Very cool about your husband's work. He probably knows a lot more about the city than I do at this point. When I lived there Forbes Field still existed & you couldn't swim in the rivers or, on certain summer days of air inversions, breathe. Well, you could but at your peril. As for Central Catholic, my father, first-born into a large Iri…
Very cool about your husband's work. He probably knows a lot more about the city than I do at this point. When I lived there Forbes Field still existed & you couldn't swim in the rivers or, on certain summer days of air inversions, breathe. Well, you could but at your peril. As for Central Catholic, my father, first-born into a large Irish Catholic family, went there too, although years earlier, & had, not surprising, a completely different experience.
It's terrible how we've poisoned the air and water in certain places, but really, in the end, all over the place. I wonder how it was cleaned up. Something to dig into.
The steel mills began to close in the 1970s at which point began Pgh's rise as a medical & research center---the medical system had always been strong (Salk developed his polio vaccine here), now it began to thrive. Plus, there was Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, etc. Theresa Heinz, former wife of John Heinz, scion of the famous Pittsburgh ketchup family & the US Senator from PA who later died in an airplane crash, took up, along with several other of the city's wealthy (the Hillmans, Mellons, etc) & spearheaded the clean-up. (Theresa later married John Kerry.) There are now parks, river walks & green spaces all over the place. The city drew on its remaining strengths (unlike a lot of place, it had some) & the turnaround was swift, considering.
Very cool about your husband's work. He probably knows a lot more about the city than I do at this point. When I lived there Forbes Field still existed & you couldn't swim in the rivers or, on certain summer days of air inversions, breathe. Well, you could but at your peril. As for Central Catholic, my father, first-born into a large Irish Catholic family, went there too, although years earlier, & had, not surprising, a completely different experience.
It's terrible how we've poisoned the air and water in certain places, but really, in the end, all over the place. I wonder how it was cleaned up. Something to dig into.
The steel mills began to close in the 1970s at which point began Pgh's rise as a medical & research center---the medical system had always been strong (Salk developed his polio vaccine here), now it began to thrive. Plus, there was Carnegie Mellon, Pitt, etc. Theresa Heinz, former wife of John Heinz, scion of the famous Pittsburgh ketchup family & the US Senator from PA who later died in an airplane crash, took up, along with several other of the city's wealthy (the Hillmans, Mellons, etc) & spearheaded the clean-up. (Theresa later married John Kerry.) There are now parks, river walks & green spaces all over the place. The city drew on its remaining strengths (unlike a lot of place, it had some) & the turnaround was swift, considering.