Articles Archive - Page 103 of 155 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Childhood expands and does not measure. Adulthood counts and contracts. To me, as an eight-year-old boy considering the width of Pennsylvania—from my home in York to my grandmother’s house in Greensburg—geography was impressionistic. Somerset County held cold, incalculable risks. The rest of the landscape was relatively flat, passive and non-threatening. As a Thanksgiving trip to …

Thanksgiving in Greensburg Read More »

Creative Capital

The Illusion of Control

by Greg Curtis

“Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee/Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep? *** In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,/And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars.” —From Lady Percy’s soliloquy in Henry IV, Part I Toward the end of World War II, and afterward, psychologists tried to come …

The Illusion of Control Read More »

Sustainability Watch

Regional Housing Trends

by Pittsburgh Today Staff

More southwestern Pennsylvanians have been able to find housing that fits their budgets in the past decade, despite steadily rising home values and rents. But there are stark disparities in the affordability of housing across income levels. Although housing values and rent have experienced peaks and valleys over the last 10 years, both have increased …

Regional Housing Trends Read More »

Architecture & Neighborhoods

Strip Stake

by John Beale

Pittsburgh’s Strip District is the place where everyone comes for everything. With redevelopment occurring on every edge of this one-half square mile tract, city planners, business owners and residents are looking to strike the right balance. Bring in the new developments and luxury condominiums, but keep the character—the boutiques and bars, ethnic restaurants and groceries, …

Strip Stake Read More »

Sustainability Watch

Regional Crime

by Pittsburgh Today Staff

When Pittsburgh rises to the top of various “best places to live” lists, one indicator often cited is the region’s relative safety as measured by crime rates, which typically are among the lowest of U.S. metropolitan areas. Property and violent crime rates reported in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area have, for the most part, …

Regional Crime Read More »

Travel

The Kindness Meter in Various Cities

by Tom Flannery

Returning home last Monday from a weekend trip to visit our newly transplanted daughter and her family in Seattle, we had a delightful conversation with our Uber driver, a native Pittsburgher, on the way back from the airport. He had recently retired from his full time job, but enjoys meeting people and figured driving for …

The Kindness Meter in Various Cities Read More »

Creative Capital

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part IV

by Greg Curtis

In celebration of my 200th blog post, I’m blogging about blogging. Last week I talked about my (mostly boring) writing habits. This week I’m answering this question: Many of your blog posts adopt a position quite different from those we read about in the mainstream media, left or right. Are you naturally contrarian or do …

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part IV Read More »

PQ Poem

Homewood Cemetery

by Valerie Bacharach

My husband and I walk its paths at dusk in the lessening light when heat and humidity ease. There is much life among these graves— deer browse, wild turkeys run and flirt, groundhogs and chipmunks hide in shadows. Red-winged blackbirds flash across the pond, land on reeds that surround it. Water lilies bloom, a thick …

Homewood Cemetery Read More »

Business

The Puzzle of “E”

by Tom Flannery

If you didn’t read my first piece, I was prompted to consider writing this blog by my own passage through late middle age to advanced middle age. I can see the end of the road, career-wise, through the haze. My younger, more energetic colleagues are assuming more of the responsibility in our office and are …

The Puzzle of “E” Read More »

Creative Capital

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part III

by Greg Curtis

In celebration of my 200th blog post, I’m blogging about blogging. Last week I went over the terrifying issue of how to come up with a new topic to write about every week. This week I’m answering the question: You have a day job and six kids, so how do you find time to write …

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part III Read More »

Sustainability Watch

Regional Energy Use

by Pittsburgh Today Staff

In a region where coal was once king, nearly half of the electricity consumed today is generated from non-carbon sources. Yet, wind, solar and other renewable sources claim a tiny fraction of the local energy portfolio. An estimated 49 percent of the electricity consumed locally was from carbon-free sources in 2014, for example. Most was …

Regional Energy Use Read More »

Travel

Car Trouble

by Elizabeth Wiethorn

At 5:30 a.m. one recent morning, I was driving the Parkway East to Monroeville, and actually ON TIME. I began to hear a loud “ka-thunk” from the front left of my mini-van. Suddenly, my front left wheel popped clean off. Had it been later, I would have been horrified at the idea of my wheel …

Car Trouble Read More »

Creative Capital

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part II

by Greg Curtis

In celebration of my 200th blog post last week, I’m blogging about blogging. Last Friday I went over some details about the blog and addressed a question about whether I’m really writing an investment blog or not. (Read “Happy 200th Anniversary! Part I” here.) This week I’m answering the question: Isn’t it hard to come up …

Happy 200th Anniversary! Part II Read More »

American Spirit

Mario’s Corner of the World in Sewickley

by Kate Benz, photography by John Altdorfer

Mario spends most of his life in the dungeon. That’s what he likes to call his Sewickley Shoe Repair shop, the dungeon, although his beaming face betrays him. His customers come from all over—Aliquippa, Cranberry, Erie, Weirton—ready to launch with their “savior of my sole” puns. They’re mostly right, because there isn’t much that Mario …

Mario’s Corner of the World in Sewickley Read More »

Business

Meet Jack Roseman, the Tech Whisperer

by Evan Pattak

Shortly after Keith LeJeune helped found Agentase, a company that developed tools to detect hazardous chemicals, he called on Jack Roseman. LeJeune was so impressed with Roseman that he hired him as a consultant. When Sue Parker needed an exit strategy for her software start-up, Paragon Systems, she tapped Roseman, who helped her sell Paragon …

Meet Jack Roseman, the Tech Whisperer Read More »

PQ Poem

Walking

by Philip Terman

My first walk is also my first memory— On the purple carpet, in the living room Of that bungalow in the suburbs built For the soldiers who returned from the war. One parent directed me towards the other, Who waited with open arms, Both of them smiling, encouraging, My brothers on the stairway cheering. No, …

Walking Read More »

Profiles

The Death of a Homeless Man

by Douglas Heuck

Last week, I got the news that I knew one day would come. Joe Regoli had died. Back in 1988, I wrote a series about Pittsburgh’s homeless, based on my living on the streets for 14 days and nights, undercover, with long hair and a beard. I was 26, and the Pittsburgh Press series changed …

The Death of a Homeless Man Read More »

Arts

Quantum’s Surreal “The River” Transfixes

by Stuart Sheppard

In Richard Brautigan’s classic surrealist novel, Trout Fishing In America, the narrator visits a store selling trout streams by the foot. They are stacked in piles like pieces of lumber, each length corresponding to a different price. In Jez Butterworth’s 2012 play The River, produced by Quantum Theatre, it’s as if they picked out a …

Quantum’s Surreal “The River” Transfixes Read More »

Creative Capital

Happy 200th Anniversary!

by Greg Curtis

No, it only seems like I’ve been writing this blog for 200 years. I’ve actually been writing it for 200 weeks. As the anniversary approached, I naturally gave some thought about how to celebrate it, and my first notion was to give myself the week off. But nobody gets time off work just because it’s …

Happy 200th Anniversary! Read More »

Books

Drue Heinz winner brings humanity to adversity

by Fred Shaw

When Melissa Yancy describes aspects of facial reconstructions, fetal surgery and kidney transplants in her short-story collection Dog Years (University of Pittsburgh Press), she writes knowingly, not gratuitously. The 2016 Drue Heinz Award winner and Phoenix native, comes honestly to this perspective as a fundraiser advocating for health-care causes. And while several of her stories …

Drue Heinz winner brings humanity to adversity Read More »

Creative Capital

On the (Inevitable) Donald, Part V

by Greg Curtis

We’ve talked about school desegregation and we’ve talked about the fight against discrimination, two highly desirable movements that were, unfortunately, built on the backs of working families, leaving the elites who sponsored them untouched. Unsurprisingly, many of those working families now support Donald Trump and, whether he wins or loses, will continue to support Trump-like, …

On the (Inevitable) Donald, Part V Read More »

Creative Capital

On the (Inevitable) Donald, Part IV

by Greg Curtis

Let’s talk about discrimination. I had a friend, now deceased, we’ll call Millie. Millie grew up in a wealthy and influential family and graduated from law school in the 1930s—a real gender pioneer. But getting a law degree and getting a law job were two different things. Whenever Millie would show up for a job …

On the (Inevitable) Donald, Part IV Read More »