Stories behind Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods and communities: how they were founded, who settled them, and how they changed over the years.
Ghost Hunters called the Carnegie Library of Homestead “built on bloodshed.” Here is what the record says about the 1892 strike, the hill, a reported 1899 pool death and how the ghost tours began.
The Horne’s Christmas tree began in 1953 as a string of lights for sick children. Here is how it survived energy crises, a store sale and a fireproof building that burned.
Before Pittsburgh smoke control, soot blackened curtains and midday skies. How the 1941 ordinance, Mayor David Lawrence and Richard King Mellon finally cleared the air, and what residents remembered.
On September 17, 1862, the same day as Antietam, an explosion at Lawrenceville’s Allegheny Arsenal killed 78 workers, mostly young women and girls. Here is what the records show, what is disputed, and what remains.
A fireball crossed six states on December 9, 1965, and a search party combed the Westmoreland County woods. Here is what the record shows, what grew up later, and what is still disputed.
Pittsburgh’s favorite meeting spot grew out of a South Side tailor shop. Here is how the Kaufmann’s clock got its corner, and what became of the Big Store behind it.
Before the Civic Arena’s roof opened to the skyline in 1961, about 95 acres of the Lower Hill District were cleared. Here is what stood there, who left, and what the records can and can’t prove.
Isaly’s Pittsburgh: Chipped Ham, Klondike Bars & a Lost Legacy Chipped ham Pittsburgh style is one of those foods that is almost impossible to explain to someone who did not grow up with it. Order it at a deli counter anywhere outside western Pennsylvania and watch what happens. The person behind the counter will look…
At 403 East Ohio Street on Pittsburgh’s North Side, there is a two-story brick building that has been part of the neighborhood since the 1890s. Its ground floor held shops over the years, including at least one saloon, and during Prohibition a bakery and candy store. After repeal it became, according to the bar, one…
There is a building on Market Square that has been serving food and drinks since Ulysses S. Grant was president. Not a building that looks old. Not a place that leans on vintage aesthetics as a marketing strategy. An actual bar and restaurant that has been continuously operating in the same spot in downtown Pittsburgh…