Three Rivers: Stages for Empires and Arts

A peregrine falcon flies overhead, so close that we feel the downdraft, before he nosedives to the Ohio’s lower bank. Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods are all around us, hidden by green hills, and the return of falcons only signifies another saga of three rivers, already so rich in history. Our guide, Jan, leads us up to the West End Overlook, unknown to us until now. She dubs this the "second best view in America." I don’t ask for her source, but I know that USA Today rates the view from Mount Washington ahead of one of Golden Gate Bridge.

As we clear the top of Coal Hill and the city comes into view, I recognize this perspective from the cover of Pittsburgh Magazine.

I already have photos from Mount Washington, but this one captures much better "the Point" where the Allegheny and Monongahela form the Ohio River and where the most elaborate fort west of the Alleghenies--it was just behind the fountain!--guarded the western frontier. The rivers appear to dominate more geography than does picture-perfect downtown!

Even in the morning haze, we see changing colors where the waters join. Jan has an explanation: "The Monongahela is an ‘alluvial river,’ one with a silt bottom, while the Allegheny is a ‘glacial river’ with stone bottom." Their kaleidoscope of blue enters the Ohio beneath our perch while we learn about the last ice age that changed two of their courses--the "Mon" still flows north, as all three once did. Neither Fort Pitt nor Pittsburgh would have happened if not for the glacial shift that commanded the Allegheny and Ohio to flow southwest. The French and English wouldn’t have fought for the spot! And, Andrew Carnegie’s steel for railroads--how would he have transported it west cheaply enough? We understand the importance of the rivers to Pittsburgh’s history, from frontier to industrial boomtown to Gilded Age city.

We guess that clean water and lush banks have lured the falcons here, too. Welcome to (downtown!) Pittsburgh, where raptors share their riverbanks with the antiquated Clinton blast furnace that decorates the state-of-the-art fountain at Bessemer Court, reminding us of technological innovations that established Pittsburgh’s dominance in iron and steel. Ten miles of contiguous mills operated along the water in Andrew Carnegie’s day, and today a string of ethnic neighborhoods descended from immigrant laborers has outlasted the mills.

Quick Tips:

A little east in Homestead, Carnegie’s Pump House and two remaining Carrie Furnaces mark the spot where 300 Pinkerton guards landed to enforce Henry Clay Frick’s lockout of striking steelworkers.

At times, these waters were 115 degrees (workers’ unofficial measurement). This Battle of Homestead site, soon to become a national park, belongs to Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

Further east, Turtle Creek is where the Battle of the Monongahela was fought during the French and Indian War, with George Washington serving as General Braddock’s aid-de-camp. All along the river are ghosts of British, French, and Indian soldiers, immigrant workers, and American industrialists. Today, the "Mon" is the most navigated river in the country, still making history, while neighborhoods along its banks preserve Old World traditions.

We have planned our bus tour with Rivers of Steel Heritage Area and our visit to Heinz History Center for their new exhibit, Clash of Empires, but we are surprised to find the overlook on the Ohio River, learn about peregrine falcons, discover an authentic "Hunky" bakery (Jan's proud term for Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, and Poles) in Homestead, and stuff ourselves with haluski at Three Rivers Arts Festival--all on the water.

Best Way To Get Around:

Southwest Airlines is now at Pittsburgh International Airport, long dominated by U.S. Airways--with steep prices, according to some. I have found U.S. Air’s prices reasonable, even discount, but more choices can’t be bad! Independence Air is also here.

Along rivers, one can walk, shop, dine, bicycle, attend games/conventions, or visit museums. Neighborhoods along the banks are steep. Pittsburgh has the greatest number of public stairs of any city in the country (more than San Francisco!), so anyone wanting to explore the greater area in detail might want a bus tour or driving tour.

With numerous bridges, driving is frustrating. Even our bus driver and tour guide are late for our date because Smithfield Street Bridge is closed for an unannounced inspection. Of our group, David and I are the only ones on time--thanks to the subway to Station Square.

Only one city in the world has more bridges, and Fort Pitt Bridge is the busiest one in western Pennsylvania. Most have complicated access and exits--make a mistake changing lanes, and you won’t know how to get back. Head for Visitor Information at Gateway Center for a subway map and list of tours. Also, click here.

Established 1934, Primanti Brothers is a Pittsburgh tradition. Every visitor must try one of their sloppy sandwiches with fries and slaw on the bread with the meat. If you don’t mind loud music (you can still talk!) or young men plunging their bare hands into your coleslaw (they look pretty healthy!), then one of Primanti’s seven downtown locations is for you. If you insist on your food being untouched by human hands, then go to Subway, but it’s not as good! There are more locations in other Pittsburgh neighborhoods. For those, menus, and "Primanti Gear," click here. Gear? Yes, everyone will tell you: they’re "almost famous."

We stray from the river to Market Square. I’m sure that at least one of their stores must be on water, but Market Square is easy to find. This can be a noisy, crowded place where you must elbow your way to the counter to place your order. Stand back three-deep and wait, because nobody is going to bring it to you. Heck, nobody can get through! Our first glimpse of the outside tells us this isn’t one of those days.

Late Friday afternoon, we even find parking on the square. Inside, the sparse happy-hour crowd is sedate. Decor reminds us of an established city institution, well-known to locals and visitors alike.

Except for the fact that music for this low-key afternoon crowd could be a few decibels lower, we feel relaxed sitting at the bar with the menu spread out before us on the wall. I hardly look at it and ask the server what is best. He recommends pastrami.

After studying the menu, David decides against all the Italian meats that sound good to me and orders the cheesesteak. Oops, he doesn’t know that all Primanti’s sandwiches have sweet-and-sour slaw on them unless otherwise specified. I have to explain to him that he won’t be getting a Philly cheesesteak!

No, this is a "Pittsburgh cheesesteak." The best part is the homemade Italian bread, but the sweet-and-sour sauce is good, too. David rakes off his slaw with his finger, and I get a side helping of it after I ask for a plastic fork and extra wax paper--well, there’s no room for it on my sandwich!

Yum! I’m so glad I ordered the pastrami. Now, how to handle it?

Fries inevitably fall off, so I ask for ketchup and squirt it on the paper. You know, I think articles have been written about "How to Eat a Primanti Sandwich," but there are no hard-and-fast rules. You can even pick up those blops of slaw with your fingers when they fall on your paper. Just don’t plan on getting finished anytime soon. Allow extra time--and not because service is slow.

It’s a full-meal deal, most for under 5 bucks. I count five courses on those sandwiches, so I don’t need to regret not going somewhere else for a dinner. Besides, sometimes I’m just in the mood for Primanti Brothers.

Although we visited this building on our bus tour, anyone can enter this Visitors Center and Museum of the Rivers of Steel Heritage Area in Homestead. Built in 1892, it overlooked Andrew Carnegie’s Homestead Works. After a $4.5 million restoration, the Bost Building was named a National Historic Landmark in 1999.

You can listen to authentic music about Pittsburgh steel, buy books and artwork, read plenty of literature on walls, and get schedules for upcoming tours. (Selections by Woody Guthrie are here, as well as more contemporary songs.) Ask for Jan, and perhaps she’ll have some recipes for authentic Hungarian, Slovak, Polish, or Czech cuisine, or as you exit the building, cross the street and walk to your right to find a good ethnic bakery with great poppyseed cookies. Not only history, but also customs are preserved here.

In two wallpapered rooms on third floor, we look out the same window used by organizers of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers to keep tabs on striking mill workers in 1892.

Posted literature impresses us with the importance of the Homestead Strike that had folks all around the world listening for news of it. A telegraph was set up here to send news to reporters everywhere.

What do we see from the window? Carnegie’s Homestead Mill began where the Rite Aid is now situated.

We try to imagine eight hundred skilled German workers congregated here. They constitute the best organized segment of the largest union in the country, and the future of their Amalgamated is on the line. Under guidance from their leadership, they seize the mill and seal off the town to strikebreakers. (As technology improves, the workers become less skilled, and mill workers come from European countries further east.)

Activities become wild. Henry Clay Frick, Carnegie’s manager, eventually convinces the governor of Pennsylvania that mob rule exists in Homestead so that he sends National Guard and declares martial law. After the Battle of Homestead, when ten thousand townspeople attack the Pinkertons Frick has sent, the union is broken and workers don’t attempt to organize again for over forty years.

We move to a larger room to play dress-up. David models an outfit made for workers not in hot areas near furnaces.

Another member of our group gets the spacesuit. He would work near blast furnaces throwing hot slag into the air. The suit would do him no good if he fell into a furnace--a few did!

The Bost Building is a great stop for folks looking for something uniquely Pittsburgh. Several kinds of tours, including boat tours, are offered by the Rivers of Steel Heritage Area. You can read about them at their website. One could fill a day with other sites in Homestead: the Andrew Carnegie Free Library, the ethnic community, and the Waterfront Shops. At the latter (a gargantuan mall with every eatery known to mankind) Carnegie’s brick vent stacks decorate the parking lot like sculptures.

In my mind, no other event in Pittsburgh rivals the annual Three Rivers Arts Festival. For 2 full weeks and an extra weekend in June, the downtown area becomes playground, market, stage, gallery, and culinary delight. I could eat my weight in Greek food, chocolate-covered strawberries, German apple dumplings, cabbage, and sausages. No need to worry about calories, for I run them off walking around the triangle to a myriad of events.

I couldn’t have guessed what would be my favorite attraction this year: the skateboard course! I could have watched for hours if I hadn’t made reservations elsewhere. At Point State Park, the course was decorated by local artists.

I was mesmerized. Why do they avoid this one corner? Will he make his turning leap this time? Will that unicyclist collide with anyone?

Volkswagon Stage in the park hosted up to three bands each day. Buckwheat Zydeco delighted us with his blend of Afro-Caribbean-Cajun rhythm and blues. We were one night too late for Rickie Lee Jones. Darn! Buckwheat was excellent. For those who felt like paying and sitting, George Benson was at the Civic Arena, and Chick Corea appeared the previous week. Buckwheat wouldn’t allow photos, but a violin player at the Duquesne Light Artists’ Market made no such stipulations.

The market was behind Hilton, where rows of trees provide a shady setting just perfect for any artsy affair.

What interested me--and would excite any Igo guide--were photography stalls. One offered a collection of doorways shot all around Europe--very enticing doorways!

(Prices were encouraging.) Other arts represented included pottery (fantastic!), oils, paper-cutting, and more. Artists were on hand for portraits and caricatures.

I didn’t appreciate sculpture this year at PPG Wintergarden. Last year, it was my favorite event, but this year, it featured more mixed media pieces, all small. I didn’t even get out my camera. Perhaps next year.

Drama was available--some free, none more than $15 admission. Faust: A Masked Telling played several times at 121 Ninth Street, Stavrogin’s Confession was at Liberty Lab, and other productions took place at CAPA Theater. I would have loved them all if I hadn’t had prepaid tickets to the Pittsburgh Public Theater’s Lobby Hero and Harris Theater’s film Parrots of Telegraph Hill. I learned to plan ahead and check the festival’s website before buying tickets to other events.

Anyone visiting the festival must get a calendar of events and find addresses downtown. Art galleries are set up along Liberty Avenue, some on second and third floors of older brick buildings. We found these interesting last year, but didn’t have time for them this weekend. Besides, we wanted to be on water and were glad that the city has much of its festival on or near rivers. What better use for Pittsburgh’s enchanting setting? Certainly it’s an improvement over industry and wars of previous centuries, and I think this fact is what brings out locals for every event on water. They are their rivers now.

Before boarding the bus, our guide walks us to Bessemer Court and explains exactly how the obsolete Clinton Furnace displayed there worked. She has grown up with steel and probably knows more about the industry than anyone I’ll ever meet. In the bus, we proceed to the West End Overlook, the Bost Building, and Andrew Carnegie’s Pump House, site of the Battle of Homestead.

Looking across the Monongahela, we see two remaining Carrie Furnaces that haven’t been restored yet.

When the property is deeded to the National Park Service, millions of dollars may be available for making them safe for visitors. Plans include a boardwalk around them so that tours can get closer.

For now, we start at the river and retrace the steps of 300 Pinkertons who walked "The Bloody Gauntlet" during the bloodiest labor battle on American soil. Eight-thousand laborers and their families converged on guards to batter them with anything they could find. Some were shot, and so were workers. News of the battle shook the world in 1892, for it made obvious that this leading nation would accomplish no labor reforms for a long while. After the battle, wages were cut in half and skilled workers (Germans) were banned from mills. Carnegie’s hunger for new technology was satisfied at the cost of labor.

Inside the Pump House, we learn to make steel from coke, iron ore, and limestone in a glass jar. Jan adds water, and one of our group blows hot air through a straw into the mess. The white foam that appears on top is slag, and we see a gray layer that might become steel someday--with a lot more hot air! After a look at a model of the battle and original pumps in the basement, we leave the Pump House for the Edgar Thompson Works.

For security reasons, US Steel forbids photos at its sites. Built in 1875, this works in Braddock still produces about 25% of all US Steel’s product--in one building without ingots. Jan explains the continuous castor process that enables this one small mill to produce so much more than 10 miles of mills could produce in another century. It is the longest continuously running mill in American history. And if that weren’t enough history for this ground, a plaque marks the spot of Braddock’s Spring, where George Washington took General Braddock after the Battle of the Monongahela to dress his wounds.

As we pass Braddock Carnegie Free Library, Jan points to doors used by steelworkers when they went to shower. Their homes had no running water but one pump in a community courtyard. We see standing "2-up/2-down" worker housing, also without water in Carnegie’s day. Best of all, we drive past the Homestead Carnegie Free Library.

This isn’t just any Carnegie Library. Of 2,500 of them, this is the one to see!

Our tour was scheduled for three hours, but we stayed with it four. I must go again!

Since it is convenient to all points downtown, every visitor should walk to Point State Park to see Fort Pitt Museum. I have been here before, but the permanent exhibit Fort Pitt: Keystone of the Frontier was just installed in April of 2004, after my last visit. Much artwork and material on the French and Indian War is new to me--and very good.

Don’t pass up this museum because of preconceived notions that it resembles a frontier fort. It doesn’t.

You will find no blacksmiths, coopers, or guides in historic garb. Think of it as a history museum that tells the story of an important war that shook four continents for 7 years and longer and changed their borders and futures. As British statesman Horace Walpole remarked, "A volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America set the world on fire."

As a result of the Seven Years’ War in Europe, France surrendered to England colonial holdings not only in America, but also in Africa and India, allowing the British to proceed with empire. Russia emerged as a power. Hapsburgs’ borders were altered, and so were Prussia’s. It was the first world war (without the capital letters) and one focus of it was Fort Pitt, which guarded the American West from this point on the Forks of the Ohio. We begin our tour with the model of the Fort on first floor.

Lights and audio explain the layout.

I recommend a visit to Duquesne or West End Overlook before coming here so that you see the expanse of the rivers and imagine their importance to the development of this country. However, if you miss that, the film at the beginning of the second-floor exhibit should set you right, and illustrations create the mood.

You can read about the war at home, but come here to enjoy artwork and artifacts. Even though much literature is posted, this museum owns some impressive items, such as early maps and journals of George Washington. The journals were published in Williamsburg in 1754 to popularize land acquisition by Virginia planters on the east bank of the Ohio River. Governor Dinwiddie’s proclamation ordering such is also here.

Artwork on Braddock’s Wounding, Braddock’s Defeat, Braddock’s Retreat, etc. is impressive. I especially like Edwin Willard Deming’s 1904 oil of Braddock’s Defeat and Robert Griffing’s more recent The Wounding of General Braddock that occurred just 7 miles east of here at Turtle Creek on the banks of the Monongahela. A Charles Wilson Peale portrait, Washington in the Uniform of a British Colonial Colonel, dates from 1772. My favorites, those of Braddock, include renderings of the smoky primeval forest of the Monongahela.

The Blockhouse, one of four ordered by William Pitt, remains and is the oldest structure west of the Alleghenies.

After a look at it, we enjoy walking in the park to appreciate land coveted by English, French, and Indians. Today, locals are enjoying it, the site of the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

I stated in another journal that the Lewis and Clark exhibit at the Heinz Regional History Center is the best I’ve ever seen. Perhaps it spoiled me. I didn’t appreciate the exhibit Clash of Empires (now premiering) nearly as much. I wanted authentic music, softer lighting--and to take notes. Visitors aren’t allowed pen and paper, and this seems unreasonable, since these artifacts from 250 years ago are surely copies. I saw some of them at the Fort Pitt Museum, too!

I’m not finished complaining yet! The entire exhibit is in one large room, I think, with partitions that do not reach the ceiling in some places. From every display, I can hear the film playing at the entrance. I can multitask, but only if both tasks are my own. There is only one word for somebody else’s task--distracting! Now I’m finished complaining.

The artwork is beautiful, both the masterpieces and illustrated displays. At the entrance is my favorite oil: The Wounding of General Braddock: Battle of the Monongahela 9 July 1753 by Robert Griffing.

The Heinz’s gift shop offers a book entitled Thought Provokers: Teaching History through the Art of Robert Griffing. His paintings are so alluring, especially to local people familiar with the settings and subjects, that I imagine anyone would want to learn history this way. I’ll never forget the scene of Braddock’s wounding! Griffing is a contemporary artist from Gibsonia, a community within the Greater Pittsburgh Area.

Another painting displayed at the entrance is Fort Pitt under Siege. Folks familiar with Pittsburgh’s "Point" should be able to recognize it here.

Not as good as illustrations inside, one below depicts Washington's guide Tanaghrisson about to finish Jumonville with his hatchet--the event to which Walpole referred that "set the world on fire."

Inside, I like the mannequin displays.

We view a film, The Ohio Country, imparting information about the 200,000 square miles drained by the Ohio River, the importance of the war around the world, and the 1,000,000 casualties.

Exhibit displays are replete with names that figure in Pittsburgh places: Forbes, whose winning strategy recaptured the fort from the French; Braddock, whose European battle tactics proved dismal; and Aliquippa, who fled to the forests following the English victory. Anyone familiar with area names can readily appreciate the impact of the event on this locality.

The exhibit is another major work of the Heinz Center in cooperation with the Canadian War Museum and the Smithsonian. The Center bills it as "The first and only comprehensive museum exhibit on the war." (They call it "The British, French, and Indian War.") It will travel to Ottawa and to the Smithsonian after it leaves Pittsburgh in April, 2006.

The museum is crowded on Sunday--testimony to the excitement generated by this relatively new regional history museum that is highlighting the important events of Western Pennsylvania. For visitors who haven’t seen Lewis and Clark, a real treat is in store--both are now at the Heinz.

The new Smithsonian wing is open.

I am dumbfounded when David suggests we "jump on the next one-hour sightseeing cruise." Thanks to highway construction, we have missed the three-hour Lock ‘n Dam Cruise we’ve been looking forward to. That one would be sure to take us further up the Monongahela than any other, and that is where I want to go to see the famous traffic on this river and what evidence there may be of the former Pittsburgh steel boom concentrated on this most navigated river in the country. Besides, both cruises are around $10, and the three-hour gig sounds like triple bang for our buck.

We have enjoyed several lunch and dinner cruises, and they all sail on the Allegheny and Ohio, ignoring the Mon east of the Clipper dock. I resist for a while because I think the hourly cruise is just for kids--after all, it’s called "Good Ship Lollipop!" Then it hits me! How can a cruise that runs every hour, all day, seven days, fill up with kids? What else do we have planned to do, anyway? Gateway Clipper’s misnomer is apparent when we board and find no tots or clowns on this boat. We do get a lollipop, though, when we depart.

I have to wonder if more adults would buy tickets for these hourly sailings if the Clipper Fleet would change the name. Don’t let it confuse you. There is a fairly well-stocked bar with bartender on duty! Snacks are also available for purchase. Schedules are at their website. The boat was not crowded on a Friday afternoon in June.

Every visitor to Pittsburgh should take one of Clipper’s many trips up the rivers. Although I recommend dining cruises, this one will get you out on the water to see Pittsburgh from a new perspective. You'll see all of downtown and corporate North Shore from the Monongahela and Allegheny. Three decks give you the choice of indoors with air-conditioning or outside in the sun. It’s part of learning your way around--you’ll see how downtown and the Northside are laid out.

The boat turns around just past Smithfield Street Bridge, designed by John Roebling, famous for his Brooklyn Bridge.

Narration conveys that this is the forty-seventh season for the Gateway Clipper Fleet, a Pittsburgh institution.

I always appreciate the fountain at Point State Park.

Today, it has pink "eyelashes"--created, no doubt, by an enterprising artist for Three River Arts Festival. It is fed by the city’s fourth river, the Wisconsin Glacial Flow, forty feet underground. If it were fed by the Mon, alluvial silt would clog the jets! When it's turned up, we see one of the tallest fountains in the country at 150 feet, but it's "smart" and lays low in the wind.

Bridges parade overhead: Fort Pitt, Fort Duquesne, Roberto Clemente, Andy Warhol, Veterans.

Returning, we get close to the submarine docked beside Carnegie Science Center.

You can’t go wrong with a sightseeing cruise. Back on the dock, we watch catfish--no ducks today!

As powerful wings move the air above us, our guide looks up and guesses that a turkey vulture has invaded our space. Then she recognizes it as a peregrine falcon and remembers that these raptors are always in Pittsburgh’s news. Everyone knows that they roost atop the Gulf Tower.

"What’s happening?" I have to turn around to see it and catch only a streak zipping down to the Ohio River. (I understand that they can dive at speeds around 200 miles/hour.) As high as we are above the water, though, I must correct her: "I believe we are invading his space!" High above Fort Pitt Tunnel, this is his kingdom, and only those curious Georges who want to see what the city looks like from his perspective venture up this walk.

Pittsburgh really didn’t have to plan "greenbelts." More likely, greenbelts planned Pittsburgh. Only problem is, most of the woods around the center city are too steep for walking, hiking, biking, or even climbing without equipment. However, that is what makes this metropolis feel so cozy, and one might argue that the absence of humans on these steep riverbanks is what protects the wildlife who make it their home. The critters do their part to enchant the greater metropolitan area of 1.5 million people, who feel that they have the best of both worlds: urban and natural. Enter raptors! They don’t possess the handicaps that limit human forays onto these cliffs.

And they certainly don’t respect the wildlife in the waters, as we do. I am very sad to report to those who have enjoyed ducks along these waters that I haven’t seen a single quacking Anatidae at Gateway Clipper’s dock or anywhere else along my cruise course this weekend. Now, I have learned from West Virginia Public Radio that these Pittsburgh Falcons--you see, they are talking about them all the way down in West Virginia!--sometimes bring beheaded ducks to office windowsills at the Gulf Tower, where they pluck them and devour them in front of God and secretaries. Obviously, they haven’t heard that "a duck may be somebody’s brother."

Now, to make matters worse, I understand that the duck-hawks have been there more than 10 years and that occupants of the Gulf Tower have no intention of shooing away their murdering, raptorial guests. Instead, they have placed a roosting box on their roof and cooperated with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and Pennsylvania Game Commission to form a society to protect the falcons. These three rivers of empire and steel are wild once again, and conservation is now a prime goal of this city. The National Aviary has established a second falcon nest on the Cathedral of Learning in Oakland. This second project was the brainchild of a biology professor at the University of Pittsburgh. At one time, he believed that the two falcon populations were far enough apart that the birds wouldn’t become territorial and fight one other. Wrong! They probably have.

So, what chance has a duck-lover against all the biologists in a city well-known for its preservation efforts that include those of the National Aviary? What about the local scientists involved in biotechnology? Just as Pittsburgh’s preeminence in iron and steel was unquestioned in other decades, the city’s biotechnical leadership is recognized today. Couldn't researchers devise a microbe that would make ducks less tasty to nonhuman predators? Like Marie Antoinette (kind of), I say of the falcons, "Let them eat snake!

"Furthermore, thanks to the leadership of Carnegie Mellon University, the city is the foremost center for robotics in the world outside of Japan. Maybe this would work… could we have duck robots?

Okay, I have to admit that peregrine falcons are pretty exciting. Their home in Pittsburgh is a done deal, and it is helping to reverse their near extinction. The original Pittsburgh parents, Boris and Natasha, have had 18 babies, most of them banded, tracked and virtual celebrities with their own webcam. You can see them online, or if you would rather see them soaring above the city, spend time on the rivers. At least one of their children lives in Detroit now and one in Cleveland. Heck, before long, every city within a hawk's flight will have a few--thanks to the Gulf Tower and Cathedral of Learning nests. (Say "goodbye" to your web-footed friends!)

You won’t see Boris anymore, for those two nests in Pittsburgh probably did become territorial. A younger male from the Cathedral of Learning nest probably killed Boris. As a result, the female at Gulf Tower abandoned six eggs (Boris’), took up residence with her new mate (a young stud from the Oakland nest), and produced four new eggs.

As you can imagine, Pittsburghers have been interested in the shenanigans of the predators from the beginning of the Gulf Tower nest. That’s how residents of this city are--proud that their hometown is first. The nest at Gulf was the first falcon nest in Pennsylvania in over 40 years. (It’s now over 10 years old, but it still gets a lot of press.)

If you want to keep an eye on the Gulf Tower while you are in town, look at the photo.

See the tallest building? That’s US Steel Tower on Grant Street. The Gulf Tower is the one in front of it on the left. It’s the older art deco skyscraper on the corner of Seventh and Grant. The roost is on 37th floor.

If you want to capture a really neat shot of Pittsburgh, do this. Find the West End Overlook. Perhaps the Duquesne Overlook will do--it’s easier to find on Carson Street. You can even walk to the incline, about a mile from the Station Square subway stop, or drive to the parking lot. (Duquesne Incline has its own.) Be patient. Make sure the bird is high in the air above buildings with a clear backdrop of sky--but include the famous skyline! The National Aviary on the Northside is known for its raptor program, so the photo would be especially definitive of Pittsburgh. It’s the skyline shot that not many get.

I have mentioned before that Pittsburgh has many close ties to Central and Eastern Europe. Thanks to guide Owen Lipsett, a knowledgeable source on the history and peoples of those regions, I have learned that at one time, Pittsburgh had the largest Slovak population of any city in the world. That was the reason first President of Czechoslovakia Masaryk came to then "Steel City" to gather support for the formation of that country in 1918.

If I am not mistaken, then the large concentration of Slavic and other Central European peoples in the city followed Andrew Carnegie’s constant quest for better technology and cheaper, less skilled, less organized labor than the original German iron and steel workers who had given him all the trouble with the Homestead Strike and Battle of Homestead in 1892. After Germans were banned from the mills, enter Slovaks, Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Bulgarians, and others. (Our guide Jan could excel on a quiz matching each national group with a decade marking that group's greatest influx, but don't expect me to do that!)

Their neighborhoods are still lined up along the banks of the Monongahela on Pittsburgh’s Southside, beginning just a few blocks east of Smithfield Street Bridge and extending all the way to Homestead and beyond. Markets, restaurants, bakeries, shops, churches, and community buildings represent a multitude of European cultures, all originally immigrated here to work in Andrew Carnegie’s mills as early as 1875, when the first mill, now U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thompson Works, was built in Braddock. (Carnegie’s first contract for this mill was from its namesake and then-governor of the state, Edgar Thompson, for rails for the Pennsylvania railroad.)

Our guide Jan is a fountain of information about the ways in which Pittsburgh changed the lives of these peoples and the ways in which they changed Pittsburgh. In addition, a permanent exhibit at Heinz Regional History Center records and displays the customs of a city whose population was at one time fifty-percent immigrant workers.

They brought with them many traditions, including the cookie table set up for weddings. To this day, when a bride reserves a hotel space for a reception in Pittsburgh, the manager in charge of the event asks not "Do you want a cookie table?" He asks, "Where do you want the cookie table?" Our tour group gets a good idea of how big the cookie table might be when Jan informs us that hers was twice as long as our bus.

Jan’s mother was worried about how to get all the cookies to the reception, and the husband-to-be, not privy to this custom, couldn’t understand all the commotion about transporting some cookies. We can’t fathom the problem either, until Jan enlightens us--there were eight-hundred dozen cookies! These would last three days, the typical length of celebration for a "Hunky" wedding. And, judging from the cookies Jan has baked for us according to her grandma’s recipes, they are addictive! I wonder if her grandma resembled one of these ladies in a photo at Heinz History Center.

Well, the one in native garb certainly looks like she could bake some yummy cookies!

Jan’s aunt ran a boarding house for workers. Some would sleep in a bed shared by another worker on a different shift. This was called "hot racking," and you can easily imagine why. The mills ran 24 hours, and men worked seven-day weeks, twelve-hour shifts. There was no union from 1892 until the 1940’s. Many were burned by hot slag, but reporters thought the glowing by-product dancing on the floors was "beautiful" in its incandescence--and Pittsburgh had its share of reporters in those days, because what was happening there was like nothing ever before.

The pace of production had never been imagined. Fast and furiously, Carnegie’s steel was building a new infrastructure and a new industrial nation, but it didn’t stop there, either. It was building everything: railroads, armaments, skyscrapers, bridges, Brooklyn Bridge, Panama Canal, and eventually the biggest ball bearing in the world for Greenbank Observatory.

At the height of the steel boom, mills were expanding so fast that sewage wasn’t adequate. Beginning at the site of the present Waterfront Shops in Homestead was the largest open hearth in the world! Workers lived in small dwellings surrounding courtyards where the only water supply for the entire compound was next to the common toilet. Typhoid was rampant. In addition, an exhibit, Breath of Hope, at Heinz Regional History Center until July 4, explains that with 100,000 new immigrants each year, an epidemic of tuberculosis necessitated the city’s setting up the first sanitariums in the country and setting new standards for patient care.

The once-upon-a-time pollution of the city’s three rivers is infamous, and Jan watched the dumping of slag into them. That’s what teen children of immigrant workers did on Saturday night. It was their typical date night! They drove to spots on the opposite riverbank and watched the fiery cascade, like a volcano as it was plunged from the top of a hot blast furnace. It was their first fireworks!

Nowadays, Pittsburgh is famous for its clean air and water, but community centers all along the rivers still offer ethnic dinners, plays, dances, music, and more to those who wish to find them. From Lithuanian to Polish to Hungarian, festivities abound, and most are open to the public. Polka, anyone? There is plenty of that, and as a firsthand spectator several years ago of the yearly polka event at Seven Springs Ski Resort, I can tell you that these folks can dance non-stop for thirteen hours. (Yes, I timed them!) I mean, of course, thirteen hours for three days in a row, the typical length of any festivity.

Authentic native costumes can be viewed at a little museum at Duquesne University. The school’s Tamburitzans, all scholarship students, travel the world presenting song and dance of Eastern and Central Europe. One is lucky to catch them in Pittsburgh, but they do appear there several times each year. An exhibit at Heinz History Center also displays costumes and native dress, such as this outfit worn by a Serbian singer who was famous in the early half of the Twentieth Century.

To help us appreciate the enormity and influence of Central European culture in Pittsburgh, Jan tells us that until the 1950s, the language of the street on the Southside was still Slovak. In addition, the city boasts the second largest Italian population in America next to New York City. Bulgarians are represented. (Jan recommends Old Europe on Carson Street as a great Bulgarian restaurant.) Then, of course, there are the "Bo-Hunks" (Jan’s term for Bohemians or present-day Czechs, including herself), Hungarians, and dozens more.

Just as I am beginning to think that Jan is exaggerating how common the term "Hunky" is in this city, we drive past the AFL-CIO in Braddock, and in front of the building, we see a plaque commemorating "The Great Strike of 1919--The Hunky Strike!" Demonstrating complete solidarity, 350,000 workers of all nationalities stood with "Hunkies"--who testified that they had bought war bonds and donated to the American Red Cross--and shut down the industry without any union! (I imagine this is when they became proud to be "Hunkies"!) To see nationality percentages for workers in 1919, click here and scroll down to the chart.

This strike was long after Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and even J. P. Morgan had "managed" the steel business. This strike found bewildered managers testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor about "Bolshevik instigation," while at least one Slavic worker testified, "The first thing that was wrong, they would call me a Hunky." Names stick, but connotations have changed, especially for those who made the steel that built this city. Slavic workers let America know, just as their forefathers let the Hapsburgs know, that they wanted recognition for their hard work.

No wonder locals are so proud of their skyline! Their fathers built it.

Know what else Pittsburghers are proud of? Their unity. Visitors must appreciate it, too, when they see this pretty city all cleaned and sparkling in three rivers.