Articles Archive - Page 16 of 157 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Empty Hands

Empty Hands I dream you naked in a worldwhere touch is forbidden this is death, this is longingempty hands squeezing air.

American Spirit

Hulking steam engines, nearly a century old, await repairs in their original roundhouse in Rockhill Furnace, Pa. The crisp country air fades into the smell of an industrial past next to No. 14, a “snappy engine,” according to Linn Moedinger, a mechanical advisor at East Broad Top Railroad, who works on restoring the machines. “It’s …

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Creative Capital

End of the Line

by Greg Curtis

I’d just broken up a fight between Earl and Eddie – I was seriously disappointed in Earl and had sent him to the front room to serve a time-out until bedtime. Earl had been a good Head Boy, he had a good job at a sawmill and he was on his way to being a …

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Nature

Roaring Run Natural Area

by Thomas Saunders

A beautiful place for hiking and exploring is the Roaring Run Natural Area within Forbes State Forest in the Laurel Highlands. Roaring Run is a 3,600-acre wild and rugged expanse of forest on the western slope of Laurel Ridge in southern Westmoreland County. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy protected this land in 1970 and transferred it …

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American Spirit Arts

The Ruins

by Ben Moyer

When Rachel Sager bought a house, she didn’t know it came with a coal mine. Obscured by woods in her “backyard,” and flanking the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) bike trail, are the sprawling ruins of the once robust Banning No. 2 coal mine: a labyrinth of crumbling brick and weathered concrete, wedged between bluffs and …

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PQ Poem

Evacuate My Brain

by Lisa Alexander

Evacuate My BrainAlong that wallI could be quietin the dark—club kids, drag queensbrush by in a stiff hitof hairspray, cigarettes,something candysweethoney bring it close to my lipsI’d stand there smoking,watch the crowd on the floormove as a whole, look for facesI know, faces that surprise me,faces I might want—honey bring it close to my lips …

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Creative Capital

It Came to Blows

by Greg Curtis

I’d returned to VA after visiting a crazy lady’s house and was heading up to my room to sleep off all the beer I’d drunk. Unfortunately, Meg and Terry had heard the Vespa and they came rushing through the kitchen calling my name. My heart sank. Previously in this series: Genny Cream Ale“Thank God you’re …

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Nature

The Common Snapping Turtle

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

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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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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