I have to admit I love driving and walking through the downtown areas of America's cities. Pittsburgh is no exception, in fact it's one of my favorites in a pushing shoving with Chicago kind of way. The 'burg is a city with a great clash of early and contemporary architecture set against a backdrop of the rivers, 10 bridges in the downtown area alone, and the hills that the rest of the city is built upon. While I was talking last week about a mentioned potential interest in moving north to Traverse City - well it's in competition with Pittsburgh.
Most cities in the US are formed around the square grid system, yet in Pittsburgh the two rivers - the Allegheny and the Monongahela which merge at the tip of the downtown area, come to form the triangular system. One which can be utterly confusing to the traveller but does come to form some interesting insertions, triangular buildings and merging skylines.
Pittsburgh is, like Detroit another great city to look up and be amazed. Reflections of old stonework, ageing outside fire escapes mirrored upon the modern glass of skyscrapers. Even more delightful is spying old painted advertisements upon the side of buildings, while their colors may have faded, to me they are still worthy of being appreciated.
Both Detroit and Pittsburgh were cities born out of industry - Detroit the automobile, Pittsburgh's fortune from steel. Yet their fortunes took opposite twists in the 1950's and onwards. You could get sad thinking Pittsburgh's downtown is what Detroit could have been like now, perhaps it's time to see it has what Detroit will one day be again in the future.
You can see downtown Pittsburgh at night here from Mt. Washington.
You can see downtown Pittsburgh at night here from Mt. Washington.