South side slopes

The south side slopes neighborhood is unparalleled with its number of city steps; 69 separate sets totaling almost 7000 steps. locals call it "the slopes" and its thoroughfares are a labyrinth of switchback roadways, super steep hills, and the narrowest streets in the city. WARNING: do not attempt to drive here. the neighborhood itself has a variety of architectural styles including your basic Pittsburgh row house and some beautifully ornate queen Anne and Victorian homes. There are also a number of churches and a very notable monastery. I have a friend that lives in the slopes so I often visit then find myself meandering around the neighborhood. It's very convenient to park at the top of Arlington avenue and walk to the Southside which has a number of bars and eateries. On a Saturday night, it's impossible to find parking. So if you're fit, strap on the hiking shoes and hoof it down to Carson street. Just keep in mind it's about 400 steps to get back up (that's about 18 stories).

Observatory Hill

Home to the Pittsburgh Observatory and a number of other architectural gems, Observatory hill seems somewhat classier than many other neighborhoods in the city albeit highly underdeveloped. Will someone please revitalize the North Hills of Pittsburgh please? Thanks

Brighton Heights and Woods Run

I am on a roll lately. Breezing past the halfway point was easier than I thought. I have pretty much finished the South Hills and now it's time for the North Hills. I am thinking about which steps I want to finish with and I think it's going to be the Hill District. The neighborhood is right in the middle of the city and it's called the Hill. It just seems fitting.

Greenfield

Yesterday was GORGEOUS and I had the whole day off. Naturally, I went steps trekking. I decided to drag Nathan with me. We made a deal actually: I go with him to take care of his bees and sit in on a meeting with some D-bag that wanted to sell us a new register for the coffee shop and he had to come with me and help me count. It worked out in my favor actually. I loved watching him tend to the bee hives. He got a new hive with a new queen and he needed to coax the queen out of her box and into the hive so she could start he queenly duty. It was pretty neat to watch. Nate is tending 2 hives now. One for this hot dog joint called Franktuary and another hive that is his outright. As we were leaving to make our 1:30 meeting a kindly old woman named Pearl who lives right next door to the bees came out to have a chit chat. Perfect, anything that would delay our dumb meeting was more than welcome. And Pearl is an old lady and she deserves our respect so we technically have to listen to her as long as she chooses to ramble. 45 minutes later, we arrived at the shop to find the gentleman we were to meet with had to leave....damn (sarcasm) ON TO THE STEPS!

The sky was spotted with clouds and the temperature was 86. Perhaps a bit too hot but we were eager to sweat after the long winter. And sweat we did.



Greenfield is situated between Hazelwood, Squirrel Hill, and Schenley Park. the neighborhood is split into two very different sections. The Run (as it is affectionately called) lies in a creek bed at the base of the park. There are mostly older wood frame homes and most of the neighborhood is under a few bridges. This place has charm out the wazoo.

Then there is Greenfield proper which lies at the top of the hill. It is also adorable and affords some of the best views of the city I've ever seen. Unfortunately, my camera doesn't take good pictures of these views. Who wants to go take pictures with me? Only those with wide angle lenses need apply.

Westwood

You think you've seen everything.

It has happened on more than one occasion where I set out to hike a bunch of uncharted steps and I find a set I didn't know existed. This time it was in Beechview. The border of Beechview (Pittsburgh) and the separate city of Dormont is kind of screwy


See? I thought I was careful in searching this area thoroughly but to my surprise Ordinance Ave happened.


The steps are literally right on the screwy border. Oh well. I walked down Louisiana Ave with the intention of logging the Potomac Ave. steps over in Banksville when I discovered this new set. It tickled me pink. Speaking of pink, the magnolias are blooming. There is no better time to go hike steps, people. Get out there. Use my map. Have fun.

The "ghetto" (I hate that term)

Today was a good day for stair climbing. The clouds were blocking the sun from searing my pasty skin and the temperature was right around 70. It was a bit balmy but Spring has sprung. The smell of gardenia is in the air.



I went to Beltzhoover today after making excuses for so long. You see, this particular neighborhood is purportedly the worst in the city. Lowest housing values, highest crime, it smells funny...it does. (probably because of all the rotting trash and abandonment) Beltzhoover was this place that I never imagined setting foot in. Why would I? It was blown out of proportion in my mind however. Naturally, things are never as bad as you make them out to be. In reality the place was quite charming. The housing stock was similar to the rest of the city as far as architecture and design albeit I'd say there was perhaps a 50% vacancy rate. The homes that were still inhabited seemed well-maintained and there were people around sitting on front porches and doing yard work. A promising amount of home renovation seemed to be taking place. I counted three construction projects going on. There is new housing too. While other neighborhoods get all the credit for rebounding and revitalizing, Beltzhoover has a harder row to hoe. It's got a lot more to bounce back from. So perhaps the renaissance will just be a slower, subtler process here. We shall see.


As far as steps are concerned, I encountered too many that were just demolished or too overgrown to count. Many of the steps in Beltzhoover are extremely old brick steps that the city has probably never maintained. Before I go to a place, I scour old maps for locations of steps and plan out a good walk to cover efficiently, as many as possible. Well Beltzhoover's steps were not easily covered. One set in particular, Montooth Way, which cuts through four or five blocks, barely existed. I found myself trudging through grass and mud more than anything hoping to find remnants. I did find some steps but I felt inclined not to count them. Instead I highlighted them on the map with red indicating they should not be traveled.





From Beltzhoover I walked to neighboring Allentown. Allentown was along the now defunct Brown line trolley. There are many storefronts and a lot of vitality along Warrington Ave. Allentown has charm in spades. Architectural detail out the wazoo. Views to kill. It's a shame it hasn't been able to really gain much recognition. Still, it seems stable enough.



All in all, I did 563 new steps today. I realized I haven't been keeping track of how many sets of steps I have found so today I counted. Officially, I have found 414. Sheesh, right? Apparently I need to find another 298 although I think Bob Regan (author of "The Steps of Pittsburgh: Portrait of a City") must have been counting differently. I believe he counts each set separately if it is bisected by a road. Like Eleanor St. in the South Side Slopes for instance. It goes for nearly 6 or 7 blocks but I only counted the whole shebang as one set. What I am really trying to say is that I think that I have at least located a vast majority of the sets of steps. I still have yet to walk less than half. Bob has the number at 44,000 and I have logged 23,100 or so. Yay me. Not much further to go, my pets.

Back on the horse but the horse isn't really going anywhere.

I think I've said it before once or twice but finishing this second half of the steps is going to be a bitch.

I am hovering around the half way point. Yesterday I was out for about an hour and was only able to accomplish 38 new steps. Usually I could do 700 or more in an afternoon. I am super out of shape too.

Good news is the Google has come up with a new mapping system which will make compiling my data much simpler. I have started organizing by neighborhood and will soon have links to each individual map instead of the jumbled mess you see on the margin to the right presently. So that's exciting for me.

I have been eating super healthy and have not been smoking because, guess what, I am completing this project this summer dammit. If I ever want to write this guidebook, I have to first finish documenting. One "step" at a time (raucous laughter) oh puns.

So on a different note, I have a qualm. It has to do with Brookline and Overbrook; Two neighborhoods that border the Blue line trolley. While walking steps along route 51 it became clear to me that the Port authority had no idea what they were doing when they built the t extension and bus way. The South bank stop for the bus way and the T is very stupid. I'll explain. In order to reach this stop from Brookline, you must descend city steps from Brookline Blvd, then go under a tunnel and cross the street to the bus way stop. Cool, the T is right above you but there is no access to it...oh. Dumb. You could theoretically ride the bus 200 feet to the T stop...You're not allowed to walk...dumb. Also what's even dumber is that there are two stops so close together!!! Why wouldn't they just be combined!!!! Why doesn't the T run along the bus way????!?! Why does it have its own separate track?!?! It's so inefficient?!?!! Ok, I'll stop with the excessive punctuation.

Onto The McNeilly stop. Wow is this thing over-invested. There is virtually no pedestrian access from Brookline unless you have a death wish walking through that rail tunnel from McNeilly. I have done this countless times. The issue with both stops is that there is a freight line in the way. How to get pedestrians over train tracks has long stumped city planners, no wait...it hasn't. Tunnels! Or cheaper yet, bridges. Or even cheaper. just have a protected cross walk. the protected cross walk could be problematic if a train is coming and you're trying to catch a trolley on time. understood. but these specific stops both beg for better solutions.

The good with the bad

I was super pumped about today because the weather is perfect for step climbing; 60 and sunny. I had it all planned out where I was going to go and everything. Then yesterday I started getting those damned weird chest pains again. Needless to say, I stayed in. It hurts when I breathe. It hurts when I do anything and I was not about to go testing the limits of my cardiovascular system. So since I'm convinced it's either an ulcer or GERD. I am doing everything I can to heal faster. The worst part is that if it's an ulcer or the like, I cannot take pain medicine. I have to just deal. I hate to sound like I'm complaining all the time but there is literally no other outlet for my bitching so deal with it. I have to pretend I am happy at work all day and I have to try really hard to be nice to people when behind the fake smile I am just wanting to smush peoples faces till their eyeballs pop out. I would have stayed on the couch. I went to bed at 7:30 last night, slept for 18 hours. Well, I woke up intermittently to pee, drink water, whine to Nate, etc. But I felt the best when I was lying down, on my side, with my left arm over my head. Every other position was agony. I kept waking up because my right wrist kept falling asleep. MISERABLE!!! So that's me complaining about it. I'll stop now.

First Day of Spring

Although the weather hasn't been entirely reflective of this, it's Spring now. I get excited at this time of year obviously. It's near impossible to do steps in the snow. I celebrated the first day of the season in Carrick with some city steps. I did 600 new ones breaking through my half-way point. It felt glorious. This time I took my dog, Skip, with me. He's a rescue dog and has a bum leg. Perhaps I should have thought twice before subjecting him to urban mountain climbing. The poor guy got tuckered out and by the end of my excursion I thought I might have to carry him. At first he was pulling me up the hills, though. He seemed like he had a good time overall but I don't think he'll be doing this with me ever again. Carrick, like many neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, is full of dogs. I can't tell you how many times I lost track of my counting because Skip decided to go ape-shit over another canine. He's just a fluffy little white dog. Who does he think he is fooling? Oh well.

Carrick is a strange bird. It borders Mount Oliver and Brentwood; A terrible neighborhood and a wonderful neighborhood (both of which aren't part of Pittsburgh). So as you can imagine, its housing stock reflects this. There are some beautiful, stately, old homes but mostly you'll find the Pittsburgh bungalow style that is so common in the South Hills. The main commercial corridor is Brownsville road. The businesses along the Brownsville seem a bit desolate. The traffic is plentiful but the parking is not. It's a common problem in this city. The older business districts were conceptualized before the advent of the automobile. As a result, cars just pass through to Brentwood Towne Centre (does the spelling of this make you want to vomit like it does me?) A newer development filled with corporate box stores. Carrick is a nice neighborhood overall and new investment is coming to bolster the business district, I hear. There is a great old dairy processing plant; the only surviving dairy in the city. It's called Colteryahn. I still don't know how to say it. The area surrounding the plant is slated for redevelopment and revitalization. It sounds exciting. We shall see.