It’s been 23 years since the saga of the discarded toilet. I lived in Squirrel Hill then, and each day as I drove Downtown to ...

For days, they had been rumbling up the rutted dirt track that led to the top of the rocky dome above the rolling fields of Washington County; a ’round-the-clock procession of big rigs carting up ...

Like it or not, the Carnegie International eclipses everything the Carnegie Museum of Art does. Every director has grumbled about how it commandeers all available resources. But it’s a time-honored ...

Geography comes first. Close upon the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, one gets a sense of westward flowing waters, but a map of Western Pennsylvania shows the Allegheny flowing ...

Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, ...

Five years ago, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust named its Cabaret at Theater Square after philanthropic leader George C. Greer. The longtime executive of the H.J. Heinz Company has been perhaps the ...

The last time Roberto Clemente stepped up to home plate was on a field on Puerto Rico’s west coast where he was teaching boys to play baseball. Locals had coaxed him into taking a swing, and he ...

When Rachel Sager bought a house, she didn’t know it came with a coal mine. Obscured by woods in her “backyard,” and flanking the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) bike trail, are the sprawling ruins of ...

Everyone is born with a gift from God. Some people discover their gift, and use it to a positive end. Some discover their gift, but squander it. And others, for one reason or another, never discover ...

It’s a hell of a thing to know your birth coincides with a line of demarcation in your hometown. On one side is prosperity. On the other, ruin. I was born in Youngstown in 1977. At the time, it was an ...

My twin brother, Allan Block, and I are the third generation in a family business that’s more than 100 years old. My grandfather, Paul Block, was an immigrant from East Prussia, and grew up, through ...

To celebrate the beginning of our 20th year, we’ve set out to catalogue the contributions that Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania have made to the world. The list has grown and grown, and despite our ...