My thoughts on our urban neighbor to the south-east

From an email I just sent to a Pittsburgh native friend:

Hey Shawn,

Thanks for your email. And let me say again, your home city is awesome. I'm not really sure what I was expecting -- I'd never been before and didn't really have any cultural references to guide my imagination -- but whatever the expectations were, they were vastly exceeded.

We got in to town about 5 PM and checked in to our hotel downtown -- next door to the Heinz history center which looks pretty cool, though we didn't check it out. We changed and then walked across a bridge to the Warhol museum, which was doing this special Friday night cocktails thing and, bonus, charging half-price admission. The museum as a whole was cool, especially some of the installations. And one of the special guest exhibitions was super cool. Can't remember the guy's name, but if you are interested and look up the site, it was the one not named Mondrian.

Afterwards we headed back across the river and walked to the Strip neighborhood and got dinner and beers at some shitty seafood place. Then we called it a night.

Saturday was the best day, for sure. We woke up, grabbed a gut-busting breakfast at DeLuca's -- awesome, by the way. Then we walked up and down the Strip center, checking out places. There are a bunch of cool places, but I particularly enjoyed chatting with one of the partners at the Pennsylvania Pottery store, grabbing coffee at the Leaf and Bean, and perusing gourmet chocolate heaven in Mon Aimee. About 2 pm, we went back to the hotel, dropped off our bags of purchased stuff, and drove over to A.I.R., this non-profit arts co-op. They were having an open house/party, and for 10 bucks we got in, were fed burgers from the outdoor grill, offered beers from Penn Brewery, and given the opportunity to make our own silkscreened posters and postcards. After that, we headed back downtown, where the Three Rivers Arts Fest was being held, checked out this awesome series of cargo/shipping container installation art pieces, and then went to this wacky Art Olympics thing where there was even more beer (from East End brewery, this time ... even better). As for the Art Olympics, imagine an Iron Chef style art competition, complete with 2 hours of hilarious performance art and live jazz, pitting small teams of artists from three neighborhoods against one another, with the winners being determined by factors like entertainment level, quality of art, and usage of materials. While we hung out I met the art critic from the Pittsburgh paper and this guy who relocated from NYC that used to own a really great gallery I had read about before but has since unfortunately shut down. Both were super cool to talk with.

Afterwards, we drove over to the Church Brew Works, this old Polish catholic church that, after 100 years or so of religious usage, closed down and reopened as a beautiful brew-pub. The beers are pretty basic, better than Bud Light but not as good as most small craft stuff, but the food was better than average and the views (and novelty factor) were incredibly impressive. Definitely a must-see next time you visit. Then we played hipster for a minute and stopped at Brillobox. It seems like a cool place, if a bit of a scene, but the smoke was too much and we ducked out early. Funny how after years of living in Texas and now Ohio -- two states that don't allow indoor smoking -- I'm totally unable to tolerate a closed room that does. And I used to smoke, at least socially back in college.

Sunday we were pretty tired out, but still had a nice fancy breakfast at this place called Coca coffee lounge in Lawrenceville. Then we went over to the Pittsburgh Glass Center and walked around. It was totally dead, so the only thing to observe was the facility, but that was amazing. My best pal here in Clevo has a glass-blowing co-op, and as cool as it is, it isn't much like the glass center in Pittsburgh. Then again, that place felt antiseptic and cool professional, unlike my friend's inviting, DIY vibe. After that, we headed back downtown, parked and walked over to PNC ballpark. On the way there, we passed through a gay pride event and parade and, a few blocks later, through the vendor area for the arts fest I mentioned before. We finally made it to the park, but decided to grab beers at a nearby bar before going in (the $3 yeungling pints there kicked the $7 in-park price's ass). We got to the game in the beginning of the 2nd inning and left around the 8th -- mostly I just wanted to see the park and watch some day-game baseball. We both intermittently dozed off throughout the game, though, and as I'm totally ambivalent about both the Pirates and the Blue Jays (who they were playing), it didn't bother me to leave early.

A short walk back across the Roberto Clemente bridge and down Liberty Ave and we were back to the car. 2.5 hours later we were pulling into Clevo, bushed but inspired by what a cool city we had visited and how we wished Cleveland would take a few pages out of Pittsburgh's cultural book. Don't get me wrong - I'm generally impressed with the cultural community in Cleveland, and there are some things I think we do better here than there (namely our music and culinary scenes are better) - but Pittsburgh brings it all together a little better, I think. Especially the visual arts. I think a few of the artists I've become friends with during the last year here would thrive all the more there (or at least if we brought some of their ideas back home).

You know, now that I've typed all this out, I think I'm just gonna post this email to my blog. Save me from writing about it all twice. Thanks again for your tips. Let me know when you might want to do that Falling Water trip -- late summer or early fall might work good for me.

Take it easy,

Cleveland Bachelor