Articles Archive - Pittsburgh Quarterly

2026 Winter A Farm Life

Purslane

Henry David Thoreau gathered purslane in a cornfield. He boiled and salted it and called it “a satisfactory dinner.” When writing about the plant in Walden, he made sure to include its Latin name — Portulaca oleracea — “on account of the savoriness of the trivial name.” By trivial name, I assume he’s referring to …

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People Profiles

20 Years of Interviews, Pt. III

by PQ Staff

Editor’s note: The Pittsburgh Quarterly team has interviewed many of the most interesting and noteworthy people in our “city-state of Pittsburgh” as my old editor and friend John Craig used to call this area. The number of interviews that have appeared in this magazine reaches well into the hundreds (writer Jeff Sewald alone has interviewed …

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Nature

Mystery and Reverie

by Christina Schmidlapp

“Do not (repeat: DO NOT) attempt to cross the creek during periods of high water. This is a significant waterway and the current can be very strong.” So said the Guide to the Quehanna Trail tucked in my backpack. But exactly how high was “high water”? Yes, it was spring, but it hadn’t rained for …

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People Profiles

20 Years of Interviews, Pt. II

by PQ Staff

Editor’s note: Since late 2005, we have interviewed many of the most interesting and noteworthy people in our “city-state of Pittsburgh” as my old editor and friend John Craig used to call this area. The number of interviews that have appeared in this magazine reaches well into the hundreds (writer Jeff Sewald alone has interviewed …

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Nature

A Wintry Forest Trail Walk in Lawrence County

by Thomas Saunders

About an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh in Lawrence County, Plain Grove Fens Natural Area is a wonderful place to visit. It’s just a few miles from the Slippery Rock exit off I-79, and once you’re there, you’re greeted with a 400-acre preserve featuring a hiking trail, hardwood forest, vernal pools and woodland stream. The …

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People Profiles

20 Years of Interviews

by PQ Staff

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Sports

I Almost Missed the Greatest Play in NFL History

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

Each Christmas reminds me of the near miss I had with the most dramatic moment in NFL history. In 1969, my wife Anita and I and our kids had moved to Carbondale, Illinois where I took a teaching position in the English Department at Southern Illinois University. With our families still living in the Pittsburgh …

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Between Fear and Freedom

by Subash Ghimire

“Anish! Anish! Oi, Anish! Wake up!” Phurba Dai, our sardar—the expedition leader—shouted in his deep, commanding voice. “It’s already late! Haven’t you woken up yet?” Anish, our cook, was supposed to rise early to prepare hot tea and porridge and wake the rest of the team. But there he was, still fast asleep, curled up …

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History Sports

Steelers Cheerleaders?

by Bob Fulton

Dedicated students of Steelers history are likely aware that Pittsburgh was the first NFL team to feature cheerleaders. The Steelerettes, composed of co-eds from what was then Robert Morris Junior College, were active from 1961 to 1969. But mention the Ingots — the Steelerettes’ male counterparts — to any Pittsburgh fan and the response is …

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Opinion

20 Years of Pittsburgh Quarterly

by Douglas Heuck

In 2005, I left my job as business editor at the Post-Gazette to start this magazine. After 20 years at the Pittsburgh Press and PG, I could see the newspaper industry’s future. It was time for a change. I considered moving to another city — a growing city — and visited several. I thought of …

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Opinion Pittsburgh Tomorrow

Pittsburgh Tomorrow

by Douglas Heuck

With Pittsburgh Tomorrow turning two years old, a citizen might ask: What is it and what is it doing? I publish this magazine, and I also started Pittsburgh Tomorrow, working with a great team to improve this region’s future. Pittsburgh Tomorrow is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) non-profit funded by Pittsburgh citizens — wealthy people and working …

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Food & Wine

Create Happiness in Your Holiday Shopping

by Barbara Eichenlaub

As holiday shoppers buy candy, coffee, baked goods or ice cream this year, they’ll be able to purchase with purpose, working with stores and staffs with special needs. Just 34 percent of working-age adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are employed, compared with 83 percent in the overall population. While larger stores such as …

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Food & Wine Travel

Flour, Fire, and Friendship: The Heart of Bread Furst Bakery

by Scott Goldsmith

A swirl of flour dust hangs in the air, caught in golden morning light as an artisan baker shapes a baguette. Through the expansive windows of Bread Furst, Washington, D.C.’s beloved neighborhood bakery, passersby pause, mesmerized by the rhythmic ballet of bread making. This is no ordinary bakery. It is the realization of a dream …

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Home & Lifestyle Homes

A View for All Seasons

by Marylynn Uricchio

Pittsburgh is known for many things, but a wealth of contemporary residential architecture is not one of them. That’s especially true in the city’s older neighborhoods, where houses were built to last and still do. Such sturdy stock makes it difficult to find something modern, though one empty-nester couple wasn’t specifically looking for modern. “We …

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Arts

Barebones Gets Its Teeth Into “God of Carnage”

by Stuart Sheppard

The living room has always been one of the most dangerous places in America, because it’s a space that brings people into close contact, allows them to share their feelings, and usually happens to be where the alcohol is stored. As we’ve learned from plays such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” and “Long Day’s …

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Education Opinion

AI and the Academy

by PQ Staff

Editor’s note: We asked our region’s college presidents to answer one of the following questions: How is AI affecting your educational approach, and what unusual challenges and opportunities does it present? How much and in what ways are restrictions on international students affecting your institution, and what are you doing to adapt to these changes? …

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Travel

North Side Museum Shows the Fascinating Evolution of Photography

by Barbara Eichenlaub

“I have discovered photography. now i can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn.” These dramatic words by artist Pablo Picasso convey the impact of photography. Imagine how that process, which captures unique moments in time, changed history. The Photo Antiquities Museum of Photographic History, tucked into a tiny second-floor space on East Ohio …

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Nature Travel

First Cruise, Last Continent: A Voyage to Antarctica

by Tracy Certo

There is a language for ice. Tabulas are broad, flat-topped icebergs, and growlers are smaller bergs under three feet tall. Brash ice is a collection of floating discs that form mesmerizing patterns in the water. Then there are the bergy bits, a name that sounds like an offering from a fast-food outlet but denotes chunks …

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Nature

Bird Flu?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

It was near dusk on an evening last spring when I looked out at the chickens from the dining room window. I was checking to see if the flock was heading toward the coop for the night. It’s easier to round them up if they want to retire; if not, they run this way and …

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Obituaries

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak

by PQ Staff

Donald Soffer, 92Soffer was best known for turning 800 acres of swampland into Aventura, Florida, now home to luxury hotels and high-rises. The Duquesne native and his father co-founded one of Pittsburgh’s largest commercial real estate firms in the early 1960s, joining three other brokers in Don-Mark Realty, the predecessor to Oxford Development. The shopping …

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak Read More »

PQ Poem

The Morning Commute

by Torli Bush

The Morning Commute Low slate clouds make the morningsun into a trick moonjust above the tree linewhile the fog makes I-79into a ghost trail, a liminal fadeof asphalt and other vehicles:now in sight, now out of sight.The split deer carcasses along the edge,the covenant sacrificethat feeds this machine.

Arts

Pittsburgh Opera Delivers a Rapturous “La Bohème”

by Stuart Sheppard

We tend to view “bohemia” through a hagiographic lens, but its inception, as depicted by the French writer Henri Murger in a series of vignettes entitled Scenes of Bohemian Life (1851), was hardly romantic. The first bohemians were poor, often living in squalid conditions, and suffered morbid degradations in physical as well as mental terms. …

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