Articles Archive - Page 128 of 155 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

This was the first good sign: When I asked a group of friends to join me for a tasting of boxed wines, everyone thought it would be fun to participate. No “Ugh, boxed wines!” No questioning of my sanity. Once upon a time, these friends—wine aficionados all—would have been right to turn up their noses. …

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Birds

Final flight: Lessons of the Passenger Pigeon

by David Liebmann

During our colonial period, America’s forests were felled slowly. Beginning in New England, subsistence farming and the promise of better lands to the west meant regions were settled and cleared for agriculture, then abandoned, only to regenerate. This pattern cycle of destruction and reforestation created a patchwork of fields that gave way to second growth …

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Science

Ancient Dig

by Tom Imerito

Twelve thousand years ago, a Native American hunter left a flint spear point at a campsite beneath an overhanging rock along Cross Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River some 29 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The three-inch by one-inch point was a re-sharpened remnant of a larger spear or arrow head. But the wear and …

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Architecture & Neighborhoods

Downtown!

by Tim Fisher

I moved to Pittsburgh with my wife, Audrey, on May 1, 1972 when I accepted a job with The Hillman Company. We moved here from sunny Denver, Colo., and in our first month, it rained 28 days. We thought it was among the dumbest decisions we had ever made, but we’ve lived here the past …

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Arts

Inventing the Modern World

by Graham Shearing

World’s Fairs asks two questions of themselves: “Who are we?” and “Where are we going?” Sometimes they look backwards as well, perhaps a little wistfully. They also fall into the category of jamboree, a 19th-century slang word of American origin indicating a noisy assembly of people and things for a variety of purposes. Usually they …

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Obituaries

Last Chapter: Fall ’12

by PQ Staff

Paul R. Jenkins, 80 As the former leader of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Jenkins was a key regional leader who spurred numerous improvements in Greater Pittsburgh and West Virginia for more than 40 years. A Pittsburgh native who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a law degree from the University of Michigan, he …

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Nature

Hardwood Trails, Bedford County

by Thomas Saunders

One of my favorite places to hike and explore is a property not far to the east of the Laurel Highlands. Driving east along the Pennsylvania Turnpike just past Somerset takes you across the eastern continental divide into the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where the Laurel Highlands give way to the Ridge and Valley area. This …

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Opinion

Stocks & Pedestal, Fall 2012

by PQ Staff

Early four years ago, businessman and philanthropist Henry Hillman called Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Cohon with an idea. With the wealth of information technology experts at CMU, why not apply some of that brainpower to regional transportation issues? Improving transportation-related technology could improve the lives of regional residents, build Pittsburgh’s reputation as a “knowledge” …

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Health

Insurance innovations

by Kelly Casey

Ask someone about their health insurance plan and you wouldn’t expect to hear, “I’m having a great experience.” Health insurance is expensive and difficult to understand. And in the Pittsburgh region, many have, not surprisingly, grown tired of the very public battle between the area’s largest insurer and largest provider—Highmark and UPMC. But this very …

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Special Reports

2012 Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey

by Pittsburgh Today Staff

In order to understand where we are going, we must first understand where we are. In that spirit, we are pleased to release a distillation of the findings of the Pittsburgh Regional Quality of Life Survey, the most extensive survey of the residents of Greater Pittsburgh since the historic Pittsburgh Survey was published in 1908. …

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Environment

A World Leader

by Justin Hopper

Sitting in the bright, airy café at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Richard Piacentini stamps his foot on the floor. The tiles he thuds against are simple white squares. However, that hardly noticed floor has proven to be both bane and catalyst to a sea change in thinking about every aspect of Phipps’s operations. In …

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Environment

Was Rachel Carson Right?

by Sean D. Hamill

Patricia DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University, has heard the question before. Has history—and science—proven that Springdale, Pa., native Rachel Carson was right in her book, “Silent Spring”? Not just about the most celebrated of her attacks—the impact on the environment of the widely used herbicide DDT—but the other big-picture points …

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Sports

The Seniors Come to Pittsburgh

by Marino Parascenzo

As public relations announcements go, this one was so benign, so coolly and corporately efficient, it might have been an update on pork belly and potassium futures: Pittsburgh, Pa. and Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.—The Constellation Senior Players Championship and the PGA Tour’s Champions Tour announced today that the tournament will move to Fox Chapel Golf …

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Business

An Industrial Renaissance

by Evan Pattak

When the reserves of Marcellus Shale gas in the tri-state area proved vast—84 trillion cubic feet by one estimate—it was no surprise when the region became the epicenter of a thriving new industry. What may have been unexpected was the extent to which the Marcellus boom would invigorate the economy generally. The availability of cheap, …

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Profiles

Jacqueline C. Morby, Businesswoman & Private Equity Investor

by Jeff Sewald

Pittsburgh has changed dramatically since I first arrived here in 1988. It’s much more entrepreneurial now. There are more small companies and greater interest in financing them. We still have a problem, however. We don’t have a Microsoft. None of the technology companies that originated locally have blossomed into anything particularly huge, which is something …

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Health

Is Sitting the New Smoking?

by Kelly Casey

The headlines have been frightening. CNN says, “Sitting for hours can shave years off life.” Men’s Health magazine declared in bold type, “Why your desk job is slowly killing you.” Google “sitting disease” and the first link is juststand.org, where anyone can download a free “info graphic” featuring a skeleton typing away at a desk. …

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Homes

New Country Classic

by Marylynn Uricchio

Half of the charm of a new home in Sarver is getting there—it’s a 25-minute drive north from Fox Chapel, where the owners used to live. This stretch of Route 28 is downright bucolic, with hilly vistas, pretty pastures and none of the traffic that has given other parts of the highway a bad reputation. …

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Nature

Quebec Run Wild Area, Fayette County

by Thomas Saunders

One of the nicest hikes in western Pennsylvania is the Quebec Run portion of Forbes State Forest. Quebec Run is located in the southern Laurel Highlands on the eastern flank of Chestnut Ridge, in Fayette County, and is a property with beautiful streamside trails, rhododendron thickets, sandstone outcrops, eastern hemlock groves, and a mature dry …

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Obituaries

Shaver, Haller, Root, Nordan, Krieger, McDowell, Chalfant, Psihoulis, Fawcett, McNall

by PQ Staff

Dr. James Shaver, 77 A master with the stethoscope who could both diagnose and mimic the sounds of the human heart, Dr. Shaver was a 45-year cardiologist at UPMC who taught generations of cardiologists at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He was chief of cardiology for 25 years and a recipient of the Pulse …

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Arrivals

Chryst, Burns, Hall-Russell, Haney, Norton, Chambers, Fitzgerald, O’Brien

by PQ Staff

Paul Chryst is the head football coach of the University of Pittsburgh Panthers. He comes to Pittsburgh from Madison, Wisc., where he was offensive coordinator of the University of Wisconsin Badgers. During his eight-year tenure at Wisconsin, he became known as one of college football’s leading strategists. The Badgers played in the Rose Bowl this …

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Opinion

Stocks & Pedestal, Summer 2012

by PQ Staff

Between Feb. 13 and April 21, 46 bomb threats struck the University of Pittsburgh. The anonymous emails closed buildings, forced middle-of-the-night dorm evacuations and cancelled classes. The threats targeted the heart of our city, taking aim at the region’s most important institution. They also bared a still-darker specter: Because of the anonymous nature of global …

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Opinion

Changing the Cottage

by Douglas Heuck

In April, my wife and I made the 600-mile drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula unusually early. We went to meet with contractors to begin fixing up the old cottage. What we call “The Big Cottage” was completed for the summer of 1908, the first built on LaSalle Island along the northern shore of Lake Huron. …

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