Something Dramatic: The Orbit Interview with Monessen Mayor Matt Shorraw

January 19, 20205 Comments

four-story building mid-way through being torn down

“We need something dramatic.” Downtown Monessen building, mid-tear down, 2019

Even a broken clock, the saying goes, is right twice a day. That’s true enough … unless one of the hands is missing.

It wasn’t until I was looking back at the quick couple of photos I’d taken last weekend that I realized the City of Monessen town clock–manufactured over a hundred years ago by the Brown Street Clock Company, right here in Monessen–had lost an appendage.

Now, that could happen anywhere and I’m sure it will be fixed soon enough, but this clock–not even right once a day–is about as perfect a metaphor for disjointed local government as you’ll find.

City of Monessen mayor Matthew Shorraw in front of downtown clock

Even a broken clock is right twice a day…unless the minutes hand has fallen off. Monessen mayor Matthew Shorraw and the town clock.

River City: We got troubles.
Monessen: Hold my beer.

With apologies to “Professor” Harold Hill and the gang, Monessen would love to have a new billiards parlor–or any other business, for that matter–set up shop in town. The small city, 30 miles upriver from Pittsburgh in the Mon Valley, has lost two-thirds of the population it had at its peak in the 1940s. The mills started closing a couple decades later and the real death blow came when Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel finally pulled out in the mid-‘8Os.

Downtown Monessen, a nine- or ten-block-long by two-block wide stretch of what was once bustling Main Street America, is now a gap-toothed poster child for the fallout of big industry in the Rust Belt. The remaining storefronts are equal parts gorgeous late Victorian and between-the-wars brick-and-stone, crumbling with decades of neglect, and newer, obviously-out-of-place attempts at mid-century modernization. In between are gravel-filled vacant lots and collapsing sibling structures, biding their time until the city has enough money to tear them down.

“We need something to spark a conversation.” The “HEALTH” building, downtown Monessen.

“This is a great place to live. I like it here,” says Matt Shorraw, the 28-year-old mayor of Monessen, midway through his first term in office. “A lot of family members have told me, ‘Get out–there’s nothing left here,’ but I’m not leaving. I feel like I have to be here.”

Say what you want about millennials–and believe me, Mayor Matt’s constituents are saying a lot about one particular millennial–but a young person committing to a life of service in the home town his own family is begging him to leave does not fit any negative stereotype of the generation.

Shorraw continues with a boundless optimism about the past-is-prologue potential of his home town. “It’s not an accident that Monessen was centrally located between five different county seats. We have easy access to I-70, rail lines, and we’re right on the river.” Shorraw also cites the low cost of living and the city’s location between metro Pittsburgh and the Laurel Highlands as virtues. “Eventually the success of Pittsburgh is going to make its way down through the Mon Valley.”

Monessen mayor Matt Shorraw's tattooed arm including image combining downtown Pittsburgh with flaming smokestack of Monessen

“I’m not leaving.” Shorraw’s left arm tattoo combines downtown Pittsburgh with the flaming stack of Monessen’s ArcelorMittal coke plant (and a certain starry night).

The last 30 days have been eventful for the young mayor. In December, he released an exhaustive 103-page document titled Monessen: A New Vision–The Mayor’s Strategic Plan. The comprehensive vision statement covers everything from nuts-and-bolts city issues like what streets to prioritize paving and park maintenance details to long-term, broad aspirational goals. These include the creation of a light rail transit link from The Mon Valley to Pittsburgh and a tech-focused “innovation district” downtown.

“I know it won’t all get done,” Shorraw says of the plan, “But we need something dramatic. We need something to spark a conversation. If we could only get the tax base, we could do incredible things.”

“We’re constantly doing damage control,” the mayor says of trying to keep up with the flood of maintenance issues in the city, “We’ve only been able to focus on paving roads and tearing down houses. We’re not looking 10, 20, 30 years into the future.”

row of identical wooden houses, all missing windows and overgrown with weeds

“We’re constantly doing damage control.” Empty houses on Sixth Avenue

So, Monessen has an enthusiastic young mayor, immersed in a hands-on crash course on public policy, realistic in the short-term and committed to a long-range vision of revitalizing the city he’s vowed to remain faithful to–what’s not to like? Well, the city doesn’t have a coffee shop, or a movie theater, or a bowling alley, but it does have a particularly large elephant residing in this Mon Valley room.

Immediately after taking office, in January, 2018, things “got real” with the Monessen city council. New Mayor Shorraw immediately spotted what he saw as “improprieties” with regard to how management of the city police pension fund was being conducted and responded by alerting the Pennsylvania state auditor general.

From there, it got real ugly, real fast. Shorraw details the council’s threats, attempts to force his resignation, and then impeachment. (Not sure that last one is really a thing.) The mayor responded by refusing to attend any council meetings for the next 20 months.

Nature’s Pathway Taxidermy, downtown Monessen

While Mayor Matt wasn’t at the official meetings, he didn’t stop, you know, mayoring. Shorraw was still out in the community and maintains that he was fully available, just a phone call or email away. Part of the ongoing work was authoring a series of essays, posted publicly on Medium.com, detailing a level of local government chicanery and sausage-making that most of us lay folk are never exposed to.

The seven-part (and counting) series, all under the title Fighting City Hall From Within, offers a brutally-frank, unfiltered insider’s view of city government–and the corrupt actions of its members–the likes of which you’re unlikely to see anywhere. The posts are thick with first-hand details and Shorraw is not afraid to name names–of council members, legal entities, business partners, and the like.

City of Monessen mayor Matthew Shorraw in front of the old Monessen Municipal Building

You *can* fight city hall … if you’re the mayor. Monessen mayor Matthew Shorraw in front of the old Monessen Municipal Building.

Now, your author is not a constituent of Shorraw’s, so he has no “skin in the game,” as they say. But I can imagine a very strong two-sided reaction to this whole thing if I were. On the one hand, it is incredibly refreshing to see a young, inexperienced politician come into an old-boys we’ve always done it this way environment and both start asking hard questions and then actually do something when he sees real governmental corruption. In this case, report it to the authorities and let the citizens know what’s going on.

On the other hand, you just can’t walk away from the office and expect to either affect change or earn the trust of your constituents. “Eighty percent of life is showing up,” they say, and it’s really hard to imagine anything in that elaborate city plan getting done from the couch at Chez Shorraw.

roofline of Foodland grocery store with flaming smokestack behind it

Foodland Fresh and the eternal flame of ArcelorMittal coke works, downtown Monessen

That absence ended dramatically the week before last as Shorraw returned to a calamitous city council meeting that included the abrupt firing of the city administrator and solicitor. The proceedings, in front of a standing-room-only crowd, devolved into a gavel-banging group shouting match. “I had to scream or nothing would get done,” Shorraw says. You can YouTube the whole thing if you’ve got the stomach for it. “I’m back. For good.” Shorraw told us.

Let’s hope that’s true. There are a whole lot of reasons why The Orbit makes the hour-long drive down to the Mon Valley again and again. As an outsider, it’s an incredible place full of lovely people, deep, important history, terrific old-world culture, and a brutal, tragic beauty. We’ll add that’s it’s also got some of the best pizza on the planet–well worth the trip for that reason alone. We wish the absolute best for Monessen (and its sister Mon Valley ex-steel towns) and really just hope that everyone can find a way to get along.

Links:

Matt Shorraw on Medium.com. (Includes links to the seven-part Fighting City Hall From Within series)
Monessen: A New Vision–The Mayor’s Strategic Plan

A High Five for the Skyline

January 5, 20204 Comments

mural by Baron Batch depicting cartoonish, colorful version of downtown Pittsburgh skyline

Real skyline above, fantasy skyline below. Dirty Franky’s Laundromat, Beltzhoover. [mural by Baron Batch]

You’d think the city would eventually run out of artist depictions and graphically deconstructed interpretations of the downtown Pittsburgh skyline. But … you’d be wrong.

No, four years on and five posts into the series, it feels like we’re just getting started cataloging every time we see clustered renderings of PPG Place, US Steel tower, the Highmark needle, bridges on either side, etc. That first story, from January, 2016, had a mere five examples in it. Looking back, our editors hang their heads low at this naively pathetic early offering–nowadays, we can bag that many skylines in a good weekend!

P*Town Bar sign including the Pittsburgh skyline

Silhouette city. P*Town Bar, North Oakland.

We must have walked/driven past the provocatively-named P*Town Bar on Baum Blvd. a zillion times, but have you ever really looked at the backlit, multicolor sign out front? It’s a perfect silhouette of downtown Pittsburgh’s tallest buildings forming an artful lineup against a pure white background. While it’s questionable that you’d get a vantage point to see these tall buildings in this exact arrangement, P*Town clearly gets an A+ for showing off city skyscrapers in all their glory.

It’s not alone. From Tow-tegrity’s giant hauling hook about to decapitate PPG Tower to the ambitious cyclist scaling the roof of Gateway Center for Bike the Burgh Tours, this batch of Pittsburgh city-scapes is almost entirely commercial in nature. Hey–it still took a (graphic) artist to put them together.

Hooked on the skyline. Tow-Tegrity, Inc. “Towing with Integrity,” New Brighton.

If you’re going to include skyline imagery and call your business or organization Pittsburgh this or Steel City that or River City the other, you might as well go all-in with a patriotic color scheme.

This time around, there are plenty of signs rendered in Pittsburgh no-brainer black-and-gold.

Skylines N’At. Pittsburgh Sheds N’At, Gibsonia

Pixelated Picksburgh^[1]. Steel City Cutting & Coring.

Skyline reduced to three buildings. River City Church, Swissvale.

412 Properties, Lawrenceville

sign for Bike the Burgh Tours with a bicycle rider on a silhouette of the Pittsburgh skyline

If you thought the complaining about bicycle lanes was bad now, check out this new plan. Bike the Burgh Tours, downtown.

waste bin plaque including the Pittsburgh skyline

A most livable skyline. City waste bin plaque.

Pittsburgh skyline on side of Ford truck with the message "the Official Truck of the Pittsburgh Penguins"

Pucks over Pittsburgh! Ford, the Official Truck of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Skyline looking south. Northside Community Development Fund, Deutschtown.

Of course, not every establishment felt the need to go with the de rigueur color scheme. Pittsburgh skyline logos also come in green and white; red, white, and blue; teal and violet; and green and blue.

No judgement here. These businesses are staking their claim as hometown products of Pittsburgh and should be rewarded for their effort. Hats–and in the case of The Cricket, lots of other garments–off to all of these places. This fifth time around, they all get a high five for the skyline.

painted sign for Cricket Lounge including skyline of downtown Pittsburgh

Even naked ladies like the Pittsburgh skyline. Cricket Lounge, North Oakland.

sign for Pittsburgh Community Services including the Pittsburgh skyline

Sci-Fi Sky. Skyline meets triangle + boomerang modern astral ring. Pittsburgh Community Services, Inc., Oakland.

Skyline as helping hand. Pittsburgh Cares, Lawrenceville.

Skyline as bar chart. Greater Pittsburgh Real Estate Services.

painting of downtown Pittsburgh at night

Skyline as public art. Irwin.

sticker on urinal with image of downtown Pittsburgh skyline

Hygiene City. Enviro-Master Total Hygiene Systems^[2]. [photo: Lee Floyd]

neon sign for Welcome Pittsburgh including part of the downtown skyline

Neon skyline. Welcome Pittsburgh, downtown.

[1] While Steel City Cutting & Coring wears their hometown bona fides right in the company name and color scheme, this heavily-abstracted graphic may be a true Pittsburgh skyline, but it could also just be some generic city-like thing. We have to include it, though.
[2] Enviro-Master is a national company, based in Charlotte, NC. It’s unclear whether the small logo, featuring three buildings and an angled gesture, are part of the corporate identity or local branding. [I couldn’t locate the same image–or any company logo–on their web site.] Regardless, it looks enough like a nod to downtown Pittsburgh and the Point that we’re counting it.

The Orbit 2019 Year in Review

December 29, 20191 Comment

empty retail space in shopping mall, Baden, PA

Lights out: one of dozens of former retail spaces now empty in Northern Lights Shopping Center, Baden

If it’s the end of the year, you can reliably expect amateur journalists and armchair prognosticators to be looking back, making Top 10 lists, and recounting the themes accrued since January.

At Orbit headquarters, the end of December is when the bean counters in the back room run the numbers and find out what actually got read over the past annum and devote the week to a no-new-reporting victory lap on the year’s well-read stories. Interestingly, this year’s top three–covering a defunct shopping mall in Beaver Country and two extraordinary Mon Valley pizzerias–all came from outside the city proper.

We also take the opportunity to do some additional promotion for other favorites published during the last twelve months. It’s unfair to call these “sleepers” as we have in past, so we’re just going with staff favorites.

The Hits

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

former Chinese restaurant, Northern Lights Shopping Center, Baden

1. Lights Out: The Slow Death of Pennsylvania’s Largest Shopping Center (March 10)

The sad, quintessentially-American story of Northern Lights Shopping Center arrived on our doorstep in that most Orbit of ways. There was no research or planning involved; the location wasn’t known or targeted; it wasn’t anywhere on our radar. And yet with one wrong turn leaving the little Beaver County borough of Conway we fell ass-backwards into the ghost strip mall that devoured the Main Streets of Ambridge and Rochester ahead of its own drawn-out peril at the dual clutches of the fall of Big Steel and the rise of e-commerce.

However they got here, the readership for this one was off-the-charts. The result was a total number of page-clicks that equals a significant double-digit percentage of everyone in Beaver County. We don’t know who actually read the story, but it sure brought out the memories … and the squabbling. Hopefully Northern Lights will shine again, somehow.

exterior of Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe, Monessen, PA

Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe, making the same simple pizza in Monessen since 1952.

2. The Pizza Chase: Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe Ain’t Monessen Around (Nov. 24)

If there is a pizza heaven, it may well be thirty miles southeast of Pittsburgh in the Mon Valley. For folks who haven’t spent much/any time in the old upriver steel towns, it can be a shocking reality check that not all of the greater region has enjoyed the same level of post-industrial prosperity Pittsburgh has.

Monessen is as good an example as there is of the fallout that occurs when the mill shuts down and all the jobs–and most of the people–leave town. Some things survive, though, and the mind-bogglingly-good single product of Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe is one of them. Going on 67 years, the little take-out operation in a basement on Knox Avenue makes a pizza that’s like biting into a cloud. It is unlike anything you’ve ever had and it’s absolutely divine.

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

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

3. The Pizza Chase: Mon Valley Red Top at Anthony’s Italiano (March 17)

Literally right across the river from Monessen is the sister used-to-be-steel/forever-in-infamy burg of Donora. The little city has plenty of its own struggles, but none of them are a lack of good pizza.

Anthony’s Italiano has been operating for over 40 years and their basic product is a pie whose crust will blow your mind with its ciabatta-like chewy/airy ecstasy. That said–when you’re ready to leave this planet entirely–step up to the double-decker, cheese on the inside/sauce on the outside “red top.” It’s no mere novelty–the subtle structural switcheroo flips everything you’ve ever thought you knew about taste, sensation, and the meaning of life. Get one as soon as you can.

Steps to Nowhere: The Thomasson of Essex Way, Bloomfield

4. Steps to Nowhere: The Thomasson of Essex Way (July 21)

If you want to point to a reason why The Orbit exists, this document of a set of freshly-painted and redecorated concrete steps leading up the alley side of a blank row house wall is pretty much right on target.

The term Thomasson comes from Japanese conceptual artist Akasegawa Genpei and arrived in our ears via the great 99% Invisible podcast. Ever since hearing that episode we were after bagging a Thomasson of our own, here in Pittsburgh. We did that once already, but this one, from a back alley in Bloomfield, is about as perfect an example as you’ll ever encounter.

tiny candy shop–one of several “tiny doors” temporarily installed downtown last summer

5. Let’s Get Small: Big Ideas, Tiny Doors (June 16)

Arriving as part of last summer’s Three Rivers Arts Festival, the limited art installation of three “tiny doors” on downtown buildings were a terrific hide-and-go-seek during (and after) the festivities.

Anything that combines ludicrous absurdity, urban egg-hunting, and, you know, little things is OK in our book. Hopefully (organizer) Stephen Santa and the gang will keep the tiny spirit going with a new set of doors on another collection of sidewalk-level foundation walls … sometime.

ORBIT STAFF FAVORITES

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

Union Jack tribute to Def Leppard (c. 1983), Sharpsburg

Precious Metal: The Disappearing Legacy öf Hard Rock Graffiti (March 3)

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. Some of these precious original anthropological traces from hard rock’s golden age survive … if you know where to look.

elaborate diorama of Easter bunnies at Kraynak's Easter Bunny Lane, Hermitage, PA

Rabbit rabbit. Big bunnies at Kraynak’s, Sharon.

Animatronically Correct: Hopping Down Kraynak’s Easter Bunny Lane (April 21)

Flowers pop in full bloom way ahead of schedule as fairies mingle with enormous fuzzy caterpillars. Giant Easter eggs dangle from tree limbs while an array of butterflies lift off in a spectacularly-coordinated squadron. An indoor forest is filled with the world’s most cuddly cavalcade of bunnies and geese, pigs and lambs, bears, owls, and raccoons.

Existing somewhere between the topsy-turvy psychedelic overload of the Wonka Chocolate factory and the kind of über-wholesome family entertainment one would see in a Christian cartoon program, Easter Bunny Lane–an annual technicolor fantasia set up in Kraynak’s outdoor superstore in Sharon, PA–is worth the Easter-season trip.

Kathie Hollingshead’s “Peep All Night” from Art All Night 22

Art All Night 2019: A Roundup with Reflections on 22 (May 5)

Art All Night, the community empowerment project-masquerading-as-(literal) all night art happening celebrated its twenty-second annual event in April. For anyone who’s been on the inside (ahem), you know that’s an amazing achievement for an all-volunteer “organization” with no permanent leadership, no guaranteed location, no board, no funding, and no profit motive.

The once rag-tag, shoe string, is this going to work? event has morphed into something incongruously expected, routine, and arriving like clockwork while continuing to be radically inclusive, completely nonjudgemental, and absolutely vital. Perhaps the biggest feat of all, Art All Night still manages to find available, unused real estate in a Lawrenceville that has way gentrified itself past the event’s original environs.

KISS super collector Bruce Gleason in his New Kensington home

The Collectors: KISS and Tell with Bruce Gleason (June 23)

American glam/hard rock group KISS has been strutting, licking it up, and shouting out loud constantly since the band’s inception in the early 1970s. In that time, they’ve also been the most product-placed and merchandised musical act to ever debit your Visa or Mastercharge.

Bruce Gleason was a first-wave KISS fanatic who bought the records–along with posters, toys, and games–as they were released during the band’s “in paint” heyday and never stopped. This story of one man’s devotion–some might say obsession–to collecting the memorabilia and ephemera of “the hottest band in the land” was one of our favorites of the year and made us think long and hard about all the oddball stuff inhabiting space at Chez Orbit.

Perhaps the world’s finest “off hole,” bus lane, downtown Pittsburgh

Waiting to Go Off: In the Street, On Target, and Under the Bus with Off Hole (July 14)

A warning: once your eyes begin to train on “off holes,” you’ll never be able to unsee them. The phenomenon of manhole covers, striped with lane markings and crosswalk paint, and reset askew from their original alignment is something that exists everywhere. Just try to walk a commercial block or drive any through-street and not encounter a few specimens.

Like so much in life, the subtle variances in angle and texture, placement and accidental design make every one of these random occurrences unique. This is the story of one man’s quest to document them all–or, at least, share the ones he and the Off Hole community have tripped across, in Pittsburgh and way beyond.

The truth is out there … but it’s probably not at the Kecksburg UFO Festival

Out of Orbit: Falling to Earth at the Kecksburg UFO Festival (August 11)

Little Kecksburg, a rural community 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, was the perfect spot for a UFO to crash land. Far enough in the country to have few eyewitnesses but close enough to city resources for federal authorities to swoop in and make off with the evidence before anyone could figure out what had happened.

Some will tell you that was exactly the sequence of events in the little Westmoreland County town on Dec. 9, 1965. Whether it’s true or not, paranormal and unexplained phenomena “experts,” truth-seekers, and the like have made “Pennsylvania’s Roswell” a crucial destination ever since. That devotion spawned the annual Kecksburg UFO Festival held every August. The Orbit finally made it out there this year and filed a report with a lot of green, man.

That’s it. Good reading and we’ll see you in 2020. Happy new year, y’all!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Wigged-Out on Tumbleweave

December 15, 20192 Comments

No turning (back). Loose tumbleweave on the street in East Liberty.

There’s more to hair
Than real hair

George Willard, “Wig Store”

Over the years, we’ve lost a lot of things–some of them important, others just weirdly memorable. Printed photographs from a pre-digital era; a 10-speed bicycle left on the back porch in 1997; melodies of songs sung, but never recorded. The names and faces of people known, went to school with, drank beer next to, or played music around–all gone.

Once, embarrassingly, thirty-five cents–the exact change required and the only coins available–awkwardly falling from the pocket into a traffic lane at the Nickel Bridge tollbooth in Richmond. Still wondering what happened to my marching band hat. Sigh.

Cubist coiffure collage, Oakland

All that said, it’s safe to say this balding-the-old-fashioned-way/losing-his-mind-like-everyone-else blogger has never misplaced an entire head of hair–real or not–right out in the street. Clearly, not everyone has been so lucky.

So many questions! How does one lose an 18-inch braided pigtail? Are these the result of a hair-grabbing confrontation? Cruel prank? Street-borne fiasco? One imagines the most riveting of dramas, but the real stories may be much more mundane. Sadly, we’ll likely never know.

Regardless, when God tosses a fraying tumble of jet black hair weave loosely across the directional marker of a turn lane or dumps two-tone black/white curl on the sidewalk in front of Subway, we don’t question it. Even this atheist recognizes diving intervention when a curly brown coif is caught in the wind and takes life scurrying across Penn Avenue.

Tumbleweave,* your time on The Orbit is here.

braided ponytail hair lying on street surface

Crack that whip, Oakland

portion of leaf-covered black wig laying in street

Wigged-out, Bloomfield

bundle of hair lying on wet pavement with fallen leaves

Fall color, North Oakland

Dye hard, Larimer

lost hair in pile of fallen leaves against curb

Dead leaves and the hairy ground, Marshall-Shadeland

The post-Halloween special, Shadyside

The tail wigs the dog, Bloomfield

bundle of fake fur flattened on road surface

Hit-and-run/flat top, Hazelwood

The “Polamalu,” Homestead [photo: Lee Floyd]

* The term “tumbleweave” may go back to Orbit Uber, Uber Doober, and Pooper Scooper Paul Schifino. Whoever gets the credit, you’ll not find a more perfect name for the phenomenon than this.

Tap Shoes and Unicorns: Teresa Martuccio Serves Up “Pink Potatoes”

December 1, 2019July 18, 20211 Comment

playwright Teresa Martuccio feigning exasperation while writing on a manual typewriter

America’s greatest playwright—at least, we think so. Teresa Martuccio finds the inspiration for her next masterpiece.

There is a wisdom, passed down in theater circles from high school drama clubs all the way through to the backstages of Broadway. Death of a Salesman: good play; could have used some robots.

It’s true. Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams wring the pathos from human existence, but who is speaking up for the world’s mice, slugs, and garden vegetables? Chekhov never had the, ahem, integrity to spew the front row with space jism. And sure, Shakespeare made witches central to the plot of Macbeth, but it would take a true visionary to turn them into full-contact action heroes.

actresses dressed as space unicorns in the film "Strange Noodle"

Sara Banach and Jen Cooney in the film “Strange Noodle,” 2016.

Something truly unique and special is happening in a converted industrial products showroom in North Oakland called The Glitterbox Theater.* There, for the past three years, local playwright Teresa Martuccio has been producing a series of her own original plays that truly defy any categorization.

While we were fumbling for the words, Ms. The Orbit chimed in here on our read-through describing Martuccio’s productions—and the whole Glitterbox oeuvre—as “true do-it-yourself fringe theater all the time,” “fully realized pure creativity,” and “incredibly daring and accessible … the best kind of outsider artist.” We couldn’t agree more, nor said it any better.

Teresa Martuccio in costume as bregastone in the play "La Strega"

Martuccio as a Bregastone in “La Strega,” 2018 [photo: Chris St. Pierre]

In a world where color is illegal, a renegade band of dissidents defy the law of the land by secretly hoarding the remaining bits of contraband hue in an underground resistance. In this dystopian near-future, the government has been taken over by a mega-corporation called Amazono that rules with authoritarian brutality.

“It’s a feminist sci-fi musical,” Teresa Martuccio says about her newest original play Pink Potatoes, “… with tap dancing.” Pink Potatoes opens this Thursday.

The Wind is a major character in the play, as is a “wind whisperer”/aeronaut. (“That’s a hot-air balloonist—I didn’t know they were called that.”) Martuccio warns that the story is sad, but ultimately hopeful. It’s also difficult to imagine the sets remaining black and white through the final curtain.

actress in robes with sign reading "Pope Secret"

Martuccio in “Love, Betrayal, and Dying: the Wool Story,” 2016

actress dressed as mouse with large piece of cheese

Valerie Herrero in “Meow,” 2016 [photo: Teresa Martuccio]

If you haven’t seen any of Martuccio’s other productions, this Handmaid’s Tale-meets-Busby Berkeley narrative may seem awkward, or unfocused, or novelty. In lesser hands that might be true.

Teresa’s plays are indeed rag-tag and acted with let’s put on a show enthusiasm, but they have a tremendous depth and heart, message and moral. Shows are also reliably wacky, ridiculously-costumed, milk-coming-out-of-your-nose funny, and include great original tunes. Martuccio is a student of both history and folklore, so you just might learn something while you’re at it.

group scene from play with actors against colorful handmade stage set

Group scene from “Sea Turtle in Space,” 2018 [photo: Chris St. Pierre]

The kitchen sink/more-is-more approach may align closer to the zaniness of Sid & Marty Krofft or Bollywood film than classic theater. That is, inevitably, the product of an extremely active creative mind.

“I’m always on to the next thing,” Martuccio says. The next next play is already written and there’s another movie, Siren City, in the works.

In the spring, Martuccio will return to playing defensive end/offensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Passion and she’d like to bring them into the creative space as well. “My dream is to produce a play with my football team.”

Always on to the next thing. Martuccio at “work.”

Pink Potatoes will be at least the tenth full-length play Martuccio has written/produced/acted-in over the last five or six years. [Earlier shows were put on at various community spaces prior to the opening of Glitter Box.] That same period has been additionally busy with contributions to the regularly occurring Ten-Minute Play Fest events, sections of the Wilde Gone Wild cut-up performances, and creating Strange Noodle, an hour-long movie where an ex-Olympic gymnast leaves her mundane life to be a slug in a technicolor dream world.

Martuccio, with her three co-managers, also organizes and coordinates countless other events at The Glitterbox Theater, where the new play will run next weekend.

actress in space suit and crash helmet with time machine prop

Martuccio with time machine in “Amelia,” 2014 [photo: Caldwell Linker]

“Every time I say I want to keep the next one simple,” Martuccio says about the complexity of organizing another large-scale production, “And then I’m looking for breezes, tap shoes, and unicorns.”

Luckily, she gets a lot of help. Believe it or not, staging big productions in a tiny room for a four-performance run—with absolutely no grant funding or other outside sponsorship—doesn’t generate much profit. So Martuccio and her cast and crew of 20-or-so are all volunteers who collaborate on rehearsal, set building, costume making, promotion, and everything else. The money made from the last big play was just enough to cover a party with cheap champagne and rides on a mechanical bull.

Martuccio, Tenley Schmida, and Rachel Dingfelder in “Meow”

We are all lucky. Whatever else is going on in your life, be glad to live in a world where we can express ourselves with any crayon in the box; where no one needs a secret supply of cast off candy bar wrappers, torn bits of fabric, and crumpled magazine ads just for a taste of color.

We should also consider ourselves fortunate to be alive when Pink Potatoes are dug from the earth and served up however Teresa Martuccio plans to present them. We know it will be delicious.

promotional poster for original play "Pink Potatoes" perfomed at Glitter Box Theater, December, 2019

Promotional poster for “Pink Potatoes” by Steph Neary

All are welcome. Dream landscape from “Strange Noodle.”

* Update (Summer, 2021): The Glitterbox Theater was another in the long line of conoravirus casualties, having to permanently move out of its Melwood Ave. space during the pandemic. Martuccio is currently looking for a new home and will continue producing and sponsoring local theater however she can.

Photos from past productions courtesy of Teresa Martuccio. Special editorial guidance from Kirsten Ervin.

The Pizza Chase: Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe Ain’t Monessen Around

November 24, 2019November 24, 201924 Comments

Pizza heaven, right here on earth. Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe, Monessen.

It is entirely fitting that one must ascend a steep hillside to get here because this pizza comes not of the earth, but from the heavens.

Pardon me if we exercise a little culinary melodrama, but this deserves it. Biting into a fresh slice is to be transported, 30,000 feet straight up into the sky, where one glides on—and dines of—pure ether. How can this most common of meals manage the paradox of being both hearty and weightless, brutally crude and expertly crafted, simple and transformative? Yeah, it’s a lot to consider, but … we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

man holding open box of pizza with smoke stack and steel mill behind him

Pizza: Monessen style. Paul with full “tray” of Nuzzaci’s pizza.

The word sponge doesn’t cannote great faith in the food it describes. Sure, sponge cake has its proponents and there’s injera, the sourdough-risen flatbread, often described as “spongy,” that you’ll find in Ethiopian cuisine. Maybe we can count marshmallows as little gooey sponges—but that’s really about it.

That the product of Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe is most frequently described as “sponge pizza” may be understandable, but it’s unimaginative and does a disservice to this extraordinary, pillowy, thick, cake-like pizza.

No, the experience of eating Nuzzaci’s, fresh from the oven, lifted, airy, and—sorry: it’s the only word for it—moist, is like biting into a cloud…with melted cheese on top. It’s as if the very atmosphere has morphed into warm dough, crowned with a thin halo of red sauce. It is absolutely divine.

J.T. Sassak, third-generation owner of Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe

J.T. Sassak, third-generation owner/pizza maker of Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe.

J.T. Sassak is the third generation to operate the tiny pizzeria from its only ever location in the basement of the family’s large, wood frame house on Knox Avenue in Monessen. In 2010, the Trib did a pretty complete rundown on the Nuzzaci-Sassak family lineage, going back to J.T.’s grandmother Cosamina Nuzzaci opening the shop in 1952, so we’ll not repeat all that here.

We will mention, though, that Sassak mixes all his dough by hand and J.T. has the Popeye-style forearm muscles to prove it. There was just no way to get a commercial dough-mixer down the little basement stairs and around the various corner-turns necessary to make automated dough kneading happen. So the pizza crust is still prepared exactly as is was by Cosamina, according to her hand-written in Italian recipe on a brown paper bag.

Basement kitchen, penthouse pizza.

You hear the phrase if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it plenty, but Nuzzaci’s makes the old cliché a mission statement. This is pizza simple: there is only one product that may be purchased at the restaurant, either by the slice or as a 15-cut “tray.” There are exactly seven options for toppings—inserted under the mozzarella—plus “double cheese.” There are no drinks, sides, bread sticks, chicken wings, salads, or dessert. All purchases are made in cash. Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe has no dining room.

A full tray of pizza with one (split) topping provided the basis for five meals and cost twelve dollars and seventy-five cents.

three rectangular slices of pizza on a white plate

Pizza simple. Three slices of Nuzzaci’s back home.

Here’s the heartbreaker: J.T. Sassak is 67 years old (“born the same year the shop opened”) and not only is there no apprentice learning the ropes, there’s no one in the family remotely interested in taking over operation of the small-town pizzeria.

Selling the business is out of the question, J.T. says, as the grandfathered-in commercial license on (otherwise residential) Knox Ave. would likely not transfer to a new owner and moving the location “wouldn’t be the same.” J.T. says he’s got around five more years left in the business and “then we’ll see.” At some point in the not-too-distant future, Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe will likely close up forever.

If you love great pizza—unique pizza, special pizza—I’m imploring you: make the trip out to Monessen for what may be one of the most heavenly culinary experiences of your life. It’s worth it.

man holding pizza slice to his mouth outdoors

Ghost sign; real pizza. Completely unstaged photo of Paul about to devour a slice of Nuzzaci’s he describes as “like fluffy pizza clouds.”

A couple things to know if you’re going:

Nuzzaci Pizza Shoppe is located at 483 Knox Ave., Monessen. It takes most of an hour to drive there from Pittsburgh.
The shoppe is closed on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday; open 11 AM to 7:30 PM the other days.
This is important: while Nuzzaci is open for pickup until the early evening, J.T. may have already sold out all the day’s dough way before then. Call ahead to 724-684-4814 to make sure you get your order in.
As mentioned, there is no dining room, so all orders are pick-up/take-out only. If you’re coming from Pittsburgh, you may want to consider bringing some drinks, planning a place to eat, etc.

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

Send in the Clohns: John Lee, The Cardboard Caravaggio

November 17, 20193 Comments

street art painting of figures with distorted faces and captions saying "All things are yours"

All things may be yours…but you can’t always take them home with you. Painting/wheatpaste by John Lee (aka “Clohn Art”), Munhall, 2016

January 1, 2016. This blogger has no particular memory of what was going on that New Year’s Day nearly four years ago, but the photographic record doesn’t lie. We shot a series of ghost pizzerias and No Parking signs at scenic locales from Homestead down, around, and over the river to Glassport.

The most intriguing find of the day, however, came calling out from the inside of a rusty metal shed along East 8th Avenue in Munhall. Completely open to the street, the little three-walled steel shack appears to be either an artifact of the area’s industrial past or a larger-than-average bus shelter–perhaps both. Either way, its open-to-the-public opportunity and hidden-from-the-cops privacy make the little lean-to an easy target for graffiti.

street art painting of woman with three eyes, Pittsburgh, PA

Downtown, 2016

This piece was different, though. No mere copycat tag or delinquent’s de rigueur spray-painted wang, what caught the eye was a legit original artwork. The painted was rendered in bright acrylic color on thick brown packaging paper and applied directly to an interior wall of the shelter.

The subjects are three cartoonish human-like figures, their facial features randomly shuffled out of order. Eyes are stacked one on top of the other under a single brow; elongated oversize noses are lifted and askew; pursed graphic lips are highlighted like an offset print job.

The metal enclosure even makes its way into the artwork. Random rust spots permeate the unpainted surfaces of the wheatpasted paper media giving the three faces pockmarked or freckled blotches across their skin and through the bare sections of background. Each person has a word bubble with the same arch message: all things are yours. (See photo, top.)

street art paintings of man with five eyes and panda bear

Shadyside, 2017

The Munhall painting wasn’t the first piece we’d come across attributed to the cryptic Clohn Art–there had been a couple earlier finds along Penn Avenue (see photos, below)–but it was the one that put all the pieces together and it still remains a favorite.

After that, the floodgates seemed to open just briefly as we spotted more Clohn Art all over: a series of animal paintings on Chinese restaurant placements in an alley downtown; a three-eyed, green-haired woman fused to plywood; stray blue period paintings on the back of a Shadyside garage. And then … it all stopped.

Downtown, 2016

street art painting of rhinoceros, Pittsburgh, PA

Downtown, 2016

John Lee (aka Clohn Art) (it’s pronounced clone; not the way Pittsburghers say clown) is a hard guy to get on the horn–and it wasn’t for lack of trying! Three full years after initially getting shot down, in comes the most welcome–if apropos of nothing–comment on an otherwise unremarkable Orbit Instagram post. The artist is ready to come in from the cold and he’s just decorated Second Avenue in Hazelwood with a new batch of paintings.

street art painting of wise men with Christmas gifts, Pittsburgh, PA

Lawrenceville, 2015

street art painting of four people with missplaced eyes, Pittsburgh, PA

Garfield, 2014

“There’s a quote, ‘Writers write,’*” John Lee tells me, “so I figured that painters paint. I should be painting.”

And paint he does, usually six days a week at his Lincoln Place home studio, churning out artwork on a variety of recycled media: packing paper, placemats, plywood, and flattened cardboard boxes. There are so many paintings that they need to go somewhere, and that includes the tasteful redecoration of underused buildings–here in Pittsburgh and wherever Lee travels.

“With cardboard art you always have an outlet,” Lee says, “It’s the most respectful form of street art–you’re not really damaging anything.” Lee prefers to staple his cardboard paintings to the plywood covering windows and doors of abandoned/unoccupied buildings, though he’s also used wheatpaste to effectively glue paper artworks directly to wall surfaces. The results will still wash or peel away eventually, but they last a little longer.

street art painting of totem pole of various animals on cardboard

totem pole, Hazelwood, 2019

street art painting of polar bear in a brown dress suit on cardboard

Hazelwood, 2019

John Lee’s art has a couple common subjects: people–often with their facial features irregularly rearranged–and animals. You’ll also find a blending of the two as the series in Hazelwood included: a panda’s head on human body wearing a brown suit; a cat-man in pajamas; a person in western wear with a bird’s head costume. “You don’t know,” Lee says of the ambiguity in man-beast representation, “They could be anything.”

Other oft-repeated motifs include a sort of jointless free-floating position in the slender bodies–arms and legs extended, folding, and curved backwards in a kind of weightless space yoga–and stiff, awkward hands as if the characters are just forming their first words in sign language or attempting to flash caricatures of gang symbols.

street art painting of cat in pajamas on cardboard

cat’s (in) pajamas, Hazelwood, 2019

street art painting of bird wearing jeans and western-style shirt on cardboard

bird of the West, Hazelwood, 2019

In several instances, John Lee has set up what he calls the Honor System Art Gallery. Beyond just street art, the typically-smaller, often framed artworks are bundled together at a common location with instructions to Take one art work now and then pay (what you like). Details on purchasing via various app-based electronic payment systems is included.

artist John Lee (aka "Clohn Art") installing Honor System Art Gallery, Pittsburgh

John Lee installing the Honor System Art Gallery, Garfield

… and, because we didn’t have a “real” gallery show or other public event to hang this story on, John Lee suggested he set up a new Honor System Art Gallery just for the occasion.

That went up two days ago on the rough plywood of a condemned building on Penn Avenue in Garfield and I’m here to tell you it looks great. It’ll be a heartbreaker to see those little paintings disappear–however that happens–because they are such an obvious civic improvement to the old boarded-up Heavenly Cuts storefront. But … John Lee would also love for you to have a piece of his artwork displayed somewhere in your life.

artist John Lee (aka "Clohn Art") with Honor System Art Gallery, Pittsburgh

John Lee with a brand new Honor System Art Gallery, Garfield

An earlier “gallery” Lee set up on a chain link fence in Seattle currently holds the record for the best response/most (financially) appreciated artwork. So, c’mon Pittsburgh! We can’t let those latté-sniffing West Coast jagoffs hold a title over our (adopted–John Lee is originally from Albuquerque) home town guy! Get your keister to Garfield and buy a piece of street art!

street art painting of deer with large antlers on cardboard

Hazelwood, 2019

John Lee can be located online via the @clohncount Instagram account, clohnart.com web site, and clohn Patreon page.

* Best as we can tell, the quote is by Ralph Keyes and goes, “Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration.”

Failing Media! SAD! The Fourth Estate, Six Feet Under

November 10, 2019November 15, 20198 Comments

former offices of The Daily News, now with boarded up, downtown McKeesport, PA

The Daily News, McKeesport (1884-2015)

Walk by the old Post-Gazette building, on the very last block before Boulevard of the Allies terminates at Point State Park, and you’ll likely be the only one on the sidewalk. It’s a surprisingly desolate section of our otherwise healthy and lively downtown. Boxed-in by highways and a complete lack of any retail nearby, this hulking, ugly building sits alone and empty at one corner of downtown.

At street level, there are giant windows that used to look straight into the busy printing floor of the newspaper. Here, for more than 50 years at this location, you could stand on the sidewalk, peer straight in, and watch the incredible synchronicity of massive printing presses spinning at full speed, cranking out the daily news. It was quite an operation.

former printing floor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (1927-present)^[1]

You can still peer through those big windows, but you won’t see any equipment filling the space today. That’s all been removed–sold off, presumably–with the Post-Gazette‘s upgrade to a brand new suburban printing facility a few years back. The subsequent relocation of the news office to the near North Side followed. On the bright side, the P-G‘s current crew of journalists, editors, and the like need only head downstairs for a fill-up on No Joke Mac ‘N Cheese or a flight of shooters at Tequila Cowboy.

entrance to the former News-Tribune office, Beaver Falls, PA

The News-Tribune, Beaver Falls (1928-1979)

If you’re on Boulevard, grab a gander while you still can. What’s left is a fascinating view into a work space once pumping with activity. Floor mounts for all the heavy machinery are still intact; blank walls are scarred with the gouges and pockmarks of a half-century’s hard physical abuse. One visible section of below-street-level wall still contains taped-up news clippings, notes, employee graffiti, and torn photos of women in bikinis. All surfaces appear blackened with a spray of printing ink that one imagines hung in the air like thick fog.

The Burgettstown Enterprise (1878-1999)

For now (at least), the Post-Gazette is still very much alive–although it continues to try to figure out how many days a week it can actually afford to print and deliver a paper.

The same cannot be said for many of the region’s old news sources. Head out of town in any direction and each Main Street will almost invariably offer up the spent carcass of a former local newspaper.

eight-story stone Victorian office building in downtown Pittsburgh

The Pittsburg (sic.) Times, 1880-1906

Jeannette Dispatch (1889-1918) ^[2]

With banks being the notable exception, newspaper offices erected a century-or-so ago seem uniquely confident in their place in society among private businesses^[3]. A huge number of papers have the original masthead built right into the brick and granite framework of their headquarters buildings.

You can’t always tell from these photos, but trust that it was the engraved crowns on the Jeannette Dispatch (above) and Leader-Times (below) that gave them away; no pre-research was necessary to find them–we just looked up and read the rooflines.

Simpsons’ Daily Leader-Times, Kittanning (1921-1961)

brick building with sign reading "The Times Publishing Co.", Duquesne, PA

The Duquesne Times (1918-1960)

For this piece, we decided to only include photos of newspaper buildings where the passer-by can still read the original mission of its previous host. If we were to do all the forensics on every old paper in the region … well, we’d never get back to weird pizza and sad toys.

That said, the great all-things-Beaver County blog Ambridge Memories has a terrific post on the various former locations of the Daily Citizen. They’ve done an amazing job of tracking and showing then-and-now pictures of the five different Ambridge buildings the Citizen occupied during its 55-year run (1904-1959). None of the current photos give any hint to their past life in media.

Valley Journal/The Green Sheet, Millvale (1941-2019)

The latest casualty! Yes, even The Green Sheet (aka “Ye Olde Green Sheet”) has fallen victim to cheap/free Internet classifieds announcing their closure over the summer. No longer will you see the once-ubiquitous piles of pale green newsprint stacked by the door at Shur-Save, Kuhn’s, and Shop’n’Save. If you want to swap cemetery plots or trade for guns, that business will have to be conducted elsewhere.

former office of Butler Eagle newspaper, Butler, PA

Butler Eagle (1903-present)

Rest assured, the Butler Eagle is still publishing–but they’ve moved their news office to a more modern, large scale printing operation on the edge of town. That consolidation has vacated the c. 1924 art deco-lite building, just off Main Street, where you’ll now find the unique property listed for sale. For our purposes, we think that counts too.

former office of The Valley Indpendent newspaper, Monessen, PA

The Valley Independent, Monessen (1926-2015) ^[4]

[1] As the name implies, the Post-Gazette was created by a merger of two much older newspapers, The Pittsburgh Gazette (first published 1786) and The Pittsburgh Post (neé Daily Morning Post) (first published 1842). The papers were merged in 1927 and moved into the building on Boulevard of the Allies in 1962.
[2] The Dispatch merged with another local paper in 1918, forming The Jeannette News-Dispatch, which continued publishing through 1981. Sometime in there, the office moved around the corner to Fourth St. We didn’t get a picture so we’re not sure if there is still a visible marker of it’s life as a news office.
[3] It is extremely common to see government buildings, schools, libraries, etc. with this kind of confidence in its future, but much less so with businesses.
[4] The Valley Independent has stopped printing, but lives on in the Mon Valley Independent.

Hollers to Doughnuts: Cycling the Beaver Valley Six-Pack

November 3, 20191 Comment

Beaver Greens Park and Ohio River on a sunny fall day

Picture perfect. View of Beaver Greens Park, Bridgewater Crossing, and the Ohio River from River Road, Beaver

[Breathes deeply, sighs wistfully.]

If only it was October all year long. This…err, last month’s magic powers are almost too numerous to name. Golden, low-angle sunshine fans through dappled multicolor leaves. Crisp morning air yields to warm, t-shirt weather afternoons. Decorative gourd fantasias tell us the aroma of pumpkin spice and mulled apple cider is wafting somewhere nearby as the whimsical array of dismembered body parts, sadistic clowns, and sprays of blood spatter signal the most wonderful of holiday seasons is fully upon us.

elaborate Halloween decorations on house and yard in Monaca, PA

The most wonderful holiday season, Monaca

Give this blogger a day off and a blue sky and you’ll inevitably find him on a bicycle, worldly cares dismissed for the afternoon. This particular October day (it was Saturday, two weeks ago) was just such an occasion. Maps were consulted, timetables checked, and the S.S. Orbit charted a course downriver.

The goal for this particular journey was to construct our own custom bicycle-based tour through a series of nearly-contiguous river towns. We’re calling the route The Beaver Valley Six-Pack. If you get the chance and you’re so-inclined–there is still time–we can’t think of a better way to enjoy a gorgeous autumn day.

Below is the path we took along with some highlights. That said, as long as you get the interchanges right, it’s pretty much choose-your-own-adventure on this one. Stay off the busy roads–that turns out to be pretty easy–and you really can’t go wrong.

Santa and 10 tiny reindeer-toilets, Monaca

Monaca

We started in Monaca and went north. There’s a good argument to go the other direction, but we’ll get into that later. In any case, one can safely park a car on anywhere around 9th Street and the vehicle should remain unmolested as long as you like.

Don’t be too quick to get across the river! An easy trundle through the longer residential streets (Washington, Indiana, and Atlantic Aves.) is well worth the poke-see, as are the dramatic river views from Monaca’s pair of waterfront parklets.

View of the Ohio River and train bridge from Monaca, PA

View of the Ohio River from the Monaca riverfront

Right now, the city is well represented in holiday decoration with an ample supply of front yard witches, skeletons, and gravestones. You’ll also not want to miss the Christmas-all-year display of Santa and his ten tiny reindeer toilets (photo above) on the roof of a garage behind the Japanese steakhouse.

ghost sign reading "Monaca Business Block," Monaca, PA

Ghost sign, Monaca

Whenever you’re ready, the giant bridge over the Ohio River awaits. It comes straight off 9th Street and there’s a protected bicycle/pedestrian gangway on the north-bound side. Newish signage states this will part of a future, more formalized Beaver County bicycle trail–but we can’t wait for that.

We saw no other non-vehicles on our crossing and while the views up and down the Ohio River are spectacular, we didn’t manage to get a photo worth sharing. Maybe you can do better.

large elevated sign for DeAngelis Donuts, Rochester, PA

DeAngelis Delightfully Different Donuts, Rochester

Rochester to Bridgewater

Arriving on the north bank of the Ohio, you’d swear the municipality was named DeAngelis for the size and placement of the enormous welcome sign. It’s not. No, Rochester just happens to begin (or end) at DeAngelis “Delightfully Different” Donuts which somehow commandeers the enviable location where the little city’s downtown intersects with the bridge and Routes 51/65 highway through-traffic.

A dirty secret: The Orbit has been to Rochester a dozen times on various field trips and never stopped for a DeAngelis donut (sic.). We’ll rectify that one of these days.

Rochester has a cool–but, sadly, vacant–old downtown just downhill from where you are now. There’s also a riverfront bowling alley whose exterior you’ll recognize from Kingpin the next you see it. This is all well worth exploring–but we didn’t do it this trip. Instead, it was through the roundabout, arriving at six o’clock and getting out at 11, down Brighton to Madison and crossing the Rochester-Bridgewater Bridge.

Beaver River between Rochester and Bridgewater, PA

Rochester (right), Bridgewater (left), and a whole lot of blue. View from the Rochester-Bridgewater Bridge.

Bridgewater and Beaver Borough

You’ll pass quickly through Bridgewater–so quickly, you might not even realize it was its own place. That said, if you’re looking for lunch, there are a handful of establishments right there at the base of the bridge that all look welcoming and convivial.

A quick left on Market Street, following the road around to Wolf Lane, will lead you directly to a bike/ped trail up under some railroad tracks by the old train depot and into Beaver Borough.

Now, Beaver gets all the name recognition out here and that’s in no small part because it cornered the market on the three W’s: wealthy white WASPs. If you’ve never been there, Beaver is totally out of place among the rest of the area. With its wide streets, well-kept fancy homes, and main street full of boutiques and frivolity, Beaver feels like a tony commuter suburb was plucked out of Connecticut and dropped in among the old mill towns of Beaver County. Don’t let that stop you from checking out the good stuff.

Halloween decorations at home in Beaver, PA

Halloween at Thunberg Acres, Beaver

The bicycle ride around River Road is just terrific. A wide street with no traffic and long views down to Beaver Greens Park, the Ohio River, and back across to Monaca on the other shore. (See photo, top.) River Road also includes numerous park benches, historical markers, and assorted other points of interest along the way.

At the far end, you’ll come up close to Thunberg Acres (our name). Orbit fans know this as the 3rd Street home of Gary Thunberg and his always-in-rotation holiday displays. [See photo above; we’ve reported on Gary’s homemade Halloween and Independence Day displays in years past.] Whatever the time of year, see what Thunberg Acres has in the queue of full-yard displays and please sign Gary’s guest book in the front box–he’s got a collection that goes back 20 years and would love for you to add to it.

Dappled sunlight, fall colors, Cyrillic picture graves at Beaver Cemetery

It is hard to overstate this how devastatingly beautiful Beaver Cemetery is–especially this time of year. The cemetery sits directly across 3rd Street from the Thunberg house and basically forms the western end of the town’s business district–you won’t miss it. We’ve reported on the off-its-rocker Leaf Mausoleum already, but there is so much to see here–and it colors so beautifully in the fall–that you don’t even need that.

As an unrepentant taphophile, I can tell you that Beaver Cemetery’s collection of mid-century photo gravestones is the largest we’ve seen in these parts. We first got the bug with the amazing weathered grave markers at Loretto Cemetery, but the town of Beaver bought into the little photos-turned-ceramic insets big time. At some point, we’ll go back for a big story there. For now, you’ll have to go find them yourself.

The golden doughboy, Townsend Park, New Brighton

New Brighton

Fun fact: Beaver Falls (we’ll get there in a minute) was originally called Brighton, which makes the name of the borough right across the river more sensible and explains the prominence of Pittsburgh’s north-west-heading Brighton Road. Once the name change to Beaver Falls, you’d think New Brighton might consider becoming Regular-Old Brighton, but that obviously didn’t happen.

Bicycling to New Brighton is the trickiest of the lot. From Beaver, you’ll make your way across town, down Leopard Lane, back into Bridgewater, and north up either Market or Riverside. There’s a quick little run on the sidewalk and then across the bike/ped lane of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. From here, you want to go straight across Rt. 65 to 3rd Avenue, which will skirt the through traffic almost all the way to New Brighton.

dark beer in glass on rough wooden table

Ein dunkel, Petrucci Brothers Brewing, New Brighton

The pairing of cycling and a malty quaff go together like…well, basically like anything else where one of the two things is drinking beer. That’s certainly true on the Six-Pack and Petrucci Brothers Brewing served up a rich dunkel that was qualified to satisfy the thirsty rider. In addition to the requisite combined brew/drink space, mismatched seating, and thrown-together bar, the Petruccis are big on games with shuffleboard, ping pong, air hockey, pool, and a big stack of board games all available to play for free.

Before leaving New Brighton, take a gander at the terrific collection of churches in town. There are too many to either discuss or include photos of here, but suffice to say for a small town it ended up with an amazing array of holy architecture.

First Baptist Church, one of several beautiful churches in New Brighton

Beaver Falls

You’ll be tempted to ride with the traffic across the 7th Street Bridge because that’s the most direct way to where you’re headed. This stay-off-the-busy-streets cyclist didn’t feel that safe with the handful of speeding cars greasing my hip, so the recommendation is to get across the road and take the safer–if underused–walkway on the south/downriver side of the bridge.

This drops you on 7th Avenue, Beaver Falls‘ Main Street. Like a lot of its fellow old mill towns, Beaver Falls has seen better days and will demonstrate that to you with a certain level of vacancy, empty lots, and underused storefronts up and down.

river, trees in fall colors, and train bridge in Western PA

The Beaver River and train bridge between New Brighton and Beaver Falls

That said, there’s plenty to do, see, eat, and drink in town–even if you’re just passing through on two wheels.

The Beaver River’s eponymous falls do indeed break alongside Old Brighton’s eastern shore and there is the shortest of bicycle paths, connecting 2nd Ave. to 6th Ave., to see them from. Don’t get your hopes up: it’s a little tricky to actually get a decent viewing spot, and when you do…well, maybe they should have called the town Beaver Rapids. The gorgeous giant waterfalls of Ithaca or the Columbia River Gorge, these ain’t.

map with bicycling route between six different towns in Beaver County, PA

One suggested route for The Beaver Valley Six-Pack

Yeah, that’s a lot to take in. For anyone who’d actually like to recreate the Beaver Valley Six-Pack, we created a Map My Ride route that should get you through.

One final note: it was mentioned above that departing from Monaca may be the wrong way to do the trip. The argument for the opposite (start/end in Beaver Falls) is that you could bag (literally!) Oram’s Donuts at the start of the journey, do the rest of the ride in reverse, and then be back for the late opening time of Beaver Brewing Company. But then you’re probably getting to DeAngelis too late–what a dilemma!

Whatever you do, an exploration of Beaver Valley’s river towns is well worth the effort–even if you don’t do it on a bicycle. We’ll be back again, for sure, and maybe we’ll see you on the Six-Pack.

Oram’s Old-Fashioned Donuts, Beaver Falls

Getting there: To get anywhere in Beaver Valley will take you around 40 minutes drive west from downtown Pittsburgh.

Lest We Forget: One Year On

October 27, 2019October 27, 20191 Comment

large portrait of Holocaust survivor mounted on exterior display at the University of Pittsburgh campus as part of Luigi Toscano's "Lest We Forget" portrait series

Portrait of Bronia Weiner (b. Romania, 1919). One of 60 large-scale photographs of Holocaust survivors in Luigi Toscano’s “Lest We Forget” project, Oakland

It is almost what you might call a Mona Lisa smile. The face on the canvas is warm, but contains a hundred years of ups and downs, tragedy, triumph, and vigor—at least, that’s what we’re seeing. The woman’s emerald green eyes stare straight back at you. Her white hair is cut short and styled—or maybe it just goes this way naturally—in a loose wave that would look fashionable on a woman a quarter her age.

But it is the upturned curl at the corner of the woman’s mouth that gives her away. This cheshire grin suggests no matter how much heartache she may have experienced, there is an indomitable human spirit alive, well, and ready to release an outrageous tall tale with joyous laughter.

Bronia Weiner is a Holocaust survivor and it is no accident that her portrait is on public display here in Pittsburgh, now.

Robert (Bob) Behr (b. Berlin, Germany, 1922)

A partnership between The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh has brought German-Italian photographer Luigi Toscano’s project Lest We Forget (or Gegen das Vergessen in the original German) to Oakland.

The installation features 60 large-scale color photo portraits mounted on semi-translucent screen. Designed for outside exhibition, the photos, stretched on big wooden frames, line the broad walkways between The Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Chapel. Additional portraits are indoors at The Carnegie Museum and Chatham University library.

Shulamit Bastacky (b. Vilnius, Lithuania, 1941)

Up close and in person, the photographs read as the kind of opaque, hiqh-quality prints that one might find on art gallery walls. From any distance, however—especially on a bright sunny day—the fine mesh of the media allows background elements to bleed through the images.

The lush green of the Cathedral lawn colors a sun-dappled face. Eyeballs pop out from university infrastructure. Cloud-like white hair disappears into arching tree limbs, autumn leaves, and blue sky.

Sofija Goljand (b. Perejaslaw-Chmelnyzkyj, Ukraine, 1924)

We have no idea if this was the intended artistic effect or just a simple accident of the medium. Either way, the result is a beautiful and haunting way to portray these elder survivors and simultaneously address the mortality all of us inevitably wrestle with.

Toscano’s subjects range in age from their late 70s to 100 years old. Their time here—like all of ours—is limited. As these rich, detailed photographs dissolve into the wider landscape, it’s impossible not to think of the dust-to-dust return to the earth that will claim us one way or another.

large portraits of Holocaust survivor mounted on exterior display at the University of Pittsburgh campus as part of Luigi Toscano's "Lest We Forget" portrait series

“Lest We Forget” portraits near Heinz Chapel

As of today, it’s been exactly one year since a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue and committed an act of hate-filled violence that will forever affect every Pittsburgher.

With the Lest We Forget portraits, it is impossible not to see the sad irony that the 60 individuals pictured here survived Nazi concentration camps—not to mention everything else life throws at a person over eight or nine decades—and yet eleven of our neighbors were murdered at a Shabbat prayer service in Squirrel Hill.

“Lest We Forget” portraits on Cathedral of Learning lawn

Whatever you end doing today—be it attending the Tree of Life vigil or just parked on the couch with a bowl of popcorn—please keep all of these folks in your mind. Better yet, take a walk over to the lovely Cathedral lawn to see the installation for yourself. This remarkable collection of faces, each containing more life experiences than we could possibly know, will help you remember just what you have—and what we all lost exactly one year ago.

Elena Anfimowa (b. Smolensk, Russia, 1923)

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