2025 Fall Archives - Pittsburgh Quarterly

“I have discovered photography. now i can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn.” These dramatic words by artist Pablo Picasso convey the impact of photography. Imagine how that process, which captures unique moments in time, changed history. The Photo Antiquities Museum of Photographic History, tucked into a tiny second-floor space on East Ohio …

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Nature Travel

First Cruise, Last Continent: A Voyage to Antarctica

by Tracy Certo

There is a language for ice. Tabulas are broad, flat-topped icebergs, and growlers are smaller bergs under three feet tall. Brash ice is a collection of floating discs that form mesmerizing patterns in the water. Then there are the bergy bits, a name that sounds like an offering from a fast-food outlet but denotes chunks …

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Nature

Bird Flu?

by Daryln Brewer Hoffstot

It was near dusk on an evening last spring when I looked out at the chickens from the dining room window. I was checking to see if the flock was heading toward the coop for the night. It’s easier to round them up if they want to retire; if not, they run this way and …

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Obituaries

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak

by PQ Staff

Donald Soffer, 92Soffer was best known for turning 800 acres of swampland into Aventura, Florida, now home to luxury hotels and high-rises. The Duquesne native and his father co-founded one of Pittsburgh’s largest commercial real estate firms in the early 1960s, joining three other brokers in Don-Mark Realty, the predecessor to Oxford Development. The shopping …

Soffer, Greer, Reich, Skrinjar, Pitterich, Spatafore, Lubetz, Stancell-Condron Dodd, Bruschi, Pistella, Poppenberg, Poppenberg, Foy, Parsons, Muse, Christie, Aldridge, Rooney, Etzel, Dindak Read More »

Profiles

What Do I Know? Dr. Kathy Humphrey

by Jeff Sewald

I was tenth in a family of 12 children. My mother was a secretary and seamstress. My father was a bricklayer who was in the Army and stationed in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he met my mother. This was at the time of “Jim Crow” and, after my father’s discharge from the service, my parents moved …

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Business Profiles

Doing Business with People

by Steve Breuner

It was a couple summers back, when I was sitting down the third base line at PNC park, that my thirst finally won. I had made it through three toasty innings, but now it was time for a frosty draft beer. As I worked my way from the outfield to home plate, I passed four …

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Nature

Explore Elk County’s Scenic Views, Forests and Streams

by Thomas Saunders

One of the great areas to explore and hike in Pennsylvania is what’s known as the PA Wilds. This beautiful, remote part of north-central Pennsylvania is home to vast forests, magnificent mountain ranges, running streams, and even wide-ranging herds of elk. One wonderful place to visit is a 1,500-acre property protected last year by the …

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Arts Education

Is it Time to Stop Wearing Our Art on Our Sleeves?

by Stuart Sheppard

Imagine if before the performance of a play, the director stepped on stage and told the audience what it was supposed to think about it. Viewers would be insulted. Or perhaps laugh. Some might even walk out. Yet this kind of didactic inculcation is quite normal in museums today. In fact, because the exhibitive experience …

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Profiles

Building Basic Science in Pittsburgh

by Douglas Heuck

On the occasion of the retirement of Dr. Arthur Levine from the University of Pittsburgh, we asked him about his career and what he sees ahead for Pitt and UPMC. For the second half of the 31 years he spent at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he was scientific director of the National Institute of …

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Education

A Different Model

by Carolyn Sanford

When life-long friends Anthony Williams and Brent Jernigan were college interns at a summer school program for Pittsburgh youngsters, little did they know that they would become the future leaders of the program and its parent organization, The Neighborhood Academy (TNA). Since 2001, TNA has been successfully breaking the cycle of generational poverty through education …

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Opinion Pittsburgh Tomorrow

A Turning Point

by Douglas Heuck

It’s rare to be able to witness first-hand the alchemy of change that launches a city onto a new trajectory. Yet in Pittsburgh that change — a series of man-made lightning strikes — is underway. Since May 20, not even three months from this writing, events have turned in favor of those working to create a …

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