From PostMuse, a dramatic view of Pittsburgh at night. She tells me that this is the view visitors first see when they arrive from the airport. They enter a tunnel in a suburban area and come out to see this amazing view - the WOW factor!
The bridge and the tunnel share the name of Fort Pitt, the fort which was originally built from 1759 to 176. It was named after William Pitt the Elder, whose name but little else, I remember from my history lessons.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite a sight - a real gift when leaving the tunnel.
ReplyDeleteA tunnel indeed. I didn't even know it had a mountain to tunnel through until I visited it (on purpose for a couple days a few years ago). The reason I was in the area was to research the famous Johnstown Flood. Which I did, and Pittsburgh was a more interesting place to stay in than the rather depressing Johnstown.
ReplyDeleteThe Pittsburgh Pirates used to play baseball in Three Rivers Stadium. Can you name Pittsburgh's famous 3 rivers? Hint: the names appear in an old Oakridge Boys song. I think it was the Oakridge Boys; you would know better than I, probably.
Pittsburgh is/was synonymous with steel. Hence the Pittsburgh Steelers are their football team; won the Superbowl against Arizona the time before the most recent one. Steel - and immigrants from Scotland. The Cambria ironworks in Johnstown exploded when the floodwaters hit. The greatest steel man of them all was the little Scot who hobnobbed with all the rest of the robber barons of that era: Wee Andra Carnegie. Andrew, in his old age, I once read, began to repent of his money-grubbing ways and sold his steel empire for a cool $100 million dollars. This was in 19th century dollars, if you can imagine, before there was an income tax in the U.S. Well, his repentance led him to try to spend all his money before he died (he failed because he just had too much money) and one of the things he did was buy organs for all the churches in Scotland. Or nearly all of them - I exaggerate of course. An unusual man. The company formed by the syndicate that engineered his buyout was and is called U.S. Steel.
When in Pittsburgh be sure to ride the picturesque Duquesne Incline. I'll bet there are some picture postcards of THAT on many tourist trap counters in Pittsburgh.
Max, you are a marvel. :) Thank you for all that excellent information, so much more interesting than the usual Wikipedia dry facts.
ReplyDeleteHow true! I think Wee Andra received $400,000,000 from J.P. Morgan and friends for his company. No wonder he couldn't spend it all! Let us also remember two other men in association with him: Charles M. Schwab and Napoleon Hill. Schwab was his right hand man in the steel business, and Hill was sent to Carnegie to learn his secret of success. Hill then spend several years interviewing 500 successful people and wrote Think and Grow Rich.
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