The Pizza Chase: Mon Valley Red Top at Anthony’s Italiano

March 17, 20193 Comments

pizza cooked Mon Valley red top style from Anthony's Italiano, Donora, PA

Mon Valley Red Top: an Extraordinary pizza from Anthony’s Italiano in Donora

Yes, it’s that good. A good enough excuse to prompt the hour-or-so scenic drive down Route 837. Good enough for the inevitable extra miles you’ll need to walk it off when you’re through. Good enough for this food-fancier to say, if you love pizza, you need to try one of these.

Crusty on the knotted edges, gooey in the thick multi-layer center, steaming hot, and managing to exist as both ultimate comfort food and a shock to the senses. It is red top pizza and unless you’ve spent some time in or around the mid-Mon Valley, you’ve probably never had anything like it.

cinching top and bottom layers of a red top pizza

Google “red top pizza” and The Internet is going to point you north and west, to Detroit. That city’s native style is cooked in small rectangular deep-dish pans, super pillowy on the inside, crusty on the edges, and yes, finished with a post-bake ladling of tomato sauce across the top.

Detroit-style pizza must be “having a moment” (forgive me) as two different purveyors specializing in the (not our) regional style have popped up in Pittsburgh in the last year or two: Iron Born and Michigan & Trumbull. I can only attest to the latter, but it is spectacular–if a little precious and pricey.

Mon Valley red top is an entirely different thing. It also appears to be completely off the wider pizza map.

pizza chef pulling cooked pizza from oven

the eponymous Anthony, pulling our red top from the oven

On the one hand, a red top pizza has exactly the same stuff you’ve been eating all your life: risen white flour dough, spicy marinara sauce, grated mozzarella cheese, your choice of standard toppings. On the other, though, the script–and ingredients list–have quite literally flipped. That makes all the difference here.

There are two medium-thin crusts in a red top pizza. Between them, several handfuls of mozzarella cheese. The edges of the two layers are rolled up, curled around, and crimped together to seal the package like a giant ravioli. A hole is poked in the center–presumably so it doesn’t blow up in the oven–and red sauce is ladled out and spread across the domed surface.

In its purest form, the pizza has no additional toppings–Anthony says about half the time people get them this way–but it’s common to add pepperoni, sausage, or whatever you like.

excited customer watches as red top pizza is served from platter

red top: big hit

Doubters, whiners, and ye of little imagination will poo-poo the pie as just another pizza–but they’re wrong. We know how the thinking goes: the sauce is on top, the cheese in the middle, there’s a lot of bread–what’s the big deal?

Here’s the big deal: with a red top, the delicate chemistry of the pizza has been inverted–up is down, day is night, and there’s a sauce party on the roof while the cheese is doing the grunt work in the basement.

handmade wooden sign for Anthony's Italiano restaurant in Donora, PA

Anthony’s Italiano: come for the pizza and air conditioning; don’t expect a salad bar.

Pizza is a lot cheaper than therapy, but you’ll leave Anthony’s Italiano both fulfilled in the belly and with a new perspective on existence. The realization that all our lives we’ve been lied to–told the marinara was but a minor flavor element in a melted cheese and risen crust world–may be a metaphorically tough pill to swallow, but it tastes great going down.

With the sauce brought up front and on top it’s allowed to sizzle under the direct heat of the oven, thickening and caramelizing. The cheese at the center of the pie is the exact opposite–a molten core that oozes and massages the overall flavor; it’s felt as much as tasted.

red on top, gooey in the middle, delicious all over

Anthony’s Italiano has been making pizza in Donora since 1977, but you don’t need to have the history to see that Anthony knows what he’s doing. The shop came to our attention from a tip by the guys at the Donora Smog Museum, just-down-the-block. As we said in that piece, the crust on Anthony’s basic pizza (i.e. not the red top) has a ciabatta-like crackle and chewiness that just totally knocked our socks off. Get one of each or come back–and bring your friends this time.

A final note to our readers in the Mon Valley: We are well aware that Anthony’s is not the only pizzeria that offers a red top. There are at least a couple others that make the same style (Marty’s in Donora and Armando’s in Charleroi/Monessen), but definitely let us know if there’s somewhere else we need to check out.

exterior of Anthony's Italiano, Donora, PA

Anthony’s Italiano on McKean Avenue in Donora since 1977

Getting there: Anthony’s Italiano is located at 557 McKean Ave. in Donora. It’s going to take you around an hour to get there from central Pittsburgh; slower if you stop for every roadside cross, loose limo, and objet d’dental artwork like we do.

The Pizza Chase is an occasional series where we document regional pizzerias that do something fundamentally different or extraordinary with ol’ cheesy.

Lights Out: The Slow Death of Pennsylvania’s Largest Shopping Center

March 10, 201924 Comments

empty retail space in shopping mall, Baden, PA

One of dozens of former retail spaces now empty in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Beaver County

It’s a big room–maybe three thousand square feet. Where there used to be tile, the floor is now scraped clean, down to hard brown mastic. The walls and ceiling persist a very 1980s palette of hot mauve and battleship gray. Each side of the space still has one long set of track lighting, its bulbs intact, trained on the wall as if the space was most recently an art gallery or framing shop–possibly a dramatically-lit purveyor of boutique clothing or novelty gifts. At the back of the former store a single checkout island remains, its electric service dropped through conduit from the ceiling like a lifeline to the outside world.

This big empty space is a mystery–but it’s not alone. Pick a direction and there are many more like it: this one with colored tile and mirrored walls; that one with rectangular scars on the floor where heavy shelving used to be. An old A&P in glorious minty green and candy-apple red; an ex-Radio Shack with placards still advertising home theater, batteries, and wireless phones. In a former Chinese restaurant a grocery buggy is incongruously parked where diners used to eye up menu photos of Szechuan beef and General Tso’s Chicken.

interior of vacant, former grocery store in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Baden, PA

ex-grocery (A&P, probably?)

interior of vacant retail space in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Baden, PA

unknown

On November 1, 1956 an entirely new experience greeted citizens of the commonwealth. With some sixty-five retail spaces–many of them gigantic, sized for furniture or department stores–spread out over three separate, long, low-slung buildings and hosting free parking for four thousand automobiles^[1], Northern Lights Shoppers City must have felt every bit of its believable claim as Pennsylvania’s Largest Shopping Center.

The new uber-plaza wasn’t in Philadelphia or its expansive suburbs, nor did it serve metro Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, or Harrisburg. It was located twenty-some miles northwest of us in Beaver County.

unknown

vacant retail space in former Northern Lights Shopping Center, Conway, PA

unknown

The terrific all-things-Beaver County blog Ambridge Memories has a great post on the opening (and, seven months later, Grand Opening) of Northern Lights. In this pre-mall era^[2], the “shoppers city” monicker (it would be renamed Northern Lights Shopping Center some time later) turns out to be remarkably on-target. Unlike indoor malls we’ve come to expect, Northern Lights opening array of retail reads like a quintessential Main Street for any small town in America.

In addition to mall staples like department stores, restaurants, shoes, clothing, cards and gifts, there were two pharmacies, three supermarkets (A&P, Kroger, and Star), plus a butcher, green grocer, and bakery. Northern Lights offerings also included a bank, furniture store, optometrist, appliances, laundromat, hardware, automotive, dry cleaner, and beauty salon.

unknown

The little Ohio River town of Conway (pop. ~1,800 in the mid-1950s; a little larger today^[3]) might seem a strange choice for the location of such a gigantic development. In fact, the footprint for Northern Lights is just about identical in acreage to Conway’s lower street grid. Imagine a shopping plaza equal in size to your entire home town, with parking for cars numbering twice the total population.

The location was inevitably aimed at drawing from the larger Ohio Valley region, then still booming with active mill towns. Conway sits just about half way between the substantially-larger Ambridge to the south and the quad cities of Rochester-Beaver-Beaver Falls-New Brighton to the north. Across the river and easily accessible are Aliquippa and Monaca.

unknown

Today, it would be unfair to call Northern Lights a dead mall. There are definitely still enough open businesses to fill a lesser destination. Giant Eagle and a Wine & Spirits store alone make the location viable, but the shopping center also includes Dollar Tree, Napoli Pizza, and Avenue Boutique, a dialysis clinic, laundromat, a couple doctors’ offices, barber, and police substation.

But take a walk around and it won’t feel like Northern Lights’ property owners see a lot of future here. The former Ames (which was a Hills before that; we don’t know what the space opened as) is being readied for demolition with all the construction fence and heavy equipment to prove it. A number of glass storefronts are covered in protective plywood. Looking through the windows of other spaces yields an eerie view–not of available retail space, but rather one that reads as closed-and-left-town-in-the-night, leaving a pile of junk behind.

vacant former Radio Shack store in former Northern Lights Shopping Center, Conway, PA

ex-Radio Shack

unknown

There’s no one factor that led Northern Lights to this point. We know retail in general and shopping malls in particular have suffered for years. This is a national trend affecting city, suburb, and small town alike.

Northern Lights would have to deal with serious competition–first from the more modern Beaver Valley Mall (opened 1970), then The Internet. Couple that with the loss of thousands and thousands of well-paying steel industry jobs and the massive buying power they once provided all evaporating.in short order in the 1980s.

unknown

Perhaps the cruelest plot point is that Northern Lights Shopping Center–itself a ruthless aggressor in the retail war with various Main Streets up and down the Ohio River Valley–was ultimately cannibalized by the same buy-cheap-and-convenient economic forces that brought it to life.

In 2014, WalMart opened a new megastore on the hillside just above the plaza, despite a major legal fight with Giant Eagle. The route to get there is a brand new road, created via eminent domain, right through the demolished space where J.C. Penny used to be^[4]. If no one shops at Northern Lights anymore, at least they drive through its enormous parking lot to get to WalMart.

interior of vacant Chinese restaurant in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Baden, PA

ex-Chinese restaurant

[1] Source: http://ambridgememories.blogspot.com/2013/11/northern-lights-shoppers-city-opening.html
[2] Actually, Southdale Center, the “world’s first modern shopping mall,” opened in 1956–the very same year as Northern Lights–in suburban Minneapolis. Source: https://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-first-modern-shopping-mall-5114869
[3] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway,_Pennsylvania#Demographics
[4] Source: https://archive.triblive.com/news/pittsburgh-allegheny/work-on-wal-mart-supercenter-set-to-begin-in-beaver-county/

Precious Metal: The Disappearing Legacy öf Hard Rock Graffiti

March 3, 20191 Comment

spray paint rendering of the British flag on cement wall, Sharpsburg, PA

All we’ve got is a photograph: Def Leppard (c. 1983), Sharpsburg

There was a time when giants walked the earth. Abbreviated to just single power words, their names are legend: Zeppelin, Priest, Dokken, Maiden, Krokus, Crüe. Burnouts, D-20 rollers, and teenage hair-farmers alike analyzed Tolkien-meets-toking mysticism, tapped and plucked modal riffage on second-hand battle axes, and armored themselves in a suburban denim-and-studs couture. Umlauts döminated every pössible occasiön. Yes, it was the very best of times.

The penance for an enviable life rich in metal mullets, keg beer consumed by a river, double bass drums, and a perpetual soreness in the neck and ringing in the ears was to pay tribute to one’s idols in the most public, lasting, and respectful way: half-assedly spray-painting their names on dimly-lit concrete walls.

masonry window sill with graffiti "Led Zepp", Pittsburgh, PA

Communication breakdown: Led Zepp(elin) (c. 1980), Hazelwood

This ain’t the summer of love: Blue Öyster Cult (hook and cross logo) (c. 1981), New Brighton

Existing somewhere between the cave paintings at Lascaux and ballpoint etchings committed by high school students into classroom desks and Trapper Keepers, metal/hard rock graffiti occupies a very particular place in modern cultural history.

In the city (at least), we see graffiti everywhere–to the point it becomes a kind of visual white noise, unnoticed for its omnipresence. Every alley, dumpster, and bus shelter is tagged-up; jersey barriers, concrete infrastructure, and the back sides of traffic signs bear a familiar scrawl and riot of puckering stickers. In some places you’ll see elaborate full-color wall-sized tags and in others, pithy sophomoric humor. But nobody–and I mean nobody–ever paints graffiti to praise rock stars–or any other musicians–anymore. You just don’t see it.

graffiti for metal band Iron Maiden in cement drainage tunnel, Munhall, PA

Caught somewhere in time: Iron Maiden (c. 1984), Munhall [photo: Lee Floyd]

spray paint graffiti "Ace of Space" on cement wall, New Brighton, PA

Ace of Spade (sic) (Motörhead) (c. 1980), New Brighton

Like Stonehenge and Chichen Itzá, these primitive tributes dating from the late Cold War have stood stalwart through the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. Indeed, twenty, thirty, even forty years on we still see their traces…if you know where to look.

The jean jacket alchemists who spun black vinyl into precious metal blazed the names and iconography of their heroes in the kinds of places teenagers hung out before anyone in the gang had a car and long before the Internet existed. Some of these remain, blessedly untouched by the hands of public works crews with more important things to take care of.

graffiti of "Judas Priest" carved into handrail of city steps, Pittsburgh, PA

Judas Priest (c. 1984), Rising Main city steps, Fineview

graffiti reading "Iron Maiden" carved into handrail of city steps, Pittsburgh, PA

Iron Maiden (c. 1984), Rising Main city steps, Fineview

In Pittsburgh city limits, the obvious bridge railings, retaining walls, and industrial fencing has been tagged and painted-over in so many yearly cycles that almost nothing from this halcyon era survives. But dig a little deeper–or climb a little higher–and you can still find the names of goat-throwing deities carved into the handrails of underused city steps, scratched into train trestle underpasses, or spray-painted on stormwater runoff drains. Further afield, the spoils get richer.

spray paint graffiti for Deep Purple, New Brighton, PA

Deep Purple (c. early 1980s), New Brighton

faded graffiti reading "Led Zepplin rules" on cement wall, Sharpsburg, PA

Led Zepplin (sic.) rules (c. 1980), Sharpsburg

This all begs the obvious question, where did it go? Or, more precisely, why did it stop? No, we don’t expect the youth of today to still be into ZZ Top and Deep Purple (we can dream, though!), but kids still like music, right? Why did the act of desecrating public infrastructure in the (literal) name of a favorite musical act simply amount to a two- or three-decade fad, basically gone by the turn of the millennia?

The Orbit has no clear answer for this–not even an educated guess. That said, it’s likely some combination of The Internet, overprotective parents, unlimited and ever-changing entertainment options, and…oh yeah, The Internet again. Why climb down in a culvert with a can of Rust-Oleum for some band no one will care about in six months when you could be Snapchatting with a stranger in Singapore?

spray paint graffiti on cinderblock wall for ZZ Top, Homestead, PA

ZZ Top (c. 1983), Homestead

graffiti for metal band Metallica spray painted on cement wall, Munhall, PA

0 for 2: Metalica (sic.) Alchoholica (sic.) (c. 1990), Munhall [photo: Lee Floyd]

It’s all probably a good thing for the sake of our public spaces. Here at the Orbit, we report on graffiti when it makes sense, but we’re also not advocating for it. If young people have a deeper respect for our parks and sidewalks, private residences and commercial buildings that’s great…but I don’t really think that’s what’s going on.

With all its great opportunity, something definitely got lost when The Internet came to town. There was a deep connection that many of us had to a small number of artists–saving up weeks of paper route money to buy one record which then got played over and over. That’s no longer a practical necessity when the history of popular music is available right through the phone in your pocket. The opportunity is great; the connection and identification, not so much. Who’s going to risk a misdemeanor for […hold on while I Google the current pop/rock charts…] Ariana Grande or Panic! At the Disco?

[Side note: the irony that as we’re going to press Queen holds 13 of the top 25 “Hot Rock” tracks is not lost on this author.]

Twisted Sister (c. 1984), Sharpsburg

graffiti tribute to Norwegian metal band Mayhem on cement wall, Pittsburgh, PA

Mayhem (c. 1990s?), Mt. Oliver

Some notes on the photos and dates:

Sadly, The Orbit doesn’t have the proper resources to do the kind of carbon-dating and art preservation that these historical documents clearly deserve. That said, we consulted the expertise of metal scholars Dave Bjorkback, Ben Blanchard, and Lee Floyd in the course of reporting this story. We are indebted to their lifetime of study.

faded graffiti for metal band Korn on cement wall, Sharpsburg, PA

Korn (c. 2000), Sharpsburg

We don’t know for sure that the rendering of the Union Jack (above, top) was in fact a tribute to Def Leppard, but they were the U.K. band who flew…err, sat on the British flag most prominently during this, their prime “ten-arm” Pyromania/Hysteria era–so it’s a reasonable guess.
The 1980s were way past Deep Purple’s early-’70s creative peak, but given the proximity to other specimens in New Brighton’s Big Rock Park [yes: that’s really the name of the place where this–and others–were found], we believe this is a more accurate estimate.
Faster Pussycat was an also-ran in the Sunset Strip hair metal scene of the late-1980s. The band was named after a Russ Meyer film, however, and the cryptic hobo tag on this boxcar (below) doesn’t really give us any clue as to what the writer was after. It’s still worth a mention.

graffiti cartoon of a vampire with "Faster Pussycat" written on his cloak, Neville Island, PA

Faster Pussycat, Neville Island

Let’s Get Small: Parvaneh Torkamani’s Abstraction in Miniature

February 24, 2019Leave a comment

detail from miniature painting by Parvaneh Torkamani

“Stream of consciousness abstract art with no end.” Detail from one of Parvaneh Torkamani’s “A Thread in the Night” paintings

Get in close. Even closer. No, I mean take your glasses off and push your schnoz right into the screen.

There, in tightly organized brushstroke rows are multicolor clusters of dits, dots, dashes, and squiggles; abstract shapes that appear like sentence fragments in the calligraphy of an exotic language; hieroglyphic messages encoded only for the in-the-know.

Pittsburgh artist Parvaneh Torkamani has been painting in this style of miniature “stream of consciousness abstract art with no end” for nearly thirty years. You’ve got a rare chance to see her work on display–with a dance performance, to boot–this Friday, during the monthly Unblurred art crawl in Garfield.

artist Parvaneh Torkamani with wall of paintings

Parvaneh Torkamani with paintings in her home studio

On a page of a pocket-sized notebook, Torkamani has detailed an elaborate painted storyline illustrated in just the smallest gestures committed in silver acrylic paint. It’s a setup that reads like ancient history–or mythology, perhaps–Slave and Queen abut Slave with Child and Husband King. The action really gets going when Kimono clad princess stands on the back of a servant being coached by head servant, supported by other servants.

Yes: there is a lot going on in this little space and one definitely needs to use her or his imagination to see it come to life. Is the first-time viewer really expected to get all of this? Torkamani explains:

The viewer will see whatever they will see. Sometimes they will experience what I was seeing, but the art is more abstract than not. The idea sometimes gets lost in the abstraction, but I try to create an atmosphere.

detail from notebook of Parvaneh Torkamani

notebook detail

Resident Persian, the title of Torkamani’s show–as well as her Instagram handle–is “an ironic reaction to being surveyed for being foreign.” It’s also a very literal description of the Iran-born, U.S.-matured artist who has one foot each in these two worlds. Fluent in the languages of both nations, Torkamani’s English is delivered in a soft-spoken voice with the gentlest of Middle Eastern accents. Bon mots on “the arch of an eyebrow, the bend of a shoulder” seem to echo the subtle, suggestive forms of each connection between tiny brushstroke and frizzled paper target.

To this curious outsider, it is the artwork that reads as the most obvious reference to Torkamani’s Persian heritage. The delicate brushwork is nonrepresentational, but in its ordered, linear presentation, it can’t help but resemble the beautiful curlicue scripts of handwritten Persian, Arabic, or Urdu. Iran has a long tradition of miniature painting, but, according to Torkamani, “I don’t have that training.” We’re not so sure she didn’t absorb it anyway.

detail from “A Thread in the Night” painting

While the tiny works of art in the “A Thread in the Night” series–each Cinemascope-shaped painting in the current show is around four inches wide by eighteen inches long–reward a very very close reading, they also work from farther back.

Torkamani might be insulted by the suggestion of these original pieces as purely decorative artwork, but it’s undeniable that they’d look fantastic in reproduction. In their linear patterns, interlocking script and ornament, alternating color and space there is a hypnotic quality that one can’t help but wish were blown up to wrap walls and make textiles, decorate pretty paper and hip upholstery, animate motion graphics across screens big and small.

detail from “A Thread in the Night” painting

Obvious passions for Torkamani are the intertwined causes of homelessness and food insecurity. For the the Boom Concepts show there will be an installation piece consisting of cardboard and brown paper. On one of these is a poem titled “On Homelessness” dealing beautifully and bluntly with that subject.

Blasting winds of winter / Breaths of Hades / Penetration beneath clothes under skin / You whisper death is about as harrowing an opening salvo as this poetry-curious blogger has ever tripped across.

detail of poem about homelessness painted on cardboard

detail from Torkamani’s poem/installation “On Homelessness”

Torkamani hopes to raise awareness for these issues with the show. “To do art is to have a cause; art in a vacuum is nothing but vanity. I hope people who care about these causes will come out and help me start something,” Torkamani says, “With the help of volunteers who would tell me about food insecure people they know and those who would carry the food to them, I plan to be there for this cause.”

These are noble and ambitious goals–and it’s not entirely clear how they would come together. Sometimes, however, to go big, you need to get small.

artist Parvaneh Torkamani holding a painted canvas

Parvaneh Torkamani with a recent painting

Parvaneh Torkamani’s Resident Persian Project opens this Friday, March 1, at Boom Concepts (5139 Penn Ave., Garfield). The opening runs 7-10 PM with a special dance performance by Torkamani at 8:00. The show will be up for the month of March.

Valentine’s Day Hearts 2019, Part 2: Love Hangover

February 17, 2019Leave a comment

rusty heart shape carved into red dumpster, Pittsburgh, PA

love dumpster, Downtown [photo: Lisa Valentino]

It would figure that someone named Valentino would get busy this time of year. The surname is likely a coincidence, but artist Lisa Valentino answered the call for found-around-town hearts early, often, and with remarkable geographic reach. That could be explained–at least partially–by an ongoing project to walk all the streets of Pittsburgh (“WATSOP”). [Yes: we’ll have to follow up with Lisa on this particular endeavor.]

Valentino and reader Linda Smith both turned in some terrific found hearts for our Valentine’s Day challenge. Graffiti, murals, street art, nature, and even that plague of public works crews: the “love lock”–they’re all there. To the rest of you slackers: show a little love next time!

Follow Lisa Valentino on Instagram @lisa.valentino and Linda Smith @linsmith415.

fire hydrant with graffiti heart, Pittsburgh, PA

heart valve, South Side [photo: Lisa Valentino]

cold cold heart [photo: Lisa Valentino]

mural on brick wall including combined heart and peace sign, Pittsburgh, PA

peace heart, South Side [photo: Lisa Valentino]

wooden heart [photo: Linda Smith]

painted tin can with white heart nailed to utility pole, Pittsburgh, PA

tin can pole (he)art, Bloomfield [photo: Lisa Valentino]

graffiti heart on cinderblock wall, Pittsburgh, PA

down-and-out heart, Strip District [photo: Lisa Valentino]

waterfall and icy water in shape of heart

frozen heart, Ohiopyle [photo: Linda Smith]

black(top) heart, Homewood Cemetery [photo: Lisa Valentino]

spray paint heart on bridge railing, Pittsburgh, PA

the classic, Bloomfield Bridge [photo: Lisa Valentino]

love lock, Oakland [photo: Lisa Valentino]

Valentine’s Day Hearts 2019, Part 1: Wookin’ Pa Nub

February 14, 2019February 17, 2019Leave a comment

hand painted window image of Cupid in retail store front window, Clairton, PA

Cupid and hearts, Clairton

It’s heart season–pink and red, gooey and sugary, frilly and fragrant. Yes, Valentine’s Day is upon us again. Dropped strategically at the apex of winter blahs and spaced weeks–months even–from the next closest chocolate-and-champagne retail opportunity, we know it’s here because it’d be a gray ghost town without it.

Even as cynical as this “holiday” can feel, love–in all its many forms–is a wonderful thing to be celebrated. Whether or not Cupid is out to get you or you’re just hanging with the philias at the Love Moose, The Orbit has collected a season’s worth of found-on-the-street hearts. Consider them our Valentine to you.

neon sign for Moose lodge in shape of heart, Irwin, PA

fraternal love: Moose lodge, Irwin

image of heart made from red tape on electrical box, Pittsburgh, PA

yes, love is full of red tape, Bloomfield

wood frame house with red heart painted on green siding, Pittsburgh, PA

heart house, Garfield

graffiti heart with names "Trump" and "Putin" inside

…sittin’ in a swing, C-O-L-L-U-D-I-N-G, Lawrenceville

handmade sign with heart and text "Friendship", Pittsburgh, PA

love and friendship, Friendship

blue hearts stenciled on concrete sidewalk

stencil hearts, Millvale Street Bridge

painted sign for New Life Assembly of God church on side of building, Brownsville, PA

Mon Valley agape, Brownsville

message taped to wall reading "I love you so much"

I love you stomach…err, so much, Squirrel Hill

graffiti image of heart painted on cement wall

bleeding heart, Mon Wharf

purple heart, Millvale Street Bridge

Dang-là Vu: The Return of the East End Dangler!

January 27, 20192 Comments

ripe (looking) apples hanging from bare tree limbs–The East End Dangler has returned!

I. The Return of the East End Dangler

Things had gone quiet on Centre Avenue. Spring turned to summer, and then summer rolled over to autumn with nary a bustle in our hedgerow. It was enough to make the few who experienced it believe the whole thing had been a strange dream.

Cue: soft focus and shimmering harp glissando. A line of fish, each one tied to the next by a length of twine knotted around their tail fins. The little garlands, suspended from branches of mid-sized street trees, gently swaying in the breeze like decorations for a strange holiday. Did that really happen?

Oh yes, it was for real–and serious as a heart attack. Even more, after an apparent six- to ten-month dormancy, this dang-là vu is happening all over again. The East End Dangler is back–and this time, he or she isn’t fooling around*.

apple, grapes, East Liberty

We know these things about The East End Dangler:

The Dangler has a ready supply of small children’s toys and decorative plastic fruit.
The Dangler regularly traffics on upper Centre Avenue in East Liberty (nearish Whole Foods).
The Dangler loves all-you-can-eat Asian seafood buffets.

That’s about it.

bunch of grapes, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

To catch you up: starting in 2017, Orbit staff began to notice strands of toys hanging from the limbs of street trees in East Liberty. What first felt like a one-off goofy prank soon revealed itself as full-on, serial hanging-around. We’ll not rehash the whole series of events here, but that initial story unwound in “Something Fishy: Angling for the East End Dangler” [Pittsburgh Orbit, May 13, 2018].

As mentioned in the intro, a quiet period followed this initial rush of dangling–too quiet, as the cliché goes. Indeed, after some period of months Orbit beat reporters spotted brand new dangles in the same approximate locations starting up in the late fall.

shark, cargo chopper, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

In an attempt to smoke out the assailant, the crew settled in for that most grueling part of detective work: the stake out. Between the salt-and-pepper squid and wood ear mushrooms, “crazy roll” sushi and cheese wontons, kielbasa and garlic bread, all eyes were trained on the handful of trees just above Hokkaido Seafood Buffet’s parking lot on Browns Hill Road. Why, assuming we weren’t up re-loading another platter of pork shumai and seaweed salad, cotton candy ice cream and banana pudding, the focus was unrelenting. But–unlike the case of heartburn that hit a little later that afternoon–The Dangler didn’t show.

We do see some new media this time around–The Dangler has moved on from a strict palette of Happy Meal toys and rubber fish to now including decorative plastic fruit. All other signatures are entirely consistent.

toy airplane hanging by wire in bare tree limb

plane wreck, Hokkaido, Browns Hill Road

II. The Hunt for The Dangler

Not content to just sit on our collective keister while a mad prankster was stringing up their next trophies, we decided to send The Dangler a little message.

Borrowing from our own arsenal of cast-off Hot Wheels and sandbox-encrusted earth movers, co-assistant to the mailroom intern Lee baited the hook by assembling his own strings of pearls. These were taken to the same general batch of street trees along high Centre Ave. and placed for maximum effect to catch The Dangler’s attention.

And then we waited.

toy cars hanging by string from tree limbs

Dangler bait #1: Hot Wheels high up

Now, we know correlation is not causation, but let’s just say we set a trap…and The Dangler stepped in it. Sure enough, the ol’ tree stringer came a-runnin’ as if mom or dad had served up supper in the sycamores of Danglerville. Or, at least, the R.S.V.P. we mailed out on a whim was answered with a bouquet of plastic grapes hung high in the branches at Centre & South Euclid.

The Dangler also went on to bomb several more trees in the same pair of previous locations. Our serve was returned with a volley that could only be read as a challenge. Well played, Dangler.

yellow toy trucks hanging by string in tree

Dangler bait #2: yellow trucks in low tree limbs

III. A New Clue?

Just as it’s naive to assume our solar system is the only one in the universe sustaining life, we should sooner hand over our quasi-journalistic credentials than think we’ve cornered every possible dangle. No, Pittsburgh is a big city–at least, in terms of square miles and tree coverage–the idea that unassisted Orbit staff would have just randomly tripped across the only two locations of serial dangling would be foolish. The Dangler must have struck elsewhere, right?

That seems not only plausible, but a sure thing. However, if true, the dangles remain in tree limbs so far un-spotted.

statue of William Shakespeare with plastic apple added

Carnegie Music Hall’s Shakespeare statue with appended apple–the work of The Dangler?

That may have changed with one additional clue at the beginning of this month. The statue of William Shakespeare in front of the combined Carnegie Music Hall/Library in Oakland was updated to include a single red plastic apple, hanging from The Bard’s neck.

It is absolutely not The Dangler’s style to suspend single objects from public statuary. And yet, there are enough obvious similarities here to send us into a certified tizzy. Is this the work of a brazen copycat? Coincidental pranksterism? Or has The Dangler decided to taunt his victims in an obvious act to goad us into making an impulsive mistake?

Pittsburgh Orbit cannot answer these questions…yet. But Dangler, if you’re reading this, know that we’re onto you like a strand of fish in a street gingko. We’re putting the pieces together and we’ll not rest until your dangling ways are understood.

If you have any additional information on The East End Dangler or other dangled targets, please contact our anonymous tip line. We need all the help we can get on this important case.

* Actually, he or she probably is fooling around.