Essential Pittsburgh

Essential Pittsburgh episodes:

• 05.05.2017

  Meet The Mathematical Muscle Behind The Pittsburgh Marathon

  Finish line logistics captain Brian Schmidt is in the thick of it now. All last month he categorized and readied a behemoth assortment of race-day paraphernalia across two floors of a Strip District U-Haul facility. Today, he’s a walking ledger...

  
• 02.14.2017

  Garfield Bike Shop Owner Says He's Ready To Retire And Pass On The Tools

  Jerry Kraynick bends at the waist, hands on hips, and peers over his glasses. He gestures towards a bike. “Throw it up on the stand, and I’ll look at it.”

  
• 02.09.2017

  Carnegie Libraries As Literary Preppers: How Your Favorite Sleuths Predict Demand

  Two part-time workers stood on either side of a T-shaped conveyer belt as 61-year-old Joe Spaniol moved down its twin trunks, trading full boxes with empty ones when its contents started to overflow.

  
• 01.30.2017

  Redeveloping A Vacant Lot In Pittsburgh Can Be Full Of Refrigerator-Sized Surprises

  For decades, contractors demolishing old buildings in Pittsburgh knocked them through the sub-flooring and filled in the holes with whatever was left behind. Debris, support walls, bricks and even appliances -- all topped off with dirt.

  
• 01.23.2017

  From Corner Stores To Grocery Chains And Back, Pittsburgh's Food Systems Are Evolving

  Gina Merante grabbed a banana bunch from a red wall lined with gradually ripening fruit. She shuffled past boxes of apples and red peppers and pointed outside, past the large display window at the front of her store, Linea Verde...

  
• 01.17.2017

  City Considers Produce Terminal’s Vibrant Past While Planning For Its Future

  At nearly five city blocks long, the Pennsylvania Fruit and Auction, known to locals as the Produce Terminal, is hard to miss. It sits along Smallman Street between 16th and 20th and seems to watch over the business on Penn...

  
• 12.21.2016

  From Steel To Stethoscopes: Nied's Third Shift Bar Patrons Change With The City

  Nied’s Hotel in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood is one of a handful of bars where workers who clock out while most hit the alarm clock can still meet for coffee or a beer. Taverns that cater to third-shift workers aren’t a...

  
• 12.14.2016

  The Past And Future Of Old Allegheny City On Display At Home Tour

  A lot has changed over its 35 year history, but the Old Allegheny Victorian Christmas House Tour has always started on Beech Avenue at Calvary United Methodist Church.

  
• 12.05.2016

  They Pay Mortgages & Taxes, But Many Pittsburghers Don’t Realize Their Home Titles Are Tangled

  Eric Luster grew up in a three-bedroom 1920s-era home on a quiet dead end street in Homewood. It was a self-described good childhood, but he thought he would have a better future in Atlanta, Ga., so he moved out of...

  
• 11.22.2016

  Hill District Tours Aim To Change Impressions Of The Neighborhood

  A few decades ago, Terri Baltimore tagged along with a group of architecture students and their professor while they were visiting the Hill District. “And what they said about this neighborhood broke my heart,” she said. “That it was dirty.

  
• 11.01.2016

  Before The Steelers Had Six Super Bowl Wins, They Had ‘The Steelerettes’

  Pittsburgh is home to many sports firsts: the Pittsburgh Pirates participated in the first Major League World Series, the city was the first to have a retractable dome stadium and the Steelers were the first to win six Super Bowls.

  
• 10.20.2016

  What Four Pittsburgh Families Think Of The Final Presidential Debate

  Earlier this month, we spoke to a handful of families from across the Pittsburgh region about the upcoming election. We checked in with them after the third and final presidential debate to hear what they were thinking as we move...

  
• 10.20.2016

  How Pittsburgh's Ugly Fruit Finds New Life As Hard Cider

  A Pittsburgh group named A Few Bad Apples has three missions. The first is to teach people the lost skills of making use of homegrown fruit.

  
• 10.18.2016

  Natrona Bottling Company Thriving On Nostalgia And Tradition After 112 Years

  Along the Allegheny River in an unassuming former car garage sits the 112-year-old Natrona Bottling Company . Established in 1904, the business has distributed thousands of glass bottles with their signature Red Ribbon Cherry Supreme, spicy ginger beer and mint...

  
• 10.17.2016

  Vacant Lots Abound In Pittsburgh, But Buying One Isn't Easy

  To the left of her fridge, Zinna Scott can peer out her kitchen window on Rosewood Avenue in Homewood and see the two open, grassy lots where her neighbors once lived. It’s where she wants to build her dream house.

  
• 10.13.2016

  To One Immigrant And His Family, America Is Already Great

  The Rutherfords are a family not easily pigeonholed. They live in a modest home in Bethel Park. Dad, Kurt, 46, works in the Medicaid division at UPMC. Mom, Leslie, 44, stays home to take care of the house and manage...

  
• 10.11.2016

  How Union Loyalty And Education Reform Shape A Working Family’s Vote

  Donna and Steve Dzurilla live in a single-story home on a quiet street in Lincoln Place. They’re just barely in the city limits, surrounded by neighboring West Mifflin. The walls of their home are lined with photos of places not...

  
• 10.10.2016

  Elk Mating Really Gets Pennsylvania Going

  In the fields and forests of Pennsylvania’s Elk County, love triangles, unrequited advances and fevered courtships have a unique soundtrack.

  
• 10.06.2016

  For A Young Couple With Student Debt, Education Is A Top Issue This Election

  Sara Middleton and Catlyn Brooke both teach cross fit at the Allegheny YMCA on the North Side. They renovated the upstairs studio themselves. Middleton built the barbell racks, as well as a huge structure for pull up rings and high...

  
• 10.04.2016

  For This Working Mom, A Vote For Clinton Is A Vote For A Stronger Future

  Jasmine Cook stood in front of her house in the North Side neighborhood of California-Kirkbride. She held her 7-month-old daughter, flanked by her other two children. Her 7-year-old daughter was a self-proclaimed singer-gymnast and her 4-year-old son was a superhero...

  
• 10.03.2016

  To Vote Or Not To Vote, That Is The Question (For Many Republicans)

  Sitting in their living room in McCandless, Bob and Dena Masterino struggled to answer what is usually a fairly easy question: who are you voting for?

  
• 09.29.2016

  In Sharpsburg, Preserving The Fine Art Of Taxidermy

  Amongst some pretty worn-down storefronts in Sharpsburg, seven miles from downtown Pittsburgh, Memories Sportsman and Taxidermy Shop has operated since 1990. In the musty, cluttered space, owner Sam Stelitano, 65, sells new firearms and collectable ones, like original Smith and...

  
• 09.26.2016

  Mellon's Orchard: A Parking Lot With A History Of Redevelopment Dreams

  An empty, three-acre parking lot lies at the corner of Station Street and Euclid Avenue. You can’t actually park there. Weeds grow in the cracked cement between lines of faded paint.

  
• 09.20.2016

  Pittsburgh's Greenest Landscapers Are 11 Goats And A Donkey

  Hobo doesn’t look like your typical bodyguard. With soft brown eyes and a dark chocolate coat, the miniature donkey is quiet, calm and blends in with the herd he protects. That is, until something threatening approaches. “He’s never actually had...

  
• 09.16.2016

  How Teaching Ex-Cons How To Lay Brick Can Help Rebuild Their Lives

  Seven or eight years ago, Stephen Shelton started worrying about the future. It wasn’t just his own Pittsburgh-based construction company, but his entire industry.

  
• 09.09.2016

  Behind The Scenes At Smallman Galley, Pittsburgh's Restaurant Incubator

  First in an occasional series exploring Essential Pittsburgh. Jacqueline Wardle was working as the executive chef at Isabela on Grandview, a Mt. Washington restaurant, when she received a beguiling email: Instead of working for someone else, did she want to...