Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Stop Signs with Bonus Lines

June 20, 20212 Comments

stop sign with added sign reading "Call your mom," Pittsburgh, PA — STOP! Call your mom … unless you don’t get along with your mom and then maybe you should just keep on going. Altered stop sign, Bloomfield.

It is one of the more iconic images we see every day on nearly every corner in the built landscape. Bold, red, and shaped into a perfect octagon, outlined with a white border, the sign has the simple, impossible-to-misconstrue message: STOP.

But, as these things go, they don’t always carry only that text. Pranksters and jokesters, the graffiti-addled and social justice-minded have taken the (traffic) law into their own hands hither and yon. Their doctored stop signs take the familiar to the absurd and hopefully give us a laugh or a ponderable notion while we apply the brakes and look both ways.

Stop sign alterations are so common that mass-produced white-on-red stickers are available for just this purpose. We included a couple examples of these (see STOP the Trump Kleptocracy and STOP elder neglect, below), but The Orbit generally considers these “corporate sign-jacking” that isn’t nearly as interesting as the bespoke variety.

There’s really not much more to say on this topic, so now we’re just going to …

stop sign altered to read "Stop in the name of love" — A supreme alteration. STOP! In the name of love I. Highland Park

stop sign with letters added reading "in the name of love," Pittsburgh, PA — Think it over. STOP! In the name of love II. Bloomfield [note the bonus protractor]

stop sign altered to read "Don't Stop Believing" — Every Journey has to stop somewhere. Don’t STOP Believing. Lawrenceville

stop sign with graffiti addition of "the pig," Pittsburgh, PA — STOP the pig. Just one pig, though. Friendship

stop sign altered to read "Stop Rad City" — Where is Rad City and why do we need to stop it? STOP Rad City. Friendship

stop ahead sign with added extra sign reading "free range children" — STOP (ahead): free range children, Shadyside

stop sign with added sticker to read "Stop elder neglect" — STOP elder neglect. Spring Garden

stop sign altered to read "Please stop Trump" — Done, sort of. Please STOP Trump. Homestead

stop sign with added sticker to read "Stop the Trump kleptocracy" — STOP the Trump kleptocracy. North Side

stop sign altered to read "Stop killing" — Less killing, more living. STOP killing. East Liberty

stop sign with added text "... hatin'" — Less hatin’, more lovin’. STOP hatin’! South Side

stop sign with added text "I love you" — STOP! I love you. We love you, too. Friendship

Walk This Way: Millvale’s Art Crosswalks

January 31, 20211 Comment

crosswalk mural of woman with wild multicolor hair

Wild hair. Crosswalk mural at Sedgwick Street and Grant Ave., Millvale

While no one wants to be a doormat, we might all wistfully hope to be a crosswalk. At least, we would if we were rendered this lovingly.

Standing on the corner, the woman in the street is quite the vision. With a plain face and porcelain skin, she is more antique doll than real flesh and blood. It is her hair, though–a psychedelic swirl of curled pinks, mauves, and orange locks spread out across a technicolor rainbow backdrop–that gets the well-deserved focus here.

The mural is painted across Sedgwick Street, in Millvale. It is one of a couple dozen similar murals painted last summer directly on top of existing crosswalks in the borough’s great little downtown business district. We don’t know who the individual painters are [artists: please get in touch so we can credit you!] but various reports have the murals loosely associated with the group that puts on the annual Millvale Music Festival. That free weekend turn-every-business-into-a-music-venue hootenanny, along with everything else, just couldn’t happen last year.

street crosswalk mural of large fish in water

Something fishy (Grant & Sherman)

street crosswalk mural of books on a shelf

BIG free library (Grant & Sheridan)

While the show wasn’t able to go on, Millvale’s civic spirit continued unabated. The murals are 100% focused on the community, with almost all of them containing unnamed but sly references to the small businesses that exist in the immediate proximity.

There are a pair of collections of disembodied haircuts near Shear Timing and Salon 22; a lineup of dancing tacos, hot peppers, and salsas by Baby Loves Tacos’ North Ave. location; a firehose dowsing a raging flame in front of the fire department. A row of books is just down from the public library; stacks of Pamela’s glorious crepe-like pancakes at the P&G Diner; happy kids and chocolate bunnies by Yetter’s Candy Shop.

As waistline-watching, model-building, music fiends, we’re wondering how Jean-Marc’s French bakery, Esther’s Hobby Shop, and The Attic Record Store slipped through cracks here, but perhaps those are all in the works for this coming summer.

details from different murals painted in crosswalks, all of haircuts or scissors

Curl up and dye (details) (Grant & Sedgwick; North & Lincoln)

street crosswalk mural of fire and water hose

Firehouse (Lincoln & Sedgwick)

At present, Millvale’s downtown community is at a real high point of healthy livability. Its storefronts are occupied with businesses from the mundane to the sublime: there are a couple fancy things, a lot of nice-to-haves, and plenty of nuts-and-bolts. Those of us looking at (and regularly walking across the bridge to) Millvale from across the river in Lawrenceville can tell you all about the slippery slope from this zenith of sensible sustainability to drowning in condos, Thai rolled ice cream, and weekend partiers arriving by the Uber-load.

The crosswalk murals that celebrate Millvale’s community point all this out beautifully, without ever needing to rub your face in it. This little borough with its candy shops and laundromat, diners, dive bars, and videotape rental, church-turned-concert hall and ex-Moose Lodge to trattoria Sprezzatura, has so much to offer right now–even in the depths of Covid-induced ghost towns everywhere–that we should appreciate what we’ve got and how we can keep it just like it is.

street crosswalk mural reading "Millvale"

Gateway to Millvale (North Ave.)

details from murals painted in street crosswalks

Happy kids! Beer-making icons! (Grant & Sedgwick; Grant & Sherman)

Taco town! (Grant & North)

street crosswalk mural of stack of pancakes

That is a LARGE stack (detail) (North & Lincoln)

Tiny bubbles (Grant & North)

Garden scene (detail) (Grant & Butler)

Stamp Collecting: A Tale of Filbert, Falvo, Frank, and Ferrante

November 15, 2020November 17, 20201 Comment

brass sidewalk plaque for G.H. Filbert, Pittsburgh, PA

“F” is for stamp collecting. Hundred-year-old(-ish) brass sidewalk plaque for mason G.H. Filbert, Shadyside

You’d think a person pounding greater Pittsburgh’s pavement, eyes glued to the surface in an intense review of its cracks and crevasses, would run out of new sidewalk inscriptions … eventually. But lucky for all of us, there is a lot of cement in the world.

So much so that after years of meticulous street-by-street inspection we can still regularly turn up absolute jewels in the field like that of G.H. Filbert’s big brass F (above) on a Shadyside cross street or the gorgeous compressed-lettering typeface of Falvo & Son’s stamp (below) on the same day, on the same block. That’s what makes this particular egg hunt so eternally rewarding.

sidewalk stamp for Falvo & Son, Pittsburgh, PA

Falvo & Son, Shadyside

What about the Putchs? Frank and Edward (father and son? or possibly brothers?) had their own sidewalk-pouring empire throughout the greater North Side. Sure, we had a pair of different Edward Putch stamps one of the times we did this, but he turns up here with yet a third variety of the stamp design, this time as E.W.

sidewalk stamp for E.W. Putch, Pittsburgh, PA

E.W. Putch (version #3), Marshall-Shadeland

One could cut the excitement around Chez Orbit with a knife when another Putch entered our lives in the form of the first-initial-only F. Now, usually Googling any of the names on these older stamps gets us exactly bupkis, but this time around we hit paydirt. The great online photo and map archive HistoricPittsburgh.org happens to have an August, 1918 photo of Frank Putch Stone & Concrete world headquarters on Brighton Road in Woods Run (see photo, below).

Don’t look for that little shack today–it’s long gone–but the three-story tavern/apartment building across the alley is still there and one imagines the ghosts of Putchs past still hoisting lagers after long days of building walkways in Perry Hilltop and Marshall-Shadeland.

sidewalk stamp for F. Putch, Pittsburgh, PA

F. Putch (#1), Marshall-Shadeland

F. Putch (#2), Perry Hilltop

photo of Frank Putch Stone and Concrete company, Pittsburgh, PA

Frank Putch Stone & Concrete, Brighton Road, Woods Run, c. 1918 (photo: HistoricPittsburgh.org)

After that, we’ve got a bunch of one-offs. These all count as rare breeds, deep cuts, and/or white whales. With the exception of the Ferrante brass plaque (we got his more pedestrian stamp in 2018), Luick & Sons (there are a couple variants of this one), Ricci & Ciotola (at least two of these exist in Bloomfield), and John Heubel (Erie isn’t really “in orbit” and therefore hasn’t gotten the full dragnet yet) the rest of these all amount to one and only one spotting anywhere.

brass sidewalk plaque of John Ferrante & Son, Pittsburgh, PA

John Ferrante & Son, Point Breeze

John Heubel, Erie

sidewalk stamp for A.B. Gray, Pittsburgh, PA

A.B. Gray, Lawrenceville

Anthony Frank, Beaver

sidewalk stamp for Joseph Franceshini, Pittsburgh, PA

Joseph Franceshini, Lawrenceville

sidewalk stamp for Saccacione Cement Contractor, Pittsburgh, PA

Saccacione Cement Contractor, Bloomfield

sidewalk stamp for Riccla Ciotola, Pittsburgh, PA

Ricci & Ciotola, Bloomfield

sidewalk stamp for D. Dalia, Pittsburgh, PA

D. Dalia, Bloomfield

hand-written sidewalk stamp for Joe Palmiera, Pittsburgh

Joe Palmiera, Friendship

sidewalk stamp for Supreme Masonry, Pittsburgh, PA

Supreme Masonry/S. Dunkovich, Uptown

sidewalk stamp for Luick & Sons, Pittsburgh, PA

Luick & Sons, Lawrenceville

sidewalk stamp for Battaglia & Sons, Pittsburgh, PA

Battaglia & Sons, Shadyside

sidewalk stamp for Avelli Construction Crop., Beaver, PA

Avelli Construction Corp., Beaver

sidewalk stamp for R.C. Coccaro, Pittsburgh, PA

R.C. Coccaro, Friendship

heart-shaped sidewalk stamp from Allegheny Concrete Co.

Allegheny Concrete Co., Brighton Heights

What’s Up with WATSOP? A Q&A with Lisa Valentino on Her Quest to Walk Every Street in Pittsburgh

April 26, 20205 Comments

artist Lisa Valentino posing with a completed walking map of a section of Pittsburgh

One down, 89 to go. Artist Lisa Valentino having just completed walking every street in Garfield.

At the Orbit, we like to think we’ve, you know, been around. To have at least set a foot in all of Pittsburgh’s 90 neighborhoods, sure, but also up city steps and down back alleys, poked behind dumpsters and into collapsing buildings, we’ve partied with weed-eating goats on the South Side and wild turkeys in Allegheny Cemetery, we know where the wild blackberries can be picked in June and the pawpaws fall in September.

All that bragging and when it comes to seeing Pittsburgh–like, really seeing Pittsburgh–we’re still holding Lisa Valentino‘s Olde Frothingslosh.

front yard decorated with homemade religious ornaments

IRL word cloud for the Orbit: Heaven and Hell, sin and blood. Front yard decoration in Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar.

Valentino is an artist by day and an urban hiker by … the other parts of the day. Five years ago she set out with the ambitious goal of walking all the streets of Pittsburgh. That project–usually shortened to the acronym WATSOP–takes an impressive amount of discipline, organization, and physical stamina, but we’re consistently bowled-over by Valentino’s oddball finds in the field.

Yeah, sure–I’ve been to Lincoln-Lemington plenty of times–but never came across the Heaven & Hell painted garden edger thingamagigs. And how about the Valentine’s Day skeleton of Brookline? It was Lisa who hooked us up with Barbie’s Dream Cult in Polish Hill.

SO, we thought it was high time to check in with Valentino and find out what’s up with WATSOP, how she came up with the project, keeps track of where she’s been, and what she’s learned along the way.

Editor’s note: Typically, for a story like this, we’d do a walk-along to chronicle the process. But between the timely need for social distancing and the fact that Lisa’s photos are already so great, this story involved zero field work. All photos courtesy of Lisa Valentino.

collection of Barbie dolls attached to chain link fence

Barbie’s Dream Cult, Polish Hill

How did you come up with the idea to walk all of Pittsburgh’s streets?

First, for four years I had been doing Project 365–take one photo every day and post on social media. At four years one exhausts everything familiar (yes, one day I photographed all the doorknobs in my house at the 11th hour). I was already in the habit of searching and exploring for something different and new to catch my eye.

Then I stumbled upon Félix de la Concha’s One A Day at the alumni hall at Pitt. His 365 paintings of the Cathedral of Learning from as many different perspectives got me really noticing when the iconic building would pop into view as I traveled in and out of the city. One day, while starting the climb to the slopes on a walk in the South Side I saw the Cathedral in the distance and wondered “from how many locations will I see a view of the Cathedral?” Then it hit me…. “Let’s find out!” And “what else will I find?” And “Why not walk ALL THE STREETS OF PITTSBURGH to SEE what I will find?!” And there it was!

long-distance view of Pittsburgh from hillside neighborhood

View of Oakland and Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning from the South Side Slopes

What are the parameters of the project?

When I set off to do this, the first hurdle was finding a map! Many Pittsburgh maps only encompassed areas close to downtown. Maps that included a bit of a wider range did not have enough detail to show every street. So I began to search for any map that would show and name my two block street in Point Breeze.

After settling on the perfect map, a Bike Pittsburgh Map, I started marking off my walked streets. If it’s on the map, I walk it. As the years have gone by several new streets have popped up that are not on my map, but more surprising are the number of streets that seemed to have disappeared. Most due to abandonment, I suppose. Overgrown with trees and weeds and barely a path to indicate a street was ever there.

I walk every street, alley, and dead-end in the city. I will not do the highways/parkways unless there is a patch that keeps me off those busy roads. I only do city steps if they get me from one street to another. Because they are not on the Bike Pgh map, I don’t count them as walking the streets. (Perhaps someone needs to come up with a Walk Pgh map?) Though I will say, there is nothing more delightful than stumbling upon a set of city steps to take me to the next street and avoiding doubling back from where I just came!

overgrown vacant lot between two brick buildings

“I walk every street, alley, and dead-end in the city.” Homewood

When did you start? Do you have an estimated completion date?

My first intentional Walking All the Streets of Pittsburgh walk was May 18, 2015. When I started I foolishly thought I could finish in one year. I suppose if I did nothing else in the year and suffered no setbacks I could have. I mean, it’s easy to walk 1000 miles in a year, right? Averaging less than 3 miles a day?! But life never works that way. Twice I lost months of walking due to back problems that left me unable to do much more than lay on the floor watching the Hays eagle cam for weeks at a time!

As I approach the anniversary with nearly five years under my belt, I would love to finish by May 18, 2020. But that looks unlikely. You know, life.

hilltop neighborhood view from Pittsburgh

View of Allentown and top of the USX Tower from Knoxville

How often do you walk (for the project) and for how long? How do you plan the schedule for the walks?

When I started walking, I walked everywhere I could from my house in Point Breeze: to Squirrel Hill for shopping and movies; to Regent Square and Shadyside for lunch and dinner dates with friends. To doctors appointments in Oakland. I jumped on any reason to walk from my house to anywhere I had to go.

Then any time I needed to get in the car to travel somewhere I’d squeeze in a chance to walk before coming back home. Visiting family in the South Hills had me stopping to cross off streets in southern neighborhoods. I’d Google laundromats and search for ones in outlying neighborhoods so I could walk between cycles. I looked forward to appointments and meetings as another opportunity to explore a new neighborhood.

The length of the walks and number of times I walked each week varied depending on my schedule, my health, the weather, and hours of daylight. I would stop to cross off one street in a sea of walked streets as I drove past a neighborhood, or, in the summer with its long hours of daylight, I’d do two big walks, one in the morning and one in the evening while the light lingered.
These days I find myself needing to drive about a half hour each way to get to a neighborhood where I need to walk, having completed most of streets in the Triangle (east of the Point).

lawn decoration of plastic skeleton with red valentine prop

The Valentine’s Day skeleton of Brookline

How do you track where you’ve been?

After a walk I’d take a Sharpie to the Bike Pgh maps to cross off streets. I had one copy of the map I’d take with me on walks as reference, and one hung on my wall as a display. I soon began using the MapMyWalk app to track my route because it became hard to remember and focus on the route, especially while walking with friends. Then the map became hard to read. With all those Sharpie route tracings, it was a less reliable resource for where I still needed to walk. So I began marking my walks in Google Maps. While the travel map is tattered and torn beyond usefulness, I do still use it fas a prop or my final picture in a completed neighborhood. And the display map hangs proudly on my wall and is updated after each walk.

paper map of Pittsburgh with lines drawn to mark all streets walked

Valentino’s “display” copy of the Bike Pittsburgh map, marked with all currently-walked streets (as of some point in 2019)

Now that you’ve been doing this a while, what’s the biggest difference between your pre-project expectations and the reality of the walks?

Well, if the project started as a quest to see the various viewpoints of the Cathedral of Learning, I can say that I’ve added to that the many wonderful views of downtown beyond Mount Washington. Not just those northern neighborhood views that were entirely new to me, but also the delightful surprise of turning a corner in a southern Hilltop neighborhood to see the very tops of the tallest buildings peeking over the horizon or sandwiched between two houses.

I have also become quite obsessed with water towers. Not only for their unique design and a new appreciation for the engineering to keep satisfactory water pressure in our homes. But also as the best orientation markers the city has to offer. You can view the city skyline and the Cathedral of Learning as a compass pointing you to downtown and Oakland, but seeing the bulbous water tower of the Upper Hill and the Garfield water tower in the same view allows me to put in perspective all the neighborhoods at once.

Holy Hell, these hills! I know they say Canton is the steepest, but thankfully it is quite short. And when walking straight up them I can name a number of streets that seems to have access to the same claim (most of them also in Beechview)! It hadn’t occurred to me that such a hilly terrain is somewhat unique in this country until a friend from Illinois commented on them. I love the city for the hills and the views they provide, and I curse them when I’m tired and the only way to go is UP!

large set of crisscrossing public steps in Pittsburgh

Holy Hell, these hills! City steps, Troy Hill.

What is/are the biggest disappointment(s) you’ve experienced through the project?

Oddly enough, it’s been the number of warnings I’ve gotten to avoid certain areas. To date, I have never had a problem walking in any of the neighborhoods. And in “those” neighborhoods, if anything, I have found THE nicest, most friendly Pittsburghers!

house with yellow flowers and Easter decorations

Spring on the South Side Slopes

If you had an hour-long sit-down meeting with, say, Mayor Peduto (or other city planning officials) what would be your strongest recommendation for action based on what you’ve learned/seen in your project?

Preserve the city steps! This is such a unique, wonderful asset and a beautiful reminder of our pre-car days. [Editor’s note: A to the MEN!]

I love to walk, I love to bike, and I love having a car to get around. But I think people have forgotten that WE ARE ALL PEDESTRIANS and we are all pedestrians FIRST. Before we bike, before we own cars, we walk. And no matter how we get to our destination, we all need to walk those final steps. So I do hope the city continues to keep pedestrian accessibility a priority. Fixing city steps, maintaining and keeping sidewalks clear, dedicated crosswalks and other traffic calming measures to keep the pedestrians safe and motivated to travel by foot.

dog on leash on public steps, Pittsburgh

Valentino’s canine companion on a set of city steps, Perry North

Does such a close block-by-block inspection of the city make you more or less optimistic about Pittsburgh/America/humanity?

Humanity? I tend to run into very few people on my walks. I would say those that I do run into have been friendly, willing to talk and share stories and point out some things that might interest me. I always walk away with a newfound hope for humanity after those encounters, yes.

Pittsburgh? I know everyone has their preferences on this, but I am not excited to see all these big development projects popping up all over the place. Lawrenceville seems to be the worst of it. And of course there is displacement, which is a whole other issue. There is so much beauty and history that would be wonderful to preserve.

ornament of figure holding Bible and name "Rev. Murray"

Rev. Murray, Hazelwood

What do you feel like you’ve learned through the project?

EASY!! I’ve fallen in love with this city!

view of Pittsburgh's Greenfield neighborhood from above

Easy to love. Greenfield/”The Run,” Parkway east, and Cathedral of Learning.

I’ve heard there’s another person also attempting a similar walk-all-Pittsburgh-streets project (but I’m not in contact with her). Are you familiar? Have you ever crossed paths?

I am not at all proud of this, but my gut reaction was “someone is trying to steal my idea.” After I had committed about 4 years to this unique quest it hit me kind of hard. It has taken a while to come to terms with it, but in the end it helped me on my walks. Because we are often photographing the same quirky finds on our walks, it led me to feel less inclined to photograph everything. So on days that I’m being tangled by two puppies as I try to cover streets, I can let go of trying to get photographs. I know Megan will or has found those things already.

And, of course, her approach is much different than mine. She blogs about her walks with much detail and folks should definitely follow her. My approach has always been, as a visual artist, to explore and discover and photograph what I find interesting. My hope would be that by doing so I have encouraged people to want to go out and find or discover the hidden gems of this city for themselves. That is why I tend to give very little detail on where the photos are taken, beyond naming the neighborhood.

Lisa Valentino with crossed-off map of Pittsburgh streets

Valentino with map at the completion of walking Squirrel Hill

For more on Lisa Valentino’s art and creative projects, see her website LisaVCreative.com, Instagram @LisaVCreative, and WATSOP Facebook page.

Related: This story about one person’s quest to walk all of the things in the city can’t help but remind us of Laura Zurowski’s similar-but-different project to locate, climb, photograph, and blog about all 739 sets of city steps. More process, less volume, but equally fascinating. See: Step Beat: Talking Missed Connections and Mis.Steps with Ms. Steps (Pittsburgh Orbit, March, 2018).

Waiting to Go Off: In the Street, On Target, and Under the Bus with Off Hole

July 14, 20197 Comments

Perhaps the world’s finest “off hole”: bus lane, downtown Pittsburgh. [Photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

They had, the joke goes, one job … but it wasn’t this one. In this case the specific task was probably something pretty important: keeping electric power running between buildings; telephone and Internet connectivity; making sure the sewer system doesn’t back up into your basement.

What the job clearly didn’t involve is paying too close attention to how exactly the door was closed when the real work was done and the crew packed up to move on or go home.

switch symbol off hole, North Side [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

Despite this relatively minor detail in the grand scheme of things, those of us top-side get the tiniest evidence that work was occurring under city streets in the form of manhole covers, striped in accordance with road markings and put back not quite where they ought to be. It’s a stretch to say these patterned cast iron discs tell us a story–or really anything–about what was happening below the surface, but we do know something was going on down there.

The effect on the visual landscape is more notable. Each of these little displacements creates a subtle but striking schism in the very regular, ordered, and predictable world of thoroughfare infrastructure. These are known as off holes.

it’s not easy finding a green off hole, Downtown [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

“As a very neat person that needs everything in order, I couldn’t fathom how utility workers didn’t put the covers back in the correct direction,” says Greg Lagrosa, “I would never be able to do that–it would drive me crazy!”

Indeed, it would take someone with more than a little obsessive-compulsiveness to notice–let alone photograph, publicize, and catalog–the city’s off-kilter manhole covers.

If you’ve never noticed the phenomenon, you definitely haven’t been looking. Off holes–the name was coined by Pittsburgh artist Kirsten Ervin–are everywhere. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that every intersection in the city, along with plenty of spots in-between, have manhole covers smack dab in the middle of cross-walks and lane markings. Many of these have gotten worked-on and most of them didn’t get put back in line with their paint jobs.

So close! Single yellow stripe off hole, North Side [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

“To me it’s all about your worldview,” Lagrosa says about the Off Hole project, “There are all of these small things happening in our city. Taking the time to notice the minutiae is a way of interacting with the city in a tangible and human way. Workers are obviously using the manhole covers–that’s why they’re there–we just barely ever see it happen. This is a window into how things work and those lives and stories.”

Lagrosa is regular bicycle rider who commutes from his home in Stanton Heights to a job downtown. As a self-described person that “hates driving and walks and bikes around as much as possible,” he began noticing off holes everywhere he travelled.

classic “waxing gibbous” off hole, Oakland

After studying the random occurrences of off holes throughout Pittsburgh, Lagrosa started studiously photographing each specimen–both as a straight down top view and a broader-context “in the wild” shot. The location and other details are logged in a spreadsheet and one photo a day gets posted to the @off.hole Instagram account.

Nearly half a year into the process, Lagrosa describes some favorite patterns or types of off holes that have emerged:

In my opinion, the best off holes are the clean ones. Just one or two painted lines across the hole, the paint is still really clear and it’s just off. Something like this:

middle double-yellow off hole, Oakland [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

The off holes I wasn’t sure about the most are where the old line is off but it’s been repainted and the new line is still on. At the end of the day I decided this was fine too:

off hole with repainted line, Lower Marion, PA [photo: Off Hole contributor @hottenrottb]

There are the ones where multiple lines have been painted and they are all off:

multi-lined off hole, Friendship [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

And finally, some of them just create cool designs that I like:

pie-slice off hole, Strip District [photo: Off Hole/Greg Lagrosa]

The concept is still a relatively new thing, but Lagrosa has considered expanding into other Internet platforms and possibly going full-on Off Hole IRL in the form of an art show or t-shirt. [Editor’s note: sign me up for a men’s XL!]

For now, though, the focus is mainly on collecting and expanding the Off Hole community. While Lagrosa lives here in Pittsburgh, he accepts–and encourages–submissions from anywhere with pavement and manhole covers. (See details, below.)

a collection of off holes submitted by Orbit staff photographers

When the robot work crews take over, off holes will likely disappear forever. Heck, there are probably industrial designers working right now to try to solve this “problem.”

Here at the Orbit, we love off holes–and Greg’s got the clogged In box to prove it! The phenomenon is another example of the superiority of randomness over hyper organization, faded paint that tells a story to a crisp line’s empty page, and the indefatigable human desire to leave work early and get on to Miller Time. We can all learn something from this.

Friend of the streets. Off Hole’s Greg Lagrosa with a new find, North Side.

Postscript: If there’s a moral to the story it’s that sometimes the cloud may actually be its own silver lining. When asked if on holes were more or less satisfying since commencing the project, Lagrosa responds resolutely, “On holes are just future off holes. I definitely take notice of painted holes in unusual spots and wait for them to go off.”

Think about that for a minute: the guy with self-described OCD who would be “driven crazy” by a misaligned lane stripe actually looks forward to a disruption in his space-time continuum. Whatever you say, that’s progress.

To submit an off hole you’ve found, email photos to off.hole.pittsburgh@gmail.com or direct message the @off.hole Instagram account.

Per Lagrosa, “I like to get two pictures for each hole, an overhead shot and one that shows the hole in context. The overhead is the money shot and is the most important. I also need the location, date, time, and your Instagram username so I can credit you.”

Step Beat: The Steps of California-Kirkbride, Part 2: Hyena and Marvista

March 31, 2019Leave a comment

street with old houses and city steps climbing hillside, Pittsburgh, PA

Hyena Way alley and steps, California-Kirkbride

Apparently, the Internet informs us, North America once hosted its very own hyena. The Chasmaporthetes ossifragus managed to cross the Bering Land Bridge from Asia, make its way south to present-day Arizona and Mexico, and then east to what’s now Florida. There’s no mention of the big cat up here in the Northeast. This smaller, faster hyena seems to have gone extinct around one million years ago.^[1]

So how did a little North Side alley and dramatic flight of 166 city steps end up with the name Hyena Way? We have no idea. But the loosey-goosey manner with which Pittsburgh ended up naming its back alleys would make for a near endless supply of Orbit fodder–if only we knew how to figure out the explanations.

view from the top long set of public city steps in Pittsburgh, PA

looking down from the top of Hyena Way with view of downtown Pittsburgh and Mt. Washington

When last we left you, Team Orbit was ascending the cluster of vertical streets on the eastern half of California-Kirkbride. The North Side neighborhood is small, but hosts an outsize number of both steps and viewpoints. Today we head just a couple blocks west to the thrilling pair of steps that meet at the end of the paved section of Hyena Way.

Visible from the main road as a straight climb right up the hillside, Hyena Way begs for a visit from anyone glancing in from California Ave. and excited about such things. We are powerless against this siren call, and thus continued the journey up, over, around, and down.

view from the top of long set of public steps in Pittsburgh, PA

looking down from the top of Marvista Street

All that mumbo-jumbo last week about how you can see so much more before the leaves come back to the trees really makes sense on these two stretches. Both flights have tall spindly trees right up to the handrails and it’s obvious they’ll generate a thick canopy over the walkways soon enough. That’ll be beautiful in its own right, but it behooves the step-hiker to catch these long views while she or he can.

From Hyena, you’re looking almost due south, over the railyards and Manchester, across rivers to downtown and Mount Washington. It’s a lovely, long scope that encompasses many great landmarks in the city all from one vantage point.

Marvista is perpendicular to Hyena and therefore faces west as one looks out from the top. There are fewer name-brand attractions in this direction, but it’s no less a pleasure to take in the landscape all the same.

public steps climbing the hills of Pittsburgh, PA

At the intersection of Marvista Street and Hyena Way, a network of steps and ghost steps

Where Marvista and Hyena meet is a fascinating cluster of still-in-use city steps (the two main flights) plus obsolete connectors and spurs–often terminating at empty foundations and tree-filled lots. The complexity of steps at this junction speaks to those same refrains we think about on most of these hikes: how this once-dense city neighborhood lost the vast majority of both its population and housing stock in the 140-or-so years since it was laid out and the fact that no one really needs to hike down the hillside every day to get to work. This gruesome one-two punch make any like them endangered species.

But as infrastructure of pleasure–recreation, meditation, and speculation, not to mention a history lesson in every walk–the steps of Hyena Way and Marvista Street are just about as exciting and beautiful as anywhere in the city. Some–certainly those who prefer solitude and exploration–will argue they’re even more valuable than their well-dressed and more popular peers along the riverfronts or up on Grandview Ave.

hillside with city steps in Pittsburgh, PA

Marvista Street

There was a plan to include a map and suggested walking route for all the steps in California-Kirkbride. But as we plotted it out on paper, there was just no obvious loop to bag all the steps and get you back to where you started. It was going to end up being a confusing figure-8 or something and the truth is that it’s just not that hard to come up with your own plan if you’re so-inclined.

The trees are budding, so you won’t have these views for long. Get up there, stretch your gams, and keep your eyes open–maybe you’ll even spot one last hyena.

ghost steps, lower Marvista Street

Step Beat is an occasional series where The Orbit describes interesting features of Pittsburgh’s 700+ sets of public city steps.

[1] Source: Brian Switek, “North America Used to Have its Very Own Hyena,” Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 3, 2016. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/north-america-once-had-hyena-its-very-own-180960673/

Step Beat: The Steps of California-Kirkbride, Part 1: Sunday Sunny Sunday

March 24, 2019March 31, 20191 Comment

view of downtown Pittsburgh from public city steps

B Street, with view of downtown Pittsburgh, California-Kirkbride

In a few weeks (fingers crossed) everything will look different. The signs are all there: we’ve crossed the vernal equinox, birds are chirping their beaks off, full daylight exists before and after work, the first purple and gold crocuses are nudging their little flower heads from packed earth and sad-looking grass.

But for now, Pittsburgh still exists in its foliage-free late-winter monochrome of gray-brown. Bare trees are just spindly brown stalks. Hillsides have been reduced to impenetrable rats nests of last year’s dried up knotweed, tall grass, and loose vines. Grassy patches have typically turned into either a boggy mess or–in the case of this relatively dry winter–parched yellow straw.

The sky usually doesn’t help matters. A thick blanket of gray clouds casts its pall across the landscape more often than not; the absence of Vitamin D a severe depressant for the sun-deprived this time each year.

B Street, from Lamont

But not on this day! Last Sunday the blue above was so iridescently deep and rich, the sun so full and bright, and clouds just picture-perfect cotton balls, that it seemed to kick in the door of spring a week early, even if the plants hadn’t gotten the message.

You don’t have to tell this blogger twice: it was step-climbing weather if there ever was such a thing. So we lit off for the little North Side neighborhood of California-Kirkbride, home to a smattering of getting-fixed-up row houses, some terrific views, and–depending on how one counts them–five or six or seven great sets of city steps.

public steps on hillside in Pittsburgh, PA

St. Ives Street (foreground) and Sunday Street (in back)

Now, truth be told, we’d just been to the neighborhood 24 hours earlier–though admittedly, unenlightened and on a tighter timeline. The previous day was all of the above–chilly, desolate, and bleak. On that occasion we only got as far as the intersecting steps of St. Ives and Sunday streets and their eventual top-of-hill conclusion at Oriana. The latter parallels the old stone wall surrounding Union Dale Cemetery.

From the top of the steps, the day hiker is rewarded with interesting views both across the roofs of Manchester to downtown and over the river to Mount Washington. Turning the other direction, we can see right into the headstones and treetops of the looming cemetery.

Little B Street–connecting Lamont to Morrison–is well worth your time while you’re over there. It’s just a block long, but dramatically steep and featuring a pair of accessible-only-by-steps row houses. There’s another nice view at the top.

public steps and view of North Side, Pittsburgh, PA

a day earlier: gray view from top of Sunday Street

Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about a (late) winter step trek: you get to see so much more! Yes, soon enough this entire scene will be filled with lush green as Pittsburgh’s chronic humidity will prompt every bare patch of earth to sprout life, spread outward, and reach up into the sky.

All that overpowering tree, shrub, vine, and weed growth is a wondrous and beautiful thing, but it sure cuts down on the available sight lines. Every step trekker knows it’s a four-seasons hobby; in winter, we get the longest views.

public steps on sidewalk with hillside cemetery above, Pittsburgh, PA

Oriana Street steps and Union Dale Cemetery

Now, at this point, astute Orbit readers and chronic step-walkers are either rabid with anticipation or out-and-out screaming into their electronic devices. What about the rest of the neighborhood? They might say, You’re totally missing the best parts!

Fear not, dear reader. California-Kirkbride doesn’t have the largest quantity of steps in the city, but it still has too many to cover in just one post. We’ve also got a part 2 wherein the crew scales the deep hollow steps on the western side of the neighborhood. Hopefully we’ll see you on the steps.

view from lower Sunday Street

Step Beat is an occasional series where The Orbit describes interesting features of Pittsburgh’s 700+ sets of public city steps.

Stamp Collecting: The Deep Cuts

January 20, 2019April 27, 20193 Comments

sidewalk stamp for Joseph Cicchetti, Pittsburgh, PA

Joseph Cicchetti, the “Inverted Jenny” of sidewalk philately, Friendship

When you start collecting sidewalk stamps, you can bag all of Pittsburgh’s greatest hits in one decent-sized stroll through any neighborhood: Ciriello, Santo, and Spano, Baleno, Scotti, and Pucciarelli. Trust me: you’ll pick these up right away, without even really trying.

Those guys, of course, are just the B-team. If you can make it down any residential block without stepping over a DiBucci–the Elvis, Beatles, and Micheal Jackson of local masonry*–you’ve found a rare, naked block, indeed.

Start to take a few more walks, look at little farther afield, and you’ll get into the hack-lineup album tracks: Didiano, Regan, Langell, and Colucci. These are great pick-ups, but not so unique that a person needs to, you know, lose it over their first Lucente. Relax, kid–you’ll see another.

mason's stamp in concrete sidewalk, Pittsburgh, PA

F. Naccarelli, South Side

Here at the Orbit, we’ve been counting stamps for a couple years now, and we’re down to the deep cuts. These are the serious outtakes, rarities, and B-sides for only the hardest of core collectors. We’re talking live bootlegs sold in the parking lot from the trunk of a LeBaron after the show.

The sidewalk stamps included in today’s post are mason’s markers that we’ve only spotted one–and only one–extant tag for. That doesn’t mean this example is the only one that exists, but with the amount of staring at the pavement we’ve done over the last couple years, we can tell you they’re rare. Enjoy.

sidewalk stamp for Ray Benney, Pittsburgh, PA

Ray Benney General Contracting, Squirrel Hill

Joe Darpli, Friendship

Geo. A. Shepard [photo: Lee Floyd]

mason's sidewalk stamp in cracked concrete, Sharpsburg, PA

ALD, Sharpsburg

sidewalk stamp for mason Eric Gerber, Pittsburgh, PA

Eric Gerber Contracting, Friendship

Castellano (?), Friendship

Vincent Mannella, Friendship

sidewalk stamp for mason C.H. Hempel, Braddock, PA

C.H. Hempel, Braddock [photo: Kevin Welker]

mason's stamp in concrete sidewalk, Bellevue, PA

James R. Bell, Bellevue

mason's stamp on concrete sidewalk in Sharpsburg, PA

WPA (Works Progress Administration), Sharpsburg

* There are so many varieties of the DiBucci stamp/plaque that co-assistant to the cub reporter Lee Floyd has suggested trying to collect all the permutations. This is a journey we believe even the most dedicated of Orbit readers may not follow us on. That said, there are more ways to measure success than with web analytics, so perhaps we’ll go down that road, err…sidewalk, alone.

The Missing Link: Making the Connection via the Mon Wharf Switchback

December 2, 2018Leave a comment

Mon Wharf walkway in downtown Pittsburgh, PA

Mon Wharf Landing, looking east towards the Smithfield Street Bridge, downtown

One glorious day–and a Sunday at that! Deep blue skies, whispy cirrus clouds, bright sunshine, and seasonally optimistic temperatures requiring only a long-sleeve shirt. Those who failed to leave the indoors on this 24-hour reprieve between Thanksgiving’s elongated drizzly gloom and the following Monday’s snow-filled temperature plunge should feel all the guilt and remorse they deserve.

Just jaggin’–no judgment, here. This blogger, however, wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. The Orbitmobile was sprung from its hutch, tires inflated, and chain oiled. We were off to town on a mission to check out the brand new Mon Wharf Switchback.

Mon Wharf Switchback bicycle/pedestrian ramp in downtown Pittsburgh, PA

The new Mon Wharf Switchback Ramp, downtown

It’s been said that Pittsburgh is the only city with a front door. Indeed, the approach from the morass of Parkway West suburbia/airport/I-79 to the awestruck oohs and aahs emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel into a seeming city from nowhere is truly spectacular, unparalleled, and–I can attest, twenty-some years on–never gets old.

That said, one can only reach that front door with a motor vehicle. For those arriving in our fair city by bicycle–and yes, thanks to the Great Allegheny Passage trail, plenty of newcomers get here on two wheels–it’s a less dramatic entrance. That changed, at least a little bit, with the completion of this last connection point allowing car-free passage into town from the Smithfield Street Bridge.

ramp to Point State Park

As of now, the incoming cyclist may exit the Smithfield Bridge to be gently guided down to the previously-existing, but hard-to-get-to Mon Wharf Landing parklet hugging the riverbank. The method is a long, graceful switchback ramp connecting 40 or 50 vertical feet from bridge deck to walkway below.

The park a lovely open space with a wide walkway, stone resting spots–they’re not quite benches–and a thin strip of green grass. Native maple trees–presumably planted back at the park’s opening in 2009–have managed to cling to their deep red fall leaves long after wimpier peers dropped all outerwear weeks ago.

bicycle/pedestrian entrance to Point State Park via the Mon Wharf trail in downtown Pittsburgh, PA

gateway to Point State Park

The new ramp doesn’t just connect downtown with the South Side. One can now, in theory, ride continuously from Point State Park all the way to our nation’s capital without having to contest with any car traffic. Three hundred and thirty-five miles, in fact, as the crow dodges and weaves, crosses the Alleghenies, ducks through tunnels, and follows the curling banks of various old rivers.

That is one hell of an accomplishment for long-distance, intrastate bicycle recreation^[1], but the new ramp that allows connection from the upriver side of the Smithfield Street Bridge through to Point State Park–is likely going to be much more useful to the city’s cyclists for their around-town commutes and pleasure cruises.

We’ll spare the particulars, but if you’re a city cyclist, you know getting from, say, Penn Avenue to the South Side was a pain in the ass. Thanks to this new infrastructure, one can make that ride safely and with a spectacular 360° tour of all three rivers.

traffic sign reading "Motor vehicles only: no pedestrians" on Mon Wharf bicycle/pedestrian path in downtown Pittsburgh, PA

The Mon Wharf bicycle/pedestrian route: “Motor vehicles only: no pedestrians”

Though the ramp has been publicly accessible for a week or two, the opening will be made official with an event this Tuesday. As of last weekend, there are still some final touches to the overall route we hope they’ll eventually get to.

Most notable is the lack of signage directing the connection-curious to and from Point State Park. From the latter, one must–on blind faith–go under the bridge ramp overpass, pass a maintenance vehicle parking lot, along the thin connection beside a highway ramp, and then down the fairly steep ramp to the Mon Wharf. This only-possible route takes the walker/bicycle rider directly under a (roadway) sign with the confusing message MOTOR VEHICLES ONLY: NO PEDESTRIANS (see photo, above). [This is a minor quibble that we assume city crews will get to–and may already have.]

Mon Wharf path in downtown Pittsburgh, PA

Mon Wharf Landing, looking west towards the Fort Pitt Bridge

The Mon Wharf Landing and switchback ramp are projects from Riverlife and the City of Pittsburgh. The commitment both have shown toward making the city bike- and pedestrian-safe, friendly, and accessible should absolutely be recognized and praised. From the (mostly) bicycle-based Orbit staff, a very big thank you–we’ll be putting the new route to use as often as we can.

[1] Between the GAP and C&O, the two trails run through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Only the Stones Remain: A Follow-Up Visit to Clairton’s Ghost Neighborhood

September 2, 20182 Comments

stuffed animal hung from its neck by caution tape on telephone pole, Clairton, PA

The scene of the crime. Lincoln Way, Clairton, Summer, 2018.

Sex. Money. Murder. That thin plot outline pretty much describes every episode of Law & Order–or maybe a particularly raging bar mitzvah. In this case, though, we found the three words in faded spray paint on the crumbling single-lane blacktop of a dead-end street. The cryptic message, along with a set of orphaned telephone poles, a couple out-of-place retaining walls, and the world’s eeriest sad toy, are about all that’s left of Lincoln Way, Clairton’s “ghost neighborhood.”

single lane paved road with words "Sex. Money. Murder." spray-painted on surface. Clairton, PA

“Sex. Money. Murder.” Lincoln Way

The plight of little Lincoln Way, a former residential street maybe a half-mile long on the north end of Clairton, has sparked a remarkable amount of interest in ye olde Orbite. Our story from early last year surveying the couple dozen remaining structures on the street has somehow made its way into the most read Orbit story, month-over-month, for the year-and-a-half since we originally ran it. [If you missed that one, read it here.]

Given the collective interest of both readers and writers, we thought we owed Lincoln Way a return visit to see where it is now, what’s left, and what it looks and feels like today.

single lane road leading into empty valley surrounded by trees, Clairton, PA

Today: entrance to Lincoln Way from State Street/Rt. 837.

The short answer is everything has changed. Gone are all of the dilapidated, burned-out, falling-down houses that lined both sides of the street. In their place is flat earth, newly reseeded with fresh grass that competes against wildflowers and knee high weeds in the most literal of turf wars.

The former houses of Lincoln Way were modest, two-up/two-down pre-war single-family homes and duplexes. But in their absence we get to see how large the lots actually were–especially on the upper part of the block as the valley dog-legs around to the right. A wide plain of greenery expands on either side of the remaining street surface, ending abruptly in tree-covered hillsides.

single-lane residential street with abandoned houses, Clairton, PA

A year earlier: Lincoln Way, February, 2017

The absolute lush green overgrowth of summer in the Mon Valley is stark contrast to the February day we visited a year-and-a-half ago. There was no snow on the ground, but every other telltale mark of winter was there: bare gray trees, threatening storm clouds blocking all sunlight, cold howls of gusty wind.

We mourn the loss of the compact little neighborhood we never got to know in its heyday, but on this hot afternoon with the sun out, birds chirping, critters buggin’, and deep deep green as far as the eye can see, it feels like nature (by way of the Redevelopment Authority of Clairton) may just do all right in this exchange.

overgrown hillside with retaining wall and masonry debris, Clairton, PA

hillside, retaining wall, masonry debris, Lincoln Way

The elephant in this particular room–err, empty valley–is the lives that were inevitably disrupted (at best) when residents relocated out of the neighborhood. Information on why Lincoln Way was abandoned is sketchy. There are plenty of empty houses in Clairton all on their own, but folks have also mentioned a planned connection of the Mon-Fayette Expressway to Rt. 837, which kind of makes sense. A 2015 Post-Gazette story mentions both natural abandonment, arson, and the city’s safety and redevelopment concerns.

sad toy on Lincoln Way

Regardless, most of the signs of (human) life we found in our last visit are all gone. That said, the demolition crews weren’t going through the weeds picking up every bit of effluvia wafted by the belch of a house with (possibly) generations of leftover, discarded stuff. A couple mangled toys, a scattering of broken records [oh! the humanity!], and that phosphorescent stuffed animal strung up by the neck with caution tape all made for creepy reminders that this quiet spot wasn’t always so placid.

street blacktop bordering overgrown weeds with broken records, Clairton, PA

Like a broken record. 45s among the many household items left at Lincoln Way.

No, people lived here. They worked, played, danced, swayed, and sung along to those 45s here. They grew up, grew old, and eventually moved-on from this little street in Clairton, one way or another.

These things are important. But when you’ve got a dead-end street, completely cut-off from the rest of town, full of dilapidated housing with both fire and safety concerns for the community–and then there’s that whole sex/money/murder thing–we’re pretty sure the City of Clairton made the right choice here.

For Lincoln Way, we can only hope the bright new beginning it’s received will invoke the prosperous future this little street–and all of Clairton–deserves.

former cul-de-sac surrounded by overgrowth, Clairton, PA

The end of the road: Lincoln Way’s terminal cul-de-sac

Pittsburgh Orbit

both movie star handsome and ruggedly everyman

Category: infrastructure