Sunday, April 22, 2012 – Falling for Pittsburgh
Dear Pittsburgh,
I never expected to fall for you, but I have. I love your sense of history and your
sense of community. I love your
red brick buildings, your church spires, and your front porches. I don’t quite understand your geography
yet, but I like the fact that you have not just one, but three rivers!
Another great thing is how you’ve kept the character of your ethnic
neighborhoods. You have museums,
parks, restaurants, unique shops, coffee bars – everything I look for in a
city. Now, if you would only change
your weather…. Yesterday was cold
and rainy. Today was cold and
almost rainy. It’s now so misty
that it might as well be raining.
And the forecast for tomorrow – the 23rd of April – is for
snow!!! I promise to return, but
not until summer.
Your Secret Admirer.
We’ve had a wonderful time discovering the many charms of this
city on three rivers. Taylor
picked us up downtown on Friday afternoon and gave us a brief driving tour of
several areas on our way to pick up Karen and then go back to their home in a section of the city called
Churchill. What struck me right
away was that Pittsburgh is a hilly city.
The cities I know best – New York, Boston, and Washington – are mostly
flat. I admire Taylor’s skill in
finding his way around. There
seems to be no system whatsoever to the streets, many of which are
one-way. There is certainly
nothing like driver-friendly grid pattern. Fortunately, I didn’t have to drive or navigate. I could simply look out the windows and
soak up the sights.
We had more opportunities over the course of the weekend to
appreciate the diversity of the city.
Our itinerary on Saturday brought us to the Oakland area where most of
the museums and major universities are located. It was definitely “museum-weather,” i.e. not a day when
you’d want to be walking around outside.
We spent a couple of very enjoyable hours at the Carnegie (accent on the
second syllable if you want to sound like a Pittsburgh native) Museum. They have a wonderful permanent
collection of European and American art.
We focused on the galleries featuring work from the 19th
through 20th centuries.
The work is arranged in strict chronological order, with each gallery
devoted to a ten to twenty-year period of time. So instead of seeing three Monet paintings in a single
gallery, we saw a very early Monet in one gallery, a later Monet in a second
gallery, and a panel from the Water Lilies series in a third gallery. We enjoyed seeing unfamiliar works by
artists such as Mary Cassatt, Cézanne (a very early landscape, quite thickly
painted), Edward Hopper (the first painting he ever sold), and Renoir (a large
vertical painting of a garden in Montmartre, the flowers painted with joyful
abandon). There were
also some charming works by Pissarro, Bonnard, and Gustav Klimt. I especially liked Mondrian’s Trees, painted in muted shades of grays, lavenders, and
tans; Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract Berkeley No. 38; and Joan Mitchell’s 1968 painting entitled Low
Water. The only thing missing was a painting by Elliott
Thompson. It would have looked
right at home in the gallery alongside works by Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly,
and Morris Louis. But I’d have to
say that the highlight of the museum, for me, was Matisse’s The
Thousand and One Nights, which is on
temporary display in a separate gallery.
This large-scale work, made of painted paper cut-outs, is based on the
tale of Scheherazade. Matisse
created this piece when he was in his eighties and found painting on canvas too
challenging physically. It is
colorful, whimsical, exuberant, exotic, organic – and I guess that’s why
Matisse remains one of my favorite artists of all time.
After our museum visit, we drove to an interesting area
known as the Strip District. If it hadn’t been raining, we would have taken a
leisurely stroll past the trendy shops, cafés, and galleries. Since it was already after 2:00 p.m.
and we were starving, we headed directly to our destination, Osteria 2350 on
Railroad Avenue. It’s a simple,
unpretentious Italian deli/restaurant with terrific food. Every choice on the menu sounded
tempting. While we debated what to
order, we dipped the excellent freshly baked bread into basil-infused olive
oil. Elliott is a
soup-and-sandwich kind of guy, so he quickly made up his mind: a bowl of sausage-rapini-white bean
soup and a sandwich of Italian cold cuts (salami, cappicola, prosciutto,
sopressata, Provolone). Karen and
I ended up sharing a warm tomato salad (poached tomatoes, garlic, fresh
mozzarella, basil, balsamic vinaigrette), grilled marinated eggplant slices,
and a pasta dish with caramelized mushrooms, truffle oil, arugula, and
Parmesan. Of course, on this
chilly damp afternoon, I had to order a cappuccino. And since we were in an Italian restaurant, we needed an
Italian dessert: cannoli stuffed
with orange-scented cream, chocolate chips, and pistachio nuts. Then it was back out into the rain for
a ride through the Breeze Point and Squirrel Hill sections of the city.
The weather was slightly better on Sunday – still cold and
gloomy, but no precipitation.
Karen and Taylor brought us to one of their favorite places for a very
special brunch: the Inn on Negley. They first stayed at this
Victorian bed and breakfast in Shady Side when they were still living in
Belgium. The B&B is a warm,
gracious, and delightful setting for weekend brunch or afternoon tea. Our multi-course brunch began with
coffee or tea, a platter of freshly cut fruit, and a plate of miniature
vanilla-rhubarb muffins. The
second course consisted of a tomato salad, a variety of cheeses, crackers, and
olives. Next, we had to choose our
main course from the following selections: spring onion frittata, spring vegetable omelette, and
waffles with strawberry-rhubarb compote.
All were accompanied by crisp toast, sautéed multi-hued potatoes, and
bacon, sausage, or ham. Everything
was delicious – but we weren’t finished yet. A birthday cupcake for Elliott appeared, along with dense
squares of chocolate brownies.
What a fabulous treat! If
you’re ever in Pittsburgh, don’t miss this place.
Our geography lesson continued after brunch with a drive up
to Mount Washington. From this
high vantage point, we had an excellent view of the city spread out below. I was especially interested in seeing
the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers and the spit of land called The Point
where the two rivers converge, forming the Ohio River. The wind was whipping, so we didn’t
linger. But back down in the
Oakland area, we stopped to see the Heinz Chapel on the University of
Pittsburgh campus. This neo-Gothic
jewel was built in the 1930s by the Heinz family (of ketchup fame). Some have compared its gorgeous stained
glass windows to those in the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. I certainly wasn’t disappointed. The eight 73-foot-tall transept windows
depict historical figures and events.
There are 15 additional stained glass windows in the chapel, all beautifully
designed and executed. Our visit
was perfectly timed. A women’s
choir practicing in the chapel provided a serene accompaniment.
It’s been a lovely weekend. I just hope that the snow doesn’t interfere with our plans
to take the bus back to DC on Monday morning.
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