherwise, for a two bedroom apartment, it has nearly as much space as my current house does.

Anyway, when I lived there, the governor did not reside in the Governor’s Mansion. It had proved too susceptible to flooding, being right next to the Susquehanna River, in particular during 1972’s Hurricane Agnes.

The folks who lived in the house next to my apartment building had a marker on their house to indicate how high the flood water of Agnes had risen; as best as I recall it was about up to my head.

In 1985 the producers of the ABC soap opera One Life to Live traveled to Harrisburg to get video of exterior locations. The soap, which took place in the fictional town of Llanview, PA, supposedly a Mainline suburb of Philadelphia, was getting a new theme song and thus snazzy new opening titles.

Each character would be pictured with a suitable exterior shot to indicate his or her station in life. Filthy rich oil baron Asa Buchanan, recently relocated to Llanview from Texas, was shown in front of—you guessed it—the Governor’s Mansion.