Pittsburgh: Third place victorious

Published on Tuesday, 30 March 2010 20:56

Written by Randy Garbin

The Paris of Appalachia, Pittsburgh in the Twenty-first Century
by Brian O'Neill
Carnegie-Mellon University Press
Pittsburgh, PA.
$16.95

Back in 2001, right after we published our profile of the once and future great city of Pittsburgh entitled "Burgh Well Done" in issue 31, I had the great fortune to meet Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Brian O'Neill. Brian congratulated me on my wandering exploration of the city I subtitled "Around the world in 88 neighborhoods" and invited me to take a little trip with him.

In a city so steeped in heritage, I couldn't possibly get to everything, but Brian made me want to kick myself for not seeking him out sooner. Though not a native, his work for the paper made him all-too-familiar with my "great discovery." As if to prove that point, Brian took me to the Our Lady of Sorrows church in nearby McKees Rocks where every week the fine ladies of the parish make their mouth-watering pizzas.

For a magazine that began as a love letter to diners and grew into a travelogue to the American back roads, a visit to a church basement on a remote hillside in the Ohio River valley hardly seemed like a good fit for Roadside. However, Brian knew as I did that the best stories come from connecting with actual people, sensing their character, and ultimately breaking bread with them. Though aesthetically unremarkable compared to all the diners, neon signs, and the whimsical roadside attractions featured in the pages of Roadside, that basement filled with the smells of baking dough and lit by the smiles on the women making the pies only crystalized my mission.

I became forever grateful to Brian for that mini tour. I will never forget the experience of driving around and hearing even more great stories about a town with endless numbers of them. Sadly the magazine had already come out, and I could not incorporate any of Brian's insights into my own profile.

Brian's finally put some of those stories in his new book, The Paris of Appalachia. I could almost hate Brian for this because he wrote the piece I wished I could. Brian's advantage of his Pittsburgh residency notwithstanding, his collection of literary snapshots depicting an increasingly rarified way of life tears at me like memories of unrequited love. He fills his book with so many quotable quotes, so many heart-rending stories, I hardly know which to cite.

In the chapter, "The Geography of Friendship," Brian talks about his neighbor Tom Barbush, a salesman who can't have a conversation with a client outside without a several interruptions by passing neighbors. The client wanted to now how he knew so many people. "Tom asked the man if he owned a garage door opener. When he said he did, Tom said that was his problem. As Tom described it, 'The door goes up. Car goes in. You're in for the night. How are you going to meet anyone?'" Great. Now I hate my garage door opener.

Brian introduces us to scores of people we'd readily invite over for a barbecue or meet at our local tavern. Yet with an abundance of what Ray Oldenburg dubbed "the third place," nothing your town might have could compare to what you'd find on any given block almost anywhere in Pittsburgh. After reading the first two thirds of the book, you might wonder why would anyone want to leave?

Well, in the last third Brian explains why thousands have left, many reluctantly. In fact, if I have any complaint about the book, it sets us up for a kind of sucker punch towards at this point. Just when you want to look up Pittsburgh real estate, Brian goes into some interesting detail about the economic and political reality of the place -- the hopeless municipal inefficiencies, the crushing tax burdens, the stifling lack of vision of its leaders. The demise of the steel industry had only a little to do with the city's decline. Plain stupidity did the rest.

Many similarly sized cities, Brian points out, have suffered crippling industrial losses but have managed to rebound. Examples do exist. Pittsburgh has all it needs to stage a similar renaissance, but like Gulliver immobilized by Lilliputians, it remains captive to the suburban political forces that only see it as a threat.

Still, Brian strikes an optimistic tone. I've yet to read a better case for the benefits of urban living. Pittsburgh, despite its struggles, exemplies the potential of community and preservation. If it can cling to those assets that appeal the growing numbers of people rediscovering such places, be they immigrants, people who seek alternatives to suburbia, or those fleeing high gas prices, it may indeed serve as a shining example of America's more civilized and sustainable future.

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