Articles Archive - Page 11 of 152 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Each spring before my first real swim, I stand at the house and gaze downhill to the pond. (I have dipped every month of the year, but that doesn’t count as a real swim.) I scan the water’s surface, looking for snapping turtles. I see them when they come up for air — their little …

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Birds

The Peak Before Migration

by David Liebmann

I appreciate the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. There are seasons of want and seasons of plenty, seasons of abundance and seasons of scarcity. That’s true for both people and birds. With all this year’s hatchlings taking to the wing, fall marks the annual peak for avian populations before the rigors of migration, predation, and the other …

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Food & Wine

Fall in the Apple Orchard

by Lidey Heuck

Apple orchards have always been a part of my family’s life. My dad grew up on an apple orchard in Cincinnati, helping to pick bushel baskets of apples each fall. My grandfather used an old cider press to make gallons of fresh cider, and my grandmother baked apples into pies and other treats. I never …

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People Profiles

What Do I Know? Smokey Robinson

by Jeff Sewald

Everyone is born with a gift from God. Some people discover their gift, and use it to a positive end. Some discover their gift, but squander it. And others, for one reason or another, never discover their gift. I discovered mine very early in life. I was blessed with the gift of music, and worked …

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Creative Capital

Genny Cream Ale

by Greg Curtis

The VA building had many quirks, probably because no one had ever thought through anything – stuff was just added on when it was needed, without any relation to what was already there. Previously in this series: Enter: The Ill-fated LovebirdsOne of the oddest quirks wasn’t structural, though – there was a large, overstuffed, living …

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Regional News

Noteworthy, Fall 2023

by PQ Staff

A Pittsburgh Great for 140 yearsIt was all the way back in 1883 that captain john B. Ford and John Pitcairn started the first commercially successful plate glass factory in the U.S., in Creighton. By the early 1900s, the company was expanding into paint, because paint and glass reached customers through the same distribution channels. …

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PQ Poem

of what is not written, the archive only dreams

by Elizabeth Hoover

of what is not written, the archive only dreams When the archive dreams of Pittsburgh, smoke poursfrom the stacks, and librarians don goggles, wrap the booksin tarp. When the archive dreams of Pittsburgh, I perch on an overhead crane and watch as a silhouetteemerges from a row of hook blocks, shimmingwith a pole to flip …

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American Spirit

We Were Teachers

by Richard “Pete” Peterson

In 2003, I received an invitation from David Shribman, the new executive editor of the Post-Gazette and a Red Sox fan, to write a guest column on what it was like to be a Pirates fan in exile. Over the past 20 years, I’ve written a number of guest columns in exile, ranging from the …

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Obituaries People

Miller, Dodds, Werner, Bartholomae, Barbour, Douglas, Klein

by PQ Staff

Wendi Ann Miller, 75 Born William Henry Miller III, Miller became a transgender woman and lifelong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. An artist with a degree from CMU, her Miller Frame in East Liberty was frequented by clients such as Fred Rogers and Sidney Crosby. For a time, her shop also quietly housed the headquarters of the …

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PQ Poem

In the Portrait Gallery

by Gerry LaFemina

In the Portrait Gallery Faces of no one I know, some of themstern-eyed, the rooms they sat in soot dark with coal fires & still births.Thus was born stoicism & the Age of Exploration. I lived that way for decades—alternating between hermitage & pilgrimage; the yin & yang of grim & grin.Sure, the men in …

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Creative Capital

The Ill-fated Lovebirds

by Greg Curtis

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac had stopped at VA for directions. and I’d offered him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to the immense amusement of Rich Bolotin – and of Solzhenitsyn himself. Previously in this series: Enter: The Man of MysterySolzhenitsyn’s party was headed to Island Pond to look at a house that was for …

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Architecture & Neighborhoods Culture

Pittsburgh Architecture, “From the Spoon to the City”

by Bea Spolidoro

In 1952, Italian architect Ernesto Nathan Rogers famously declared that architects should have been able to design everything, from “a spoon to a city” — dal cucchiaio alla città. While this can sound a bit excessive to those who are not architects, it expresses the enthusiasm that architects have for the spaces we inhabit. Every …

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Arts Culture

Bryce Glass

by Marylynne Pitz

After his father died and his eldest brother disappeared, James Bryce became, at age 14, the head of a large family. So, he began learning the “art, trade and mystery” of glass blowing at Bakewell, Page & Bakewell in Downtown Pittsburgh. The year was 1827 and by then, the Scottish immigrant had four years of experience …

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Creative Capital

Enter: The Man of Mystery

by Greg Curtis

The weekend after a brick had been thrown through VA’s front window, I rode the Vespa back to campus and returned with my hunting rifle, a Winchester lever-action Model 94, chambered for a 30-30 round. I carried the Winchester in a faux-leather rifle case and most people assumed I was some sort of musician. Previously …

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Opinion

The Broken Politics of Allegheny County

by Douglas Heuck

A couple of weeks ago, I was on vacation in Michigan, walking down a path to collect my dog, when two old friends said hello from a cottage porch. One, from Cincinnati, gets the magazine and asked what the subject of my next column would be. I told him I was writing about the November …

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Obituaries People

Docherty, Johnson, Pappan, Lewis, Cost, Jamal, Groat

by PQ Staff

Debra Docherty, 63 Docherty was a former model who started Docherty Casting in 1987. It soon became a premier talent agency in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Among the actors she helped to discover were Zachary Quinto and Joe Manganiello. Docherty was known for her commitment to her clients, sometimes paying for expenses out of her own pocket and always encouraging …

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Creative Capital

A Bloody Face

by Greg Curtis

I’d been on the couch at VA with Meg and Terry Petronius when the front window exploded with a sound like an atomic bomb. Previously in this series: Under AttackThe three of us screamed and fell to the floor in a tangled mess, covering our heads. Then tires squealed out on the road and I …

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Arts

Saving a Pittsburgh Arts Center

by Douglas Heuck

For Jennifer McNulty, Kyle Houser and a small band of arts devotees, the past three years have offered a consuming challenge: How could they save and restore to life a Pittsburgh institution, which they love and which they believe will play a key role in revitalizing the city? McNulty is co-president of the board and …

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Creative Capital

Under Attack

by Greg Curtis

I’ve mentioned that I’d been flirting like crazy with Meg Petronius – The Most Perfect Girl in the World – from my first day at VA, but with dismal results. At one point I’d gotten so desperate I even flirted once with her older sister, Terry, who job-shared with Meg. Previously in this series: The …

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Arts

The Stark Relativity of Existence

by Stuart Sheppard

Theatrical advertising today tends to overpromise and underdeliver: old classics are repackaged in the wrappings of contemporary mores, new works are compared to old classics, and hype is so prevalent in promotional campaigns that the laconic nature of Barebones Productions’ marketing for “The Sound Inside” (2018) made me really pay attention. It did not tout …

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Arts

Smells Like Dane Spirit

by Stuart Sheppard

In a review of a Shakespeare production several years ago I argued that, as a general rule, it has proven easier to do Shakespeare new rather than well, but with Quantum Theatre’s current production of “Hamlet,” director Jeffrey Carpenter has demonstrated that it’s possible to do both. The challenge with this play — arguably the …

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Creative Capital

The Flinty Vermonter

by Greg Curtis

I had left the repair of the Trombley barn’s floor for last because it seemed as if it would be the simplest part of the job. I was way wrong. More of the joists were rotten than I had anticipated, and the work mostly had to be done while standing in the barn’s disgusting basement. …

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