The Strip is an area of Pittsburgh (I'm not sure what "section" of PGH, it's in, but it's on the way to Lawrenceville) where there are a lot of markets - Asian, Italian, Middle Eastern grocery stores. There were vendors on the sidewalks today, and we saw a lot of interesting stuff. Peace and tie-dye is popular.
We ended up buying some raviolis and pasta sauce from this Italian market. The sign outside said that they had "handmade mozzarella", but they were all out by the time we got there.
The tin man!
Interesting little side alley ...
The Leaf and Bean place (cigars and coffee) ...
Actually, the street one over from the one with the vendors intrigued me ...
The old buildings of Pittsburgh are what make it so visually interesting, I think. They cause me to wonder about all the life that happened here before (almost Dickinsonian?). The oldness also gives it a European feel. This city wasn't just built yesterday - a lot has gone on here.
A good place to bring Jubilee ...
And another one of the Pittsburgh bridges ...
We drove up a hill to what is known as "Little Italy" of Pittsburgh. I believe this is officially called the "Bloomfield" neighborhood, but the markets up there were not as interesting as the one down on The Strip. John was in search of raviolis.
In ways, Pittsburgh reminds me of parts of Louisville that I knew as a child. But it seems to be a smaller, more ethnic city. Here is another photo of the view driving into PGH where you can see the older housing in the foreground (just under the signs) of the view of the tall downtown buildings:
Pittsburgh still feels like a mystery to me, a nut not yet cracked. Hopefully Jane will visit soon and give us more insight!
about Pittsburgh, to quote my old trappist buddy who worked at Duquesne - it's a city divided up into small neighborhoods that tend to be insular because of all the bridges separating....
ReplyDeleteit was almost astonishingly racist when I lived there in the 80's and 90's - that old school stuff- but has a great history of proletarian types that still carried over in some ways
nice photos
I haven't gotten far enough to delve into the psychological history of the city, Marc. So far, I'm still grazing the visual ... The bridges and rivers seem significant to me. There are a LOT of bridges. Also from almost every location you can see the side of a hill with exposed rock. For some reason, it reminds me of Prague in the Czech Republic. The colors, the river, the bridges, the rock.
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