USA Road Trip – Pittsburgh the “Steel City”

Written by Kim

Our drive in was about 4 1/2 hours because we decided to take a no toll road route – we’re not in a hurry what’s an extra hour to avoid the trucks and traffic on the PA turnpike. It was quite foggy as we road along the river.

Pittsburgh is the 2nd largest city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia. It is best known as the “Steel City” for its role in the steel industry in the US. The city is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River and Mononagahela River, which combine to form the Ohio River. Our first stop when we arrived was lunch at Big Jim’s on the Run in the Greenfield district which is the blue collar working class neighborhood. We found this restaurant on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We have a goal to try some of Guy’s recommendations from Triple D along our journey. It didn’t look like much from the outside but the sandwiches were delicious.

Next stop was The Duquesne Incline which offers spectacular views of Pittsburgh as you go up the side of Mount Washington in the 147-year-old Incline car to see what USA Today Weekend Magazine calls one of the “10 most beautiful views in America”.

We agree the views up here were amazing. It’s called Mount Washington because Washington was in command here early in his career when General Braddock was killed in the French and Indian war.

We did a walking tour to learn about the city. A few facts about Pittsburgh we learned on our tour. It has the most total bridges in the world with 446 bridges that either cross water, a road or railways. Other cities behind them are Amsterdam and Hamburg. They have the most bars per capita but their population is nearly half (330 M) what it was in the heyday of steel manufacturing.

On March 17, 1936 there was a terrible flood in the city where water was 46 feet when the rivers crested the next day covering downtown between the 2 rivers for 11 days. This happened because they got 2 days of rain and melting snow came down from the mountains flooding the rivers. Flooding is still an issue in some areas of the city.

The city has lots of culture with 3 theaters – one showing local productions, one with regional traveling Broadway productions, and the Heinz theater for their symphony.

Several famous people made Pittsburgh their home including Heinz, Carnegie, Mellon, Andy Warhol, and Rachel Carson, the environmentalist just to name a few. Many companies have been headquartered here – Carnegie / US Steel, Mellon Bank, PPG Plate Glass, Gulf Oil, PNC bank.

Some of the buildings near Grant Street that were built in the early 1900s experienced a leveling of the surrounding landscape that was completed in 1912 caused the basement to become the entrance. You can see the difference between the street level (previously basement) and current second floor. We saw the reverse in Seattle where land was filled in and street level of building is now underground.

We stayed on the north Shore. Our hotel, Hyatt Place, was right smack between Acrisure stadium where the Steelers play & PNC Park where the Pirates play. The Acrisure is in the same location as the former Three Rivers Stadium. I saw Bruce Springsteen in the late 80s at 3 Rivers. There were no games in town so rates were reasonable. Right next door was one of Alex’s favorite breweries, Southern Tier, which brews Pump King so we ate dinner there and Alex had a few beers and bought some to take along with us.

Tomorrow we head to Toledo. We enjoyed our short stop in Pittsburgh. Until then…..