Articles Archive - Pittsburgh Quarterly

To celebrate the beginning of our 20th year, we’ve set out to catalogue the contributions that Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania have made to the world. The list has grown and grown, and despite our best efforts, we know we’ll leave out key contributors. I think you’ll find that this small city at the confluence of …

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Homes

Calm and Collected

by Marylynn Uricchio

Then designer Betsy Deiseroth walked into her Fox Chapel home 24 years ago, she faced a daunting challenge. Though situated on a quiet road surrounded by a leafy lot, the house itself cried out for renovation. An 1870s cottage married to a 1950s ranch, it was charmless at best. “I walked in, saw the living room …

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Opinion

Seeking a Safe, Welcoming and Thriving Region

by Paul O'Neill Jr. & Geoff Webster

It was a snowy day in Pittsburgh in 2024 when a City truck slid into a guardrail. No one was hurt, but it caused risk and damaged the vehicle. Asking “why” yielded a typical answer, “duh, it was icy.” But Mayor Ed Gainey had promised to be serious about a safe, welcoming and thriving city. Part of …

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Arts

Total War Over Cocktails

by Stuart Sheppard

If there’s a miracle in Pittsburgh Public Theater’s current performance of the 1962 Edward Albee play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” — it’s that two well-educated couples can argue drunkenly for over three hours and never once broach the subject of politics. (And these couples are of different generations, no less). Of course, this would …

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Nature

Magnificence Along the Clarion

by Thomas Saunders

A beautiful place to hike and explore in northwest Pennsylvania is Dutch Hill Forest, along the Clarion River in Heath Township, Jefferson County. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has protected more than 32,000 acres along the Clarion River, which was highly polluted decades ago but is now largely restored and a federally designated Wild and Scenic …

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Profiles

What Do I Know? Dr. José-Alain Sahel

by Jeff Sewald

I was born in Tlemcen, Algeria, a small city on the border with Morocco. My family is Jewish, of Spanish ancestry, and had been in Algeria for centuries. Both sides of my family were poor and struggled often just to eat. My grandfather on my father’s side was severely injured during World War II and …

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Opinion

Blocking Pittsburgh Growth: A Tyranny of the Minority

by Douglas Heuck

I didn’t grow up in a union household, but I’m steeped in union lore and stories. They’re part of America’s fabric and spirit. In the movies, there’s Norma Rae where Sally Field plays a courageous union textile worker. Matewan portrays the dramatic 1920 coal miners’ battle in West Virginia. And one of the best movies …

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Arts

The Bitch of Being a Witch

by Stuart Sheppard

Sometime around the turn of the millennium – resulting from what I would ascribe to the rise of social media and cable broadcasting — the term “trope” began to lose its classic and pregnant meaning of “figure of speech,” (i.e. an expression used in a nonliteral sense). It has devolved so that it now indicates …

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Books

‘Slime Line’ Hooks the Alaska Salmon Industry

by Fred Shaw

Revealing might be the best way to describe Jake Maynard’s debut novel, Slime Line, as the Mt. Jewett native leans on the highs and lows of his big-hearted narrator, Garrett “Beaver” Deaver, to provide inside dope on what it takes to bring a harvest of salmon from sea to table. Maynard doesn’t paint a pretty …

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Sports & Outdoors

A Skiing Reverie

by Susan Fleming Morgans

When life events overwhelm me — family health issues, major expenses, needless arguments — I dream about skiing. For me, there is no better escape than soaring down a slope with nothing on my mind other than my next rhythmic turn. Skiing is great therapy, even in a dream. But I’ll probably never ski again. …

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Books

Drue Heinz Winner Explores the Difficulties of Family

by Fred Shaw

Maya Angelou once wrote, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” Indeed, the relationships between mother and daughter found in literature make for a complicated spectrum, sometimes veering toward melodrama or bursting with profound insight — Amy Tan’s brilliant …

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Regional News Travel

New Airport Accentuates Pittsburgh’s Key Attributes

by Evan Pattak

If you’re an old-time Pittsburgher who’s resistant to change, you fondly recall Forbes Field, even with its tiny seats and occluded views of the field. You long to shop in Jenkins Arcade one more time. You cherish the memories of your trips to Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, with its inviting observation decks and concession stands …

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Books Business

Changing the American Dream

by Chris Allison

Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, “The Godfather,” begins with the line, “I believe in America.” The film chronicles the tragic story of the Corleone family and their twisted version of the American Dream. It characterizes our national ethos by believing anyone can attain their version of societal success, regardless of where or into which class they …

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Homes

Prints Charming

by Marylynn Uricchio

‘‘I’m not the biggest fan of neutrals,” notes interior designer Molly Singer. That turns out to be a major understatement. The newly renovated home in Fox Chapel she shares with her husband and two children is the definition of exuberance. Color abounds, as does texture and wallpaper. Lots of wallpaper. “I’m a firm believer that you …

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Sports

Making It Happen

by Charlie Stewart

Mention the game of squash and it will likely conjure a traditional image of men in whites, whacking a hard, hollow ball off the walls of an enclosed court in the rarefied confines of a private club, prep school or eastern college. The indoor game with the long-necked racquet and dark rubber ball hasn’t always …

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Sports

How Baseball Brings Us Together

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

A. G. Spalding once claimed that baseball likely began with the simple act of a boy tossing a ball into the air. The poet Donald Hall, who wrote a book about Pirates maverick pitcher Dock Ellis saw this simple act evolving into “sons playing catch with fathers” and eventually into a game “on a diamond …

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Home & Lifestyle Shopping

Buying a Suit: A Primer

by Clayton Trutor

Long before Covid came along to decimate commercial real estate, there was something called “Casual Fridays.” That one day a week of switching to khakis and polos had tentacles that spread to other days. Suddenly suits were not required attire in many businesses, just as office attendance has widely transitioned to remote work. But there …

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Books

Kennywood Crime Scene

by Fred Shaw

According to the website novel Suspects, the police procedural grew out of the growing interest in true crime that began in the 1940s and ’50s, with Lawrence Treat’s V is for Victim being acknowledged as the first to “bring realism to the mystery genre.” With Dick Wolf’s Law & Order TV empire offering an easy …

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Arts Culture

Let Us Now Heal Wounded Men

by Stuart Sheppard

One thing, as men, that we rarely talk about, are the experiences we have suffered in the form of sexual abuse or trauma. The National Institute of Health found that 30.7 percent of men report having been the victims of sexual violence . . . and more than half of those before the age of …

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PQ Poem

The Bridge to Brunot Island

by Ziggy Edwards

The Bridge to Brunot Island Caged in its lattice of trusses,a worker crossing on footcan witness the last orange flashbefore bare winter conjures Ohio’s vengeance.For now, giants in their opaque depthsbreathe evenly; the bridge’s underbellyjiggles the surface. The hammerhead siren is only sunbathing. A guy on second shiftswears he saw the shadow of Dr. Brunothaunting …

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PQ Poem

Work Confession

by Todd Davis

Work Confession I dug a room that sits empty beneath the earth. I ate the last of the potatoes and didn’t get around to canning before the tomatoes and peppers rotted. Like rain on pursed lips, tomorrow will be a feast day with nothing. We don’t drag the river for our dead anymore. The cemetery’s …

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Books Culture History Profiles

Pittsburgh’s Mal Goode: Television’s First Black Broadcaster

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

On Oct. 28, 1962, the three major television networks interrupted their scheduled programs to broadcast a special report on what would become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was a critical moment not only in American history, but also in the integration of American broadcasting. Just a few months earlier, ABC, at the urging …

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