When Mr. Rogers sang, “I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,” he most likely didn’t have Canada in mind, but it would have been appropriate because you’d be hard pressed to find a better neighbor to Pittsburgh than our friends to the north. We all know what an asset Mario Lemieux has been to our region, not only as the greatest
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If you regularly tune in to the local weather forecasts, you often hear words like “severe,” “extreme,” or “apocalyptic,” to describe our weather. Well, maybe not apocalyptic, but who can forget “snowmageddon”? If the truth be told, most of the weather we experience day in and day out is typical and not cataclysmic. Weather records have only been kept by the National Weather Service since
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During each of my several visits to Yovi’s over the last few months, I’ve tried to ask at least one patron about this eatery serving Chicago-style hot dogs. The answers I received included: “You won’t be sorry you discovered this place.” “Never disappointing.” “About once a week, I walk past a dozen nice restaurants to have lunch here.” It’s not only the words folks use
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Pittsburghers are a giving lot, and they like to share. But when it comes to parking spots we tend to get territorial, especially after you’ve done the backbreaking labor of shoveling one out after a snowfall. If you travel around the city after a significant snow, you will find old chairs of all types reserving spots—from Bingo Hall folding chairs to that flowered vinyl upholstery
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Have you ever gone across the Homestead Grays Bridge (formerly the Homestead High Level Bridge), or driven to the Waterfront and noticed a dozen red brick monoliths towering over the area? Is this Pittsburgh’s answer to Stonehenge? No, it’s The Homestead Stacks, a reminder of our industrial past and how much our workforce and economy has changed in the last 100 years. In the 20th
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The slogan for the Clark candy bar was, “I want a Clark bar.” Though you may have wanted a Clark bar, often you weren’t able to get the confection. When the manufacturing of the Clark bar left the area, the only reminder of the city’s candy-producing past was the Clark bar sign atop its former production facility on the North Side. The Clark candy bar
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When it comes to the Grand Carousel at Kennywood, Philadelphia’s loss was Pittsburgh’s gain. Originally built by William Dentzel for Philadelphia’s sesquicentennial in 1926, the carousel wasn’t finished in time and was offered to Kennywood Park instead. Dentzel built Kennywood’s first carousel, and the park bought his new one for $25,000. Unfortunately, park officials didn’t realize before they purchased it that the carousel, at 54
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If you have ever glanced at our Quick Facts on Pittsburgh, you may know that Pittsburgh has nearly two dozen sister cities. We are kin with well-known metropolises such as Sofia, Bulgaria, and Zagreb, Croatia, and lesser-known nooks around the globe like Karmiel, Israel, and Fernando de la Mora, Paraguay. President Eisenhower founded the Sister City movement in 1956 to connect people around the globe,
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Although Kaufmann’s department store is no longer in existence, the clock that has been attached to what was once known as the Kaufmann’s building at the corner of Smithfield Street and Fifth Avenue, where the store was located, is still there keeping time. Prior to this clock, there was a free-standing clock on a tall pedestal at the corner. However, since 1913, this 2,500-pound ornately
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Though born and raised in London and having spent time at Cambridge, England, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mary Soon Lee has found a home in Pittsburgh. “My father was ethnically Chinese, and my mother was Irish, but I acquired a British accent from my classmates,” said the author of both fiction and poetry, who lives in Squirrel Hill. It’s not often that a writer is both
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