Articles Archive - Page 95 of 157 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Pittsburgh Quarterly asked three local leaders: “What’s the toughest leadership dilemma you’ve ever faced; how did you handle it; and what did you learn from it?” Grant Oliphant, President of the Heinz Endowments Shortly after I started as president & CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation in early 2008 the economy was hit by the Great …

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Regional News

Drilling for Answers

by Julia Fraser

Well pads, compressor stations, diesel truck traffic. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves many moving parts, some of which have the potential to vent pollutants into the air southwestern Pennsylvanians breathe. Fracking doesn’t consist of large, stationary pollution sources, like U.S. Steel’s metallurgical coke plant in Clairton, where emissions are monitored daily, the pollutants they contain …

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Books

Living in Harm’s Way

by John Allison

Lynda Schuster has had quite a life. now safely squared away in Squirrel Hill, she spent the 1980s and ’90s in one danger zone after another. She reported on wars, insurrections and misery in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa for The Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor. After marrying a U.S. diplomat …

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Birds

Golden Eagle: High, Wild and Here

by Ben Moyer

Imagine the view from a thousand feet up. Snow-mantled ridges cloaked in barren forest, angling southwestward as far as an eagle can see. On the northwest horizon stands a crisp urban skyline above the glint from three rivers. That’s the view golden eagles survey as they soar along the Laurel Highlands to their wintering grounds …

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History

Beechwood School Garden, 1916

by Jennifer McNulty

Over the past 10 years, school gardens have been cropping up across the Pittsburgh region. Spurred by chef-activist Alice Waters’ 1995 Edible School Yard, the school garden movement has been praised for yielding both a harvest bounty and hearty educational benefits. In these outdoor classrooms, students learn about everything from summer squash to science to …

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History

The Egg Route

by Sherrie Flick

My dad likes to reminisce, and after most of our 22 family members had moved to the living room after a holiday dinner to nap or watch sports, I learned how the desire for farm fresh eggs connected my parents to both the city of Pittsburgh and their rural roots in Tionesta, for their first …

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Books

Short Takes: “Shopping Mall” “North and Central”

by John Allison

Matthew Newton lets you know by Page 10 that he was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a teenager. These days, he’s a productive and well-adjusted married man and dad, doing great work at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and his skills as an inquisitive writer and thinker are evident from his latest work. But knowing …

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Food & Wine

Stepping Back with Local Ciders and Meads

by Barbara Eichenlaub

Pittsburgh has been recognized as a top city for discerning foodies, but there is also a robust adult beverage industry. In addition to microbreweries, wineries, and distilleries, there’s a growing niche for hard cider and mead. These local ciders, some still, others carbonated, tend to be less sweet than commercial ciders; and the meads run …

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Nature

Finding the Waterfalls of the Middle Allegheny

by Don Feigert

When the last Wisconsin glacial age reshaped North America more than 10,000 years ago, it excavated the Great Lakes and carved out the Middle Allegheny River Gorge southward from the current-day Allegheny Reservoir in Warren County down to Emlenton in southern Venango County. There, far above the river, the steep slopes send streams tumbling down …

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Profiles

Ahmad Jamal, Jazz Master

by Jeff Sewald

I’ll bet that I’m the only musician ever to record a CD simply titled “Pittsburgh,” which is a tribute to my beloved hometown. It’s a “miracle city,” really. When it comes to industry, culture and the arts, Pittsburgh has contributed more to the world than most people can begin to imagine. Pittsburgh was once home …

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Retirement

“And… Action!”

by Evan Pattak

Editor’s note: Studies show that hundreds of thousands of people across southwestern Pennsylvania are nearing retirement or already have left the workforce. What the studies don’t tell us is how these new retirees will be spending their time and resources… and what impact those choices will have on the region. In this second installment of …

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History

Sept. 17, 1862—The Day Pittsburgh Exploded

by Kellie B. Gormly

“Tread softly, this is consecrated dust. Forty five pure patriotic victims lie here, a sacrifice to freedom and civil liberty. A horrid memento of a most wicked rebellion. Patriots! These are patriots’ graves.” –Inscription on the memorial at Allegheny Cemetery The only trouble with the inscription is that the people who rest here weren’t “planning …

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Opinion

Breaking the Ice

by PQ Staff

When Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak takes the Carnegie Music Hall stage Oct. 10, it will mark the 10th anniversary of what started as the Pittsburgh Middle East Institute and has grown to become the American Middle East Institute. The brainchild of founder Simin Curtis, the Institute has become an important player in the region’s economic …

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Education

Unfair to Athletes?

by Marino Parascenzo

Speaking of high school football, as I am, I knew of a chemistry teacher who was so tough, so mean—or at least mean-looking—that he produced decades of superb students. Not that I’m advocating mean as a teaching method, but he was so good that college chemistry professors could pick his students out on the first …

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Sports

Sailing into the Fray

by Douglas Heuck

In May, my older sister emailed, wondering if I’d be sailing in the nationals, which this year would be where we spend summers in Michigan. I’d been considering it, but there were two impediments—pulling together a four-man crew and the spinnaker. No problem with the crew, but flying a spinnaker loomed in my mind like …

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Arrivals

Bart, Pardee, Knapp, Strecker, Purnell, Carpenter, Watson

by PQ Staff

Dr. Robert Bart is the chief medical information officer of the Health Services Division of UPMC. He will oversee the health system’s efforts to advance the use of electronic health records. A Wisconsin native, he comes to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles, where he held the same position for the Department of Health Services for Los …

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Obituaries

Cahouet, Romero, Needleman, Maher, Donahue, Katz, Robinson

by PQ Staff

Frank Cahouet, 85: Cahouet rescued Mellon Bank from the brink of failure in the 1980s and restored the fabled Pittsburgh institution to strength. The first outsider to lead the bank when he arrived in 1987, he inherited bad loans and excessive expenses that led to a loss of nearly $1 billion that year. Cahouet aggressively …

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Profiles

Looking Good

by Katie Booth

To flip through Hans Jonas’s album, which is indistinguishable on the outside from a family photo album, is to view Pittsburghers as if they were a family: a beloved aunt Sally Wiggin, a hardworking cousin Willie Stargell, and of course, everybody’s favorite neighbor, Fred Rogers. Behind the camera, behind these photographs, is Jonas himself. His …

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Education

3 Not-So-Simple Questions

by PQ Staff

Pittsburgh Quarterly invited the heads of the region’s top independent schools to address three important questions, in 200 words or less for each. How are the political tensions of our country being reflected in your school community and how are you addressing these issues? Jeff Suzik, Director, Falk School One of the most regrettable outcomes …

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Arts

Gimme That Old Time Music

by Teake Zuidema

Every first and third Sunday of the month, at around 5 p.m., the front door of Hambone’s, a bar and restaurant in Lawrenceville, becomes a portal to an alternate universe. Standing on Butler Street you will see men and women disappear through that door carrying banjos, fiddles, guitars, mandolins and the occasional contrabass. [ngg src=”galleries” …

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Nature

Exploring the Cherry Run Game Lands

by Thomas Saunders

Traveling east from our Pittsburgh plateau area to the central Appalachian Mountains in the middle of the state makes us aware of the vast and diverse lands of Penn’s Woods. Hikers and nature lovers can experience the unique characteristics of central Pennsylvania’s rugged mountain terrain by exploring the Cherry Run watershed and State Game Lands …

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Homes

Verdant Views

by Marylynn Uricchio

Make a left and then another and a pristine gravel drive leads to a scene of sheer bucolic bliss. Wrapped around the courtyard is a 1920s home thought to have been designed by Brandon Smith. Though his name is not on the original plans, it is in the architect’s style, examples of which abound in …

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