The Morgantowner: Saturday in Pittsburgh

I heard it was an exciting game between Iowa State and West Virginia in Morgantown last Saturday, November 4, starting at 3 P.M. The weather was just warm enough, and it was sunny. I don't go to football games generally, and a game in town means one is stuck in the house at least an hour before and an hour after the game.

I could have gone to Torah study at Tree of Life in the morning. That's not something I typically do either. In my original retirement plan, I would go to Pittsburgh, preferably with my spouse, the rabbi at Tree of Life, to have lunch in a restaurant, find some historic spots, see amovie that will never play here in Morgantown, and if it's not Saturday, go to the Jewish bookstore and gift shop in Squirrel Hill. We haven't done that in a few months. We've been through Pittsburgh's airport, on our way to and from Canada this past summer, and I went with Joe to two weddings he officiated at the Heinz Museum in the Strip District, even singing at one of them.

I left at nine, before Joe left for Torah study, and went searching for my five historic sites, Numbers 115-119 on Wikipedia's list of National Register Sites in Pittsburgh. First up, in the South Shore neighborhood (the south shore of the Monongahela River, which also flows through Morgantown), there is the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Rail Station, and a separate listing for the Railroad Complex. These were a major rail hub into the 1960s, but are now, combined, part of Station Square shopping complex. There are also movie theaters, and a hotel. The rail station is now a fancy restaurant.

From there, I headed to the "Pittsburgh Central Downtown Historic District," just across the river from Station Square. I parked at a meter on the street, as I did at several stops in the city. They have machines where you enter your license plate number and then pay for the amount of time you want. Downtown meters were $4.00 per hour; in other places they were $1.00 for an hour. Much of the area dates from the turn of the last century, imposing stone and brick structures, including the William Penn Hotel. I was surprised to find some mid-nineteenth century row houses still standing, and the more impressive Alcoa Aluminum building, coated in... aluminum, and now being converted into apartments, and U.S. Steel's steel tower, with its fine coating of rust, a deliberate design feature, now used as offices of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. I walked around a few blocks of downtown, and lamented that Kauffman's Department Store, most recently a branch of Macy's, is closed.

My next stop was the former Pittsburgh Brass Manufacturing Company, in the Strip District, the part of town that sits at the bottom of a the cliff along the Allegheny River. This was an industrial area, now full of shops, restaurants, and offices and new hotels. The Brass Company, probably from about 1900, is now a law office.

It was already after noon when I was in the Strip District. I turned on the GPS on my cell phone (something I only recently learned how to do) to head over the hill to Oakland, the hipster neighborhood around the University of Pittsburgh, once the archrival of West Virginia in sports, before West Virginia switched leagues to the Big 12, a more lucrative league, with teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa. The weather had warmed up, and kids were out playing frisbee. It was my goal to do my pictures and get to Whole Foods in Shadyside no later than 1 P.M. for lunch.That didn't happen. I got my pic of the Pittsburgh Athletic Association Building, then stopped for a sandwich at a Starbuck's across the street in one of the dorm buildings from Pitt, filled with young people ignoring each other in favor of their laptops.

I found my way to Bakery Square, a development of offices in an old bakery building and stores in the surrounding area, including a gym, a chain bakery and lunch place, a café, and a few other places to shop. Nothing that interesting, but there are rumors that the developer wants to build in Morgantown, so I wanted to check it out.

My plan was to leave at three, and get home in the middle of the WVU game, when the streets are deserted, and in time for a nap before dinner. I knew how to get to Squirrel Hill from Bakery Square. Classic Lines is an independent book store on Forbes Avenue. I would rather pay full price there than go to a chain bookstore and get a discount. Morgantown does not (yet) have an independent bookstore downtown. I don't buy enough books to worry about a discount, anyway. My sister had sent me sixty-eight dollars for my birthday and told me to spend it on something I wanted. The books cost me eighty, but that was close enough. I stopped in at the coffeehouse next door to the book store (also filled with geeky young people bent over laptops) and bought a fancy cookie as my meter was running out. It was an easy hour-and-a half drive home, eighty miles from Squirrel Hill. I did most of what I planned to do in the time I had allotted for myself.

WVU won the football game, and Joe and I decided to stay in for the evening.

Here are my pics: