January 04, 2014|Josh Noel | Tribune Travels
PITTSBURGH — I've never been to a burghal that loves itself added than Pittsburgh.
This is not a criticism. Afterwards three days, I additionally admired Pittsburgh, a quaint, ambrosial burghal with absorbing bodies accomplishing absorbing things, and a advantageous birr of Old World, banal charm.
But — and this is area Pittsburgh won me over — it is not a burghal afflicted with itself.
New York, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., are admirable cities that can't abide preening back casual mirrors to admonish themselves aloof how admirable they are. Pittsburgh is a admirable burghal that doesn't alike see the mirror. It aloof turns to its buddies and says, "Hey, yinz guys, let's go accept a beer."
("Yinz guys" is Pittsburgh allege for "you people" — a analytic Northern agnate to "y'all.")
Steeped in spirit and flavor, Pittsburgh can lay affirmation to actuality one of our nation's best underrated cities, with a adorableness as amazing as it is obvious. The drive from Pittsburgh International Airport follows an unspectacular 20 afar of rolling-hills bourgeoisie forth Interstate Highway 376 and then, afterwards a abrupt cruise through the Fort Pitt Adit — bam! — there is Pittsburgh.
Situated on a peninsula bulging into an circle of rivers, the burghal of 305,000 is gemlike, amidst by bluffs and ablaze chicken bridges alive into its heart. As you appear from the tunnel, you feel you've never apparent a added majestic little city: old but familiar, with swooping, arched lines, lushly blooming (in summer) and cut, as all abundant cities should be, by a river or two (or in this case, three).
Visiting is the alone way to accept the affect abundantly bidding in The New Yorker in 1989, back it ranked Pittsburgh amid the world's best admirable cities, alongside Paris and St. Petersburg, Russia.
"If Pittsburgh were anchored about in the affection of Europe, tourists would agilely adventure hundreds of afar out of their way to appointment it," the annual said.
Though Pittsburgh is always associated with steelmaking, its abundant industry canicule are abundantly gone; the air is cleaner, and the animate mills accept become museums, bike trails and blooming space. The burghal has accepted food, alcohol and art while long-quiet neighborhoods accept been alloyed with beginning bustle. The alluring burghal — a aberrant but ambrosial mix of architectonics congenital up through the decades — sports beginning touches of its own, like the dim, marble-barred gastropub Meat and Potatoes, which I arrested out on a Thursday black with a brace of natives.
"This is ambrosial chic for Pittsburgh," said Lisa Sredzienski with a blow of acknowledgment and action as we sipped East Coast ability beer and munched mushroom-truffle flatbread.
But she wasn't complaining.
A amusing and comestible advance is accepted in her city. On Butler Street, in the Lawrenceville neighborhood, there's Franktuary, a gourmet hot dog abode whose offerings accommodate wild-caught apricot sausages and four kinds of poutine. Continue branch up Butler and you'll acquisition a guitar boutique area a admirer makes aliment in the window for the casual apple to see; La Gourmandine, a French bakery area I denticulate a macaroon sandwich blimp with litchi mousse and raspberries; and 720 Music, a hip collection smelling of beginning coffee area with annal and T-shirts for auction forth the walls.
"How do you call this?" I asked. "A almanac abundance meets coffee boutique meets clothes abundance meets another bookstore?"
"Something that exists boilerplate else," said the barista.
After a day of walking through Lawrenceville, I acquainted the aforementioned way about that neighborhood.
Even while all-embracing a 21st-century adaptation of itself, Pittsburgh has durably retained a proud, blue-collar faculty of its history. It relishes the abstraction of the "yinzer" — based on the appellation "yinz guys" — which artlessly equates to addition from Pittsburgh. You'll see affluence of yinzer bonanza stickers, buttons and alike babyish onesies. Search for the Internet ball "Pittsburgh Dad," and, alike if the amusement ability be debatable, the abstraction of the yinzer will be clear.
One audible appropriate of yinzers is their adulation of sports. As one bounded who had ahead lived in New York and Austin, Texas, observed, he had never resided anyplace area alike the hipsters were sports fans. Actuality a Steelers fan in Pittsburgh goes after saying.
The borough adherence to sports makes a appointment to PNC Esplanade a charge alike for bodies with a cursory (or nonexistent) absorption in baseball. The esplanade was congenital so beautifully into the burghal — whose skyline looms over centermost acreage — that it feels as if it were alone into Legoland.
