Articles Archive - Page 88 of 156 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Gentlemen’s Night Out Raises $180,000 for the National Aviary Read More »

The 2018 Gentlemen’s Night Out on the North Shore benefitting the National Aviary was held on Friday, February 9th. The black-tie event was hosted by the National Aviary’s Board of Trustees President and Executive Vice President of Mascaro Construction Company, Michael Mascaro. Nearly 200 guests attended the fundraiser and were greeted by avian ambassadors, a …

Opinion

A Love Story

by Elizabeth Deiseroth

I met Rita on our mutual first day of employment in the kitchen of a suburban Pittsburgh family 13 years ago. Our boss, Betsy, was delighted with our installation, as it meant that her long and inconvenient kitchen renovation project was complete. Rita and I were placed on either side of a white, 36-inch wide, …

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Examples of What to Say

Examples of What to Say Read More »

Even small children love to hear simple stories about their ancestors, and as children grow into teenagers and then young adults the stories can become more complex and serious. For example, consider Great-Grandpa Henry Knox’s many shortcomings as a rancher. Or the general klutziness of the Knox men, who are disposed to walk around with …

Arts

A Peek Inside the Pittsburgh Playhouse

by David Aschkenas

The Pittsburgh Playhouse building in Oakland, which serves as the performing arts center of Point Park University and the Conservatory of Performing Arts, is nearing its end, as a new state-of-the-art theatre complex is set to open on Forbes Avenue in downtown later this year. Photographer David Aschkenas documented the Playhouse in its final phase …

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PQ Poem

Matter of Light

by James Brasfield

A matter of light, part of the tree’s shade over the yard, a zelkova leaf, narrow palm of the rustbelt in April, green tints, then little by little turning red, a leaf surviving first snows, becoming half furled, wing ruffled, in the uncharted scales of ice, their lunar tarnish, and around it, leaf by leaf …

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Tell the Right Stories to your Children

Tell the Right Stories to your Children Read More »

In the last few posts I’ve spent a lot of time talking about kids who grow up in wealthy families and the issues they face, as well as talking about how virtually all American kids are raised these days. I’ve devoted so much time to these subjects because I want to emphasize the many minefields that surround …

Events

92nd Cinderella Ball Held at the Omni William Penn

92nd Cinderella Ball Held at the Omni William Penn Read More »

On Saturday, January 27, seventeen local debutantes walked the length of the ballroom at the Omni William Penn on the arms of their fathers before a crowd of family and friends during the 92nd presentation of the Cinderella Ball. Ball chairs Brette Gillman and Natalie Kelley, escorted by their husbands Kyle Gillman and Brendan Kelley, …

Trust Fund Baby Syndrome: An Interesting Case

Trust Fund Baby Syndrome: An Interesting Case Read More »

In the fall of 1997 I found myself in the spacious, many-windowed living room of a large home in a southern state I’ll call Florida, although that’s not where it was. I have also slightly modified some of the details of the family to protect their privacy. Ostensibly, I was there to discuss more aggressive …

Nature

A Mountain in the Winter

by Thomas Saunders

People often hike through landscapes without having a real sense of the place. In the Laurel Highlands, there is an opportunity to get a “sense of place” before or after your trek, by taking advantage of a sweeping bird’s-eye view of the east flank of Laurel Hill and the Laurel Hill Creek valley, at the …

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Education

Firing on All Cylinders

by Douglas Heuck

When Paul Hennigan became president of Point Park University in 2006, he inherited an institution that a little more than a decade earlier was in danger of going out of business. One of his first priorities was deciding the viability of the Pittsburgh Playhouse in Oakland. Eleven years later, the new Playhouse is set to …

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American Spirit

Market Square Frankie Sings His Song of Life

by Kate Benz, photography by John Altdorfer

The stroller is one of those sporty, three-wheeled versions, the kind that athletic moms like to push around suburban neighborhoods while huffing out a cardio burn. This one is parked in a crosswalk, about two feet from the curb, right on the corner of Market and Fifth in the shadow of the Fairmont Hotel. In …

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Retirement

The Keys to a Happy Retirement

by Evan Pattak

Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce, or soon will leave it, in an unprecedented wave. Census data tell us that the number of retirees in the region soon could swell to six figures. In this final edition of our “Silver Tsunami” series, we ask, as Butch Cassidy might, “Who are those guys?” Though their circumstances …

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Birds

The Cedar Waxwing

by David Liebmann

Pittsburgh has produced some renowned birders and ornithologists. Our hills and rivers attract a wide variety of birds, and they, in turn, inspire generation after generation to look to the skies—from John James Audubon, who painted the long-extinct Passenger Pigeon while passing through the Gateway to the West (an old moniker for our fair city), …

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A Pampered Generation

A Pampered Generation Read More »

The typical trust fund baby is well-known to all of us: a life devoted to spending down the family’s capital on themselves, not working, having difficulty maintaining relationships, living empty lives. The fear that people will be ruined by money is so pervasive that, following the French Revolution, trusts were abolished in virtually all civil …

Profiles

Saying Goodbye

by John Beale

As a child, my mother often reminded me that we all enter and leave this world the same way. It’s what we do between those two events that will define our lives. It’s likely that my mother, Edith Beale, wasn’t much different than other mothers raising families in and around towns lining the valleys of …

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Events

Allegheny County Parks Celebrate 90th Anniversary

Allegheny County Parks Celebrate 90th Anniversary Read More »

More than 200 guests celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Allegheny County Parks January 10 at an evening reception at the Heinz History Center. “90 Years of Allegheny County Parks: Celebrating their Legacy, Imagining their Future” brought acclaimed landscape architect Thomas Woltz to Pittsburgh to envision the next era for our nine county parks. Woltz, …

Poor Parenting Saps the Wealthy

Poor Parenting Saps the Wealthy Read More »

We are talking in a roundabout way that has taken us back to first principles about the human maturation process and how it interacts with the fear of affluent parents that money will ruin their children. There are several characteristic ways that affluent families go wrong, launching the shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves phenomenon that, as Jay Hughes has …

History

New Long Stairway in Mill District, 1940

by Jennifer McNulty

Perched atop a network of stairs, photographer Jack Delano captured this snow-dusted Hazelwood scene in 1940 for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). A Russian native who settled in the Philadelphia area around age 10, Delano studied art and music at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Known primarily for his dramatic images, Delano, who …

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PQ Poem

Pittsburgh’s Famed Stairways to…

by Paola Corso

“Pittsburgh is undoubtedly the cockeyedest city in the United States. Physically, it is absolutely irrational. It must have been laid out by a mountain goat…And then the steps—oh, Lord, the steps!” –Syndicated Columnist Ernie Pyle, 1937 (as qtd. in “Steps of Pittsburgh”) “Long stairway in mill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” 1940 Medium-format nitrate negative by …

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Profiles

Helen Hanna Casey, Real Estate Maven

by Jeff Sewald

I grew up in Shadyside, the daughter of Howard W. Hanna Jr., and Anne Freyvogel Hanna, with an older brother and younger sister. Eventually, all three of us went to small Catholic colleges. My brother, Howard W. “Hoddy” Hanna III, to which he has added Howard W. Hanna IV and V, attended John Carroll in …

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Arrivals

Blankenship, Rossi, Rizzo, Peddada, Finkel, Davitt, Reis