PITTSBURGH (Newsradio 1020 KDKA) - Sixteen years ago, Pittsburgh lost its favorite neighbor. Fred Rogers died on February 27, 2003 after a brief battle with stomach cancer.
David Newell, better known as Mr. McFeely tells KDKA Radio’s Lynne Hayes-Freeland sometimes it, “just seems like yesterday and then at other times it seems such a long time ago. We miss him so much.”
“He was quite a force in Pittsburgh,” said Newell.
Newell says the family feeling that Rogers conveyed on television was the same feeling those around him felt in real life.
“It all came from Fred, that family. He was like our leader or dad of sorts,” said Newell. “He wrote his own material. He did the music and the lyrics. He operated the puppets, voiced the puppets, hosted the show. It really was Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He was the funnel I thought we all came through.”
Rogers’ messages of kindness, understanding and love continue today through Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood reruns now available on streaming services and online, as well as the newer Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, now showing on WQED.
Rogers’ legacy and influence was examined in last year’s award-winning documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” and Tom Hanks plays him in the upcoming movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood".
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