Articles Archive - Page 55 of 153 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

My mother’s name was Emma Liaura Muskelly and my father’s name was Virlie—Virlie Joseph Smith. Mom was from Pittsburgh, one of nine children, and worked in many of the schools that my siblings and I attended, tutoring, doing teacher’s-aide stuff, and lunchroom work. Dad was from Virginia, a little place about 45 minutes from Roanoke …

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Restaurant Reviews

Morcilla, Altius, Garbarino’s

by Pittsburgh Quarterly Restaurant Review Board

The Pittsburgh Quarterly Restaurant Review Board recognizes outstanding restaurants and chefs, publishing the top 20 annually in “The List.” Diverse board members are chosen for their interest and knowledge of food and fine dining. Each is anonymous, ensuring no special treatment during restaurant visits—but in the coming reviews, each has picked an icon from the …

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Nature

Fallingwater and Bear Run Nature Reserve

by Thomas Saunders

Southwestern Pennsylvania now has a world Heritage site. Fallingwater, designed in the 1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Kaufmann family, was inscribed this summer to the UNESCO—United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization—World Heritage List. It’s in good company: the few structures in the United States on this list include Independence Hall, the Statue …

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Regional News

Local Unemployment Rises

by Bill O'Toole

Unemployment in the Pittsburgh region climbed to 4.5 percent in December, an increase of two-tenths of a percent from the month before and a three-tenths of a percent increase over the rate reported 12 months earlier. The national unemployment rate in December was 3.5 percent. Pennsylvania’s rate was 4.5 percent. Unemployment rates rose in each …

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Creative Capital

The Changing of the Clan

by Greg Curtis

That evening, after our tour of Arran and another whisky-soaked evening, Charles walked me outside Strabane. He was carrying, for some reason, a large bowl of eggs he’d taken from the refrigerator. “These eggs,” he told me, “are very special Isle-of-Arran eggs from our own chickens. Handled properly, they’re virtually indestructible. Wait here.” Baffled by …

The Changing of the Clan Read More »

American Spirit

They Call Him the Rapper…

by Kate Benz

Donnie Iris is sitting in what’s supposed to be his dressing room on the second floor of the Rivers Casino. Down the hall from the Grand View Buffet and a line of people waiting behind velvet ropes for the $14.99 crab legs. “This is my cousin Petey… and my other cousin Petey,” he says, pointing …

They Call Him the Rapper… Read More »

Health

How to Set SMART Fitness Goals

by Joseph A. Luxbacher

Question: “I would like to get in better physical shape. I’ve tried to do this in the past but have always had trouble staying with an exercise program for any length of time. Any suggestions to help me stick with it?” Transforming fitness resolutions into reality will not occur by chance. That is where the …

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Homes

California Dreaming

by Marylynn Uricchio

Back when his parents built the Fox Chapel home he now owns, it was called modern. And modern it was in 1955, when architects Derek Martin and Grant Curry designed the sprawling, boxy residence. “My parents were devotees of Frank Lloyd Wright. They loved his style and wanted to do something different. At the time …

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Restaurant Reviews

Jean Louis, Alta Via, Hoffstot’s

by Pittsburgh Quarterly Restaurant Review Board

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Innovation

Was Herbert Simon the 20th Century’s Galileo?

by James H. Morris

In the mid-1980s a journalist visiting Carnegie Mellon from France suggested that a statue of Herbert Simon should join those of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Galileo and Bach in front of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute. At the time, I considered this a bit of Gallic hyperbole, but now I don’t. Simon came to Carnegie Tech in 1949 along …

Was Herbert Simon the 20th Century’s Galileo? Read More »

Events

Eleven Debutantes Presented at the 94th Cinderella Ball

by PQ Staff

The 94th Cinderella Ball was held on Saturday, January 25th, 2020 inside the Grand Ballroom at the Omni William Penn in Downtown Pittsburgh. After an introduction by ball chairs Mrs. Laura Penrod Kronk and Ms. Britton Peyton Wean, 11 debutantes were presented on the arms of their fathers to a room full of 325 guests …

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Regional News

Region Sees Very Slight Increase in Jobs

by Bill O'Toole

After two months of decline, jobs in the seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area increased by .08 percent from December 2018 through December 2019, according U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The increase was the second-lowest growth among Pittsburgh Today benchmark regions. Gains were largely fueled by the professional and business services sector, and the information …

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Creative Capital

The Mystery Deepens

by Greg Curtis

My inauspicious arrival on the Isle of Arran seemed to have perturbed Lady Jean Fforde not at all. “It’s the smell, dearie,” she said, pounding my back like a jackhammer as I retched into the boxwood. “You’ll be used to it soon enough.” And she was right. Three whiskies later (drunk neat, the Scots never …

The Mystery Deepens Read More »

Travel

Pretty in Peat

by Marylynn Uricchio

The Machrie Hotel sits on grass-covered peat fields, a low-slung array of modern buildings that sprawl across the landscape like an apparition. Just completed last year, the newest addition to the Campbell Gray luxury hotel chain is on the Isle of Islay, home to some of the best scotches in the world. But Islay is …

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Travel

Skibo Castle: Andrew Carnegie’s Extraordinary Estate

by Marylynn Uricchio

Turning into the long drive that leads to Skibo Castle, one can imagine what it was like for Andrew Carnegie to arrive at his Scottish home back in 1899.That was the year he purchased the estate, hoping his young daughter Margaret would grow to love his homeland. In this, the 100th anniversary of his death, …

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Arts

City Theatre’s “Downstairs” Showcases Pittsburgh’s Dazzling Acting Talent

by Stuart Sheppard

The stage of City Theatre’s “Downstairs” is an open maw of things forsaken, a dirty basement stuffed with so many neglected and discarded items—tools and tires and crates and old clothes and worn-out furniture—that it casts the audience in the dingy ether of pathos well before the lights go down. Tony Ferrieri’s overpowering set is …

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Arrivals

Barker, Jarzebowski, Henderson, Mustain, Breese, Interiano

by PQ Staff

Elizabeth E. Barker is the executive director of The Frick Pittsburgh and the first woman to lead the institution. Her appointment begins in December. She comes to Pittsburgh from Belmont, Mass., where she was the director of the Boston Athenaeum, an independent library, exhibition center and cultural venue founded in 1807. There, she helped increase …

Barker, Jarzebowski, Henderson, Mustain, Breese, Interiano Read More »

Arts

Liberty Magic: Magic on Liberty

by Matthew John Milligan

“I know what you’re thinking.” It’s a common expression, an uncommon occurrence—you don’t actually know what somebody is thinking. Were that the case, we’d hardly do any thinking at all. But Liberty Magic knows what you’re thinking. This hidden gem is tucked away on Liberty Avenue, right in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. The 60-seat …

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Creative Capital

Lady Jean

by Greg Curtis

As I dutifully did every morning, I listened to my overnight voicemails. My boss was saying something like this: “Stop what you’re doing and get yourself to the Isle of Arran, and don’t dilly-dally!” Huh? I’d recently returned from an ill-fated trip to the Hopi Tribe in Arizona and I was a bit touchy on …

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American Spirit

The Fight

by Kate Benz

“Tell me to be brave.” Jarrell “The Samurai” Brackett is in the basement of the Grand Hall of the Priory on Pressley Street in the North Side of Pittsburgh. Sparring. Pacing. Praying. He’s sporting a purple mohawk. Fu man chu mustache. A mouth guard is garbling his speech. He’s got lime green Title boxing gloves …

The Fight Read More »

Creative Capital

Why the Extremes Are Gaining

by Greg Curtis

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” —“The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats Homo sapiens have lived on the earth for, let’s say, 350,000 years (since we separated from homo erectus). For 349,800 of those years, humans were desperately poor, diseased and ignorant. In the last 200 …

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Birds

Snow Birds Fly Away—to Pittsburgh

by David Liebmann

When we hear of snow birds this time of year, the first thing that comes to mind is probably grandparents in Florida. “At least,” we think to ourselves, “they have the good sense to fly somewhere warm.” The same might be said of a bird that I never see except in western Pennsylvania’s coldest months: …

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