Pittsburgh: Renewed

Pittsburgh is emerging as a healthcare, education, and creative hub. It helps that the city is also ridiculously affordable to live in compared to other cities in the region and even other millennial hubs (I don’t advise checking the rent for places in Portland before consulting a cardiologist). While I graduated from college in 2008, even seven years on it is a city I hardly recognize--in the best possible way. As time moves on, it makes me think of all of the incredible changes I observed as a kid, watching Vancouver morph from a regional hub into the amazing world city that it is today.

With that in mind, even though I live just beyond the exurbs of Pittsburgh, I am proud to show off the city to anyone who allows me. I had this chance when one of my best friends, Emily, visited from Chicago with her roommate. Emily had visited Pittsburgh a few times when I was in college and she was in grad school in northwest Ohio. She wasn’t entirely new to the city. After all, we had a very exciting evening walking back to my apartment as a deranged elderly man vigorously exposed himself a few years earlier.

Pittsburgh didn't need redemption in her eyes. But here we were, in Pittsburgh, again. In a way, I made it a self-designed nostalgia tour.

We met up in Shadyside at Harris Grill. The menu has evolved over the years, but Emily’s roommate noticed they had a throwback menu. Perfect. My favorite menu item there is the fried Twinkie. Their presentation of the Twinkie is a little controversial, but they took something already delicious and found a creative way to make it taste better. Besides, here is where my 21^st birthday celebration started and the captain of the crew team and her, then, fiancée wanted to ensure I had a memorable evening.

Ellsworth Ave, where Harris is located, has developed as the “alternative” to the more mainstream and upscale Walnut St just a few blocks away. We walked over to Walnut, past the stunning homes subdivided into apartments, to a handmade bazaar. As we looked over an immense amount of handmade jewelry, unusual stationary, and enough scarves for a million winters, Chris was at the Apple Store, trying in vain to get the biggest iPhone that exists (we would eventually find it, but not until tomorrow at one of the other three Apple Stores in Pittsburgh). Walnut St has definitely become more upscale in the past few years, that they allow the shabby Rite Aid to continue exist in its shabby state completely confuses me.

Walking up and down Walnut was like letting your eyes adjust to the dark once you turn off your bedside lamp. At first I was trying to remember the stores and the specific details, but after a few minutes I remembered a very unique store, Kawaii Gifts. I knew this would be a fruitful stop. If it is adorable and/or brightly colored, Kawaii has it. It is also on the lower level of a building and the only way to get to it is a narrow exterior stairway, I think it adds to the neatness of the spot.

What makes Emily a great person to host is that she’s pretty decisive. She wanted to see more vintage stores (after having hit up the selection of them on Ellsworth). We walked back to the cars and headed over to Squirrel Hill to stop into Avalon Exchange, via the Starbucks I spent a lot of quiet Sundays in. In fact, I realize college wasn’t as crazy as I sometimes remember. I spent a lot of Saturdays and Sundays going on long walks and drinking enormous amounts of coffee.

The day wearing on and evening plans set back home in Morgantown, we parted ways, but not before I was able to give advice on local craft beer options and independent tea shops. I’ve heard all sorts of amazing narratives of the history of Pittsburgh, but I have to believe this will be one of those magical times spoken about a hundred years from now: a great city fell, but then it got back on its feet.

Pittsburgh, as a Tourist

Once in a while, it is nice to play hooky (after filing all of the proper paperwork for the day off with your employer) and be a tourist. Hitting the state parks and hiking around home in West Virginia never feels very touristy because, while we often encounter folks from faraway places, the tourists we run into are usually pretty into their own experience and blend in very well. Alternatively, many have local tour guides, enabling them to cut through the noise to get to the best of what the area has to offer. But when you commit to visiting Pittsburgh and playing tourist the experience is different, these are actual tourists with no local hosts and they aren’t all the quiet, introspective outdoorsy types.

I’m not sure at which point we switched from, “oh, we live in the Pittsburgh exurbs” to “let’s be tourists.” We often do enjoy the drive up to Washington, PA on old U.S. Route 19. Good grief, do I ever love eating at the Waffle House on Racetrack Road in Washington. I think the exact moment was when Chris took a wrong turn onto the Smithfield Street Bridge while seeking a specific entrance to Station Square and it had been so long since I’d been downtown that I didn’t realize they’d modified the traffic pattern somewhat that I was about as useful as a tourist (even though I resided in the City of Pittsburgh for several years!). First rule of driving in Pittsburgh: there are no rules.

For a long time we had been wanting to try out a Duck Tour, these are the tours of cities on the amphibious vehicles, so there is an in-water and out-of-water component of the tour. The tour was a really good time. The tour only covered the downtown core and the stadiums on the North Shore but our guide was great and was certainly able to entertain us sufficiently in the time provided, which seemed to be a little over an hour. The only part of the tour that wasn’t quite as I expected was the water component, I figured it might be used to cross the Allegheny instead of using one of the bridges, but instead the water component is just fooling around in the Ohio, between the Point and the West End Bridge. Not any real tour points there, just the unique factor of being in the water. We would both recommend the tour though, it was informative and fun!

Another big attraction about Pittsburgh for us yokels to the far south are the malls! When I lived in Pittsburgh, I loved South Hills Village and now I also have a pretty healthy relationship with Ross Park Mall. It was great to be able to hold the new iPhones and pick out the ones we want (even if we still have to order them!) at the Apple Store. We also are madly in love with the L.L. Bean Store. Perusing the L.L. Bean basically reassures me that even when we do decide to go for some crazy hikes in February (because we will want to), they’ve got the gear so I don’t need to freeze.

But then around this point the tourist thing must’ve worn off because we had some time before we had settled on meeting friends on the North Side for dinner and I suggested we escape to North Park, which would be an attraction like those I describe in the first paragraph. North Park is wonderful, but it’s not a place you’re going to find unless you’re looking for it or looking very specifically for something like it. Since our last visit, a little over a year earlier, a small café had opened in the boat house. On this day, there was some problem with their kitchen but they were still serving drinks from the bar. However, not two or three moments after our drinks made it to our picturesque seats did my phone ring.

The view from our table at the North Park boathouse

Brian is a best friend to both Chris and I, but like most of my close friends, we don’t talk on the phone. We text and Tweet substantially, plus hang out a lot, but there is not a lot of calling, particularly out of the blue. This suggested to us that something was up. Unfortunately, something was up. On her way to a weekend camping with her family, his sister, Anna, was rear-ended while sitting in congested traffic in Pittsburgh. The server at the café was wonderful, she gave us to-go cups for our drinks and cashed us out in a hurry and we were on our way to help Brian’s sister.

When we got out to Carnegie and found Anna, the news was mixed. She was more or less fine physically and the car was still drivable. But this was her very first crash and her car is less than a year old at this point. Worse yet, she’s 2.5 hours from home and still about 2 hours from where she’s going. The three of us sit out in the parking lot of a drug store and catch up, talk, and hang out until Brian makes it up from Morgantown. Despite being shaken up, Anna gets right back on the horse and makes the drive out to the lake in Ohio.

Running a little late, we re-descend on the city and meet up with my friend from college, Jasmine, and her fiancée, Pete, at the James Street Gastropub. The food was delicious and the beer list spectacular (two things I was promised in advance). Catching up with Jasmine was wonderful, it was great to feel like I went a few years back in time to college but it was also nice to meet her fiancée. I look forward to attending their wedding in March!

When we parted ways, on another floor of the establishment a jazz band was in full swing and with the windows open the music was filling the street. It ended the wonderful day on a wonderful note.

Cotton Candy High

There isn’t much better or more important in life than having awesome friends. I can’t say I bring a strong numbers game in this area, but I think I bring a strong quality game. So the weekend before last, my best friend from college, Jenn, along with her sister Amanda, picked me up from my place in Morgantown and took me home to Beaver County, Pennsylvania with them (both of them now live in Maryland, sort of flanking the greater DC area to the north and east, respectively). It did not take long to end up in the middle of a musical, fantasies about the upcoming midnight snacks at Sheetz, and what has come to be “normal girl stuff” for us. Frankly, I was aiming for a laid back weekend with my second family and best friend. That’s it. And it was good.

All morning on Saturday we ran errands around Beaver County. I had previously only known one way to get from Beaver Falls, which is down by the river, up to the rest of the county. I learned at least two other ways. When Jenn and I finally had a break, we decided to head to Brady’s Run Regional Park for a break. We had intended to find a geocache or two (this cache has so many of them!) but when we couldn’t figure out how to get to the first one, we settled for playing on some decrepit playground equipment and a stroll to the dam on the small impoundment. Afterward, we made it a priority to stop by the Chippewa location of the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe for their chili cheese fries and hot dog. Even though we were going to a Pirates game later, PNC Park has so much more to offer other than just hot dogs so we felt we were still striking a very good, reasonable balance.

Later on all of Jenn’s sisters, mother, and myself joined up in Beaver. Despite visiting Jenn’s folks in Chippewa several times over the past several years and just, generally, being in the area I had never been to central Beaver so I was really surprised to see how nice and developed their central business district is. The Starbucks proved to be popular with our whole group, but I also managed to pick up a souvenir for my husband here at a really neat shop Jenn’s mom suggested we visit. There is a rooster on his family crest so he really likes them, the first thing I spotted when I walked in was not one but three large rooster cookie jars. Done. The only thing left was figuring out how to fit five women and a large glass rooster into Jenn’s Nissan Versa Note. Don’t worry. We made it work, with no help from my constant joking around.

This fountain is dedicated to all of the children in Beaver

I was just excited. I was going to a ball game. I hadn’t been to a ball game since the last time Jenn handed me a ticket and said “we’re going to a Pirate’s game!” To clarify, that was our senior year of college and it was the party favor at our spring formal dance (which Jenn basically single-handedly organized, she was a very good person to know on campus).

PNC Park is a wonderful place. Compared to similar venues I’ve visited it seems cleaner, easier to navigate, offers more food choices, and is just nicer. After establishing where our seats were, Jenn and I very urgently acquired pierogies that were just smothered in butter and sour cream. It was amazing. This is exactly why it was completely fine to have hot dogs earlier, because you can get pierogies at PNC Park! But for as good as the food was and as much as the pierogie races still rock my world (Saurkraut Sal won, just in case anyone was wondering), the Pirates lost to the Cubs. I was not too bothered by the end of the game, for a losing game it seemed to go on forever and Jenn’s youngest sister and I had just gobbled up a very large bag of cotton candy which was artificially propping up my deliriously tired self for the impending Lynyrd Skynyrd concert.

I was super pumped about the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert after the game and it was clear a lot of other people were too. Despite the game running long, the park remained packed. I know the venue isn’t exactly what they’re used to playing so I didn’t have the highest hopes about sound quality or being able to see them from right field, but I still had a ridiculously good time watching them. Though good grief, time has not treated most of them as kindly as it has to the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and the like. Most of the band members actually did look like reanimated corpses of Robert E. Lee (it has actually been brought to my attention that many of the band members attended a Lee High School) that could really tear it up on a guitar. It was also pretty amazing to be in a situation where it was totally appropriate to yell “Freebird!” and in fact even expect that if you did it enough you might actually get what you asked for. I was also extremely impressed with the duration of the concert, it wasn’t three songs and gone it was a legitimate concert. This is a band, in partnership with PNC Park, who were committed to providing a great fan experience and that sometimes seems so rare!

Jenn’s dad is a pro at PNC Park and once everything was over, guided us out of the park so quickly and even as we got out onto the streets the situation seemed intense but well-controlled. Jenn’s dad also works in this part of Pittsburgh so he had the best parking advice, the garage we chose has an exit that effectively puts you directly onto the HOV lanes of I-279, and with a carload of us we definitely qualified. Traffic was truly a non-issue and we hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Cranberry to go over to Beaver before I knew it, though part of that may have been my inability to keep my eyes open. The cotton candy had worn off.

Carrie Iron Furnace

On May 5, 2012 my fiancée, our friend Brian, and I visited the old Carrie Iron Furnace in Rankin, PA. Rankin sits on the Monongahela River 8 miles south of Pittsburgh. The furnaces produced iron for use at the Homestead Steel Works (now a shopping center with only fleeting references to its past) across the river from the 1880s until 1982. Currently the facility is part of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area and it is possible to tour the site. What I enjoyed most about the tour was that our guides and many of the people at the site had worked there and were able to share deeply personal stories. While many Americans are familiar with the story of Pittsburgh and other rust belt cities, visiting the Carrie Furnace adds depth.

If you're in the Pittsburgh area, I highly recommend the tour. It is worth every penny to understand the history from this perspective. The tour fee is also going to ensure Pittsburgh's industrial history is preserved.

Only furnaces 6 and 7 remain

This is the actual furnace, more modern than some of the ruins of stone furnaces so common in parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, yet some argue it failed to keep up with the times
The final product flowed out of the furnace here

From the Carrie Furnace if you follow Braddock Avenue through Braddock and past the U.S. Steel Edgar Thompson Works (one of few functioning relics of Pittsburgh’s steel past) you will find yourself among the remains of the expansive Westinghouse Labs in East Pittsburgh, which once produced the machines behind great powerplants. At the center of this complex, now a business park, you’ll cross Electric Avenue. If you continue on Braddock past Electric you’re on the original alignment of the Lincoln Highway into and out of the eastern part of Pittsburgh. To join up with the current alignment of U.S. Route 30, continue to follow Penn as it turns into Greensburg Pike. The bridge crossing Turtle Creek slightly realigned the Lincoln Highway in 1925, prior to 1925 the route turned onto Airbrake Avenue and then made a right turn onto 11^th toward Turtle Creek where one would make the crossing. 

The Place is Pittsburgh

There are few cities I love more than Pittsburgh. Attending college there was something of a miraculous accident when I was seeking a change of scenery. But from the moment I set foot in Pittsburgh, it was love. I do not know exactly why I love Pittsburgh so much, there is no one thing that does it, but I’ve never understood those who don’t love this town. The following is a short list of why Pittsburgh is a place to love:

1. It’s a survivor. For a long time Pittsburgh was the image of a down-on-its-luck rust belt city, a mere shell of its former glory. But Pittsburgh never gave up on itself, even when the rest of the country was writing off the whole region. It kept looking forward and kept going. Pittsburgh is now a model of urban recovery.
2. There is history in these hills! Everywhere you go, important things to the development of the state, region, and nation happened! A long stroll through most neighborhoods doubles as a lesson in blue-collar American history.
3. Rather than a city, Pittsburgh is a compendium of small towns. While Pittsburgh has a clear, well-defined downtown, the neighborhoods give the city its character—whether it’s the college kids in Oakland or the authentic Italian food being served in an old family environment lining Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield. Rarely does one feel as if they’re in a big city in Pittsburgh.
4. The city is made great by its people. Pittsburghers are kind, humble, and would give the shirts off their backs to help a stranger. This is one of few places where it isn’t uncommon for strangers to say “good morning” to each other as they pass by on the sidewalk.
5. Cultural and recreational opportunities are top notch. Despite a reputation as a blue collar town, the offerings here are vast. The three rivers are a playground for those who like kayak and boat and the offerings of museums, professional sports teams, and theatre are difficult to rival even in much larger cities.
6. Did I mention that it has more bridges than Venice? 446 to be precise!

Every so often I make a pilgrimage back to Pittsburgh to revisit the city that grew me into an adult. I truly love it a little bit more every time, whether I am taking advantage of some of the unique-to-Pittsburgh things to do or simply enjoying the company of my local friends.

"Point of Conflict, Point of Renewal, Point of Confluence" - The fountain at Point State Park looking toward downtown Pittsburgh