The Steel City

After my first day of work yesterday, I have a new blog post series that I'd like to begin. It will be called "International students say the darndest things!"

But, I will leave that for another day. Today, there is another little series of posts that I want to start. Amanda actually had the idea, as she suggested that I start a series of posts on Pittsburgh - the history, the present, fun facts, etc. And, I think it's a great idea! After living here for about a month, I've realized that Pittsburgh is very misunderstood city. When most people hear "pittsburgh" they think of industry and steel mills (and I did, too, when Brad suggested that we might be moving there!), but it's actually a very up-and-coming city with vibrant neighborhoods, beautiful cobblestone streets, tons of cool spots, and I especially love the eclectic mix of people!

So, here we go.

Pittsburgh is often referred to as either the Steel City or the City of Bridges. I'll talk about both of these today...

The city is called the Steel City because of the Steel industry that used to exist here. Pittsburgh once had more than 1000 factories and steel mills and was one of the industrial centers of the Northeastern US. When the Steel Mills existed in the city, the smog in the area was terrible. In fact, the second picture above was taken in 1948 at 12:00 noon! Following WW2, however, the city started cleaning up the smog and pollution, and in the 1980s, the Steel Mill industry failed mainly because of foreign competition.

Today, no steel mills exist in Pittsburgh; in fact, many of the old industrial areas in the city have now been made into new, urban areas with shopping and restaurants. But, the old smoke stacks can still be seen around the city, which is a cool reminder of the history of the steel city.

Pittsburgh is also called the city of bridges because 446 bridges exist within the city limits. The city center is situated where the Monongahala and Allegheny rivers meet to form the Ohio River, and because of this and also because the city is so hilly, the bridges are numerous and are breathtaking! I always hear people say that the only city in the world with more bridges is Venice (I'm not sure if that's actually true...).

So anyway, that's your cliffnotes version of why Pittsburgh is called the "Steel City" and the "City of Bridges." Next time we'll talk about (and see pictures of) what the smog has done to the buildings here and the latest efforts to renovate the miles and miles of waterfront around the city.