Water tumbles down a dam in North Park. Damp weather left the lake full, and the return of snow and cold has not stopped the rushing waters. Below is a still picture of the same scene, for those who prefer their still pictures to be absolutely still.
Just an hour and a half south of Pittsburgh is the city of Morgantown, just inside West Virginia. It’s the home of an enormous university whose two campuses, and the constant shuffling back and forth of thirty thousand students between them, created big-city gridlock problems until the unique PRT (for “Personal Rapid Transit”) began service in the middle 1970s.
PRT cars are about the size of a minivan. Each one has eight seats; there is no driver, because the system is entirely automatic. At the turnstile, you pay your 50¢ and push a button for your destination. A car rolls up shortly after that. You get in, and it goes straight where you want to go, with no intermediate stops.
This little movie will give you some idea of what a ride on the PRT is like. There is no sound; you may wish to hum a jaunty newsreel march to yourself as you watch. The movie is explicitly released into the public domain, so if you want to make a music video out of it, go right ahead.
You need a sharp eye, and a long lens, to pick out some of the details on Heinz Hall from ground level. At first the exterior appears to be rather staid, but it rewards close examination with some charmingly whimsical decorations. (The white spots visible in these pictures are snowflakes.)
Katz Plaza in the theater district: a dusting of snow highlights the contours of these eye-shaped benches by Louise Bourgeois, who also designed the waterfall fountain in the background.
If you sit on a bench whose back looks like a giant eyeball, shouldn’t you be able to see behind you?
The lobby of the former Stanley theater, an opulent former movie palace that is still the largest theater downtown. This is yet another cell-phone photo, with too much glare and grain, but it gives us some idea of what the place looks like.
These two female eagles were injured in the wild and can no longer fly. They must think they died and went to eagle heaven, where food comes to them rather than having to be hunted down with infinite labor. This is a quick cell-phone snapshot, and old Pa Pitt apologizes for the quality.
She may be only about the size of a common pigeon, but she thinks you’d better not mess with her. This is a cell-phone snapshot, which accounts for the poor quality of the image. But it’s an impressive little bird.
A periwinkle flower (Vinca minor) blooms in a front yard in Point Breeze, taking advantage of a short thaw.
A very interesting book on the subject of the National Pike has just appeared at Project Gutenberg. The National Pike (now U.S. Route 40, and for substantial stretches Maryland Route 144) brought the East to the West, and passes through what are now the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh. Many milestones of the sort seen in the photograph still exist, and are lovingly maintained.
The idea of a federally funded highway to the West was a product of the Jefferson administration; the right wing, of course, denounced it as a pinko plot. (The word for “pinko” in those days was “Jacobin.”)
The author of the book, Mr. Thomas B. Searight, was the son of the Searight who operated a tollhouse west of Uniontown. That tollhouse is still there; it is built to the standard octagonal plan of the tollhouses on the National Pike.
The Old Pike. A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes Thereon. Illustrated. By Thomas B. Searight. Uniontown, Pa: Published by the Author. 1894.
