Tag: Shadyside

Being a tourist in my own city

 

When you turn 65 in Pittsburgh you can apply for a free PAT bus pass.

Monday morning I went downtown on the 71 B.  I am going to familiarize myself with schedules and routes but having a smart phone is a big help

You can pick the stop where you’re waiting it tells you how many minutes until a bus arrives. My plan is to visit all of the 88 neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh.

Here’s  Day One of my Free Bus Pass Photography Adventure.IMG_9946Me waiting at Highland and Bryant for the 71 B to go downtown.

Meet Kevin M. who accepted my medicare card until I get the pass.

His portrait will be wonderful in the People at Work show next July.

IMG_0861

taken as I exited the bus, with his gracious permission.

IMG_0863

The Port Authority where you fill out your application to get your bus pass.

 

I went to the City County Building where I was greeted by a sign and a bronze statue of Mayor Caligiuri

IMG_0865

 

IMG_9977Mayor Caligiuri by Robert Berks 1990

 

 

IMG_0001

Cathedral of Learning   University of Pittsburgh

 

I rejoined the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland

 

 

Crabcake and Slaw lunch at the Union Grill

IMG_0033

St. Paul Cathedral as I went to the next Bus Stop to get to Shadyside where they were setting up a Vintage Car Show on Walnut Street

Cars arriving in trailers  I caught the next bus on Highland Avenue and guess who my driver was?  Yep you guessed. Turns out Kevin went to the same high school as my sons but he was a class ahead of Mark.

IMG_0857

 

Steve and I  took a ride up to Shadyside later to see the vintage cars but it was raining

 

 

 

by Categories: PhotographyTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

Gallerie Chiz in Shadyside, Art Show Opening

susan and joan

Artists Susan Middleman and Joan Brindle. Classmates reunited at Susan’s Opening Reception Friday night.

Class of 1965-  they met as freshmen at Carnegie Tech

(now Carnegie Mellon University) Pittsburgh PA

Joan and I were art teachers in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and then Joan was my Art Supervisor. We became friends. That’s how I got invited to her friend Susan’s Art Opening Reception at Gallerie Chiz. The large oil paintings on paper are Susan’s art work.

I met the artist Susan Middleman through Joan.

 

IMG_2991Hosted by Gallerie Chiz owner/director Ellen Chisdes Neuberg who provided the space for connections. I knew she was the gallery owner as she came to introduce herself. I was inquiring if her plate held a sweet or a savory.

I thought it might be a chocolate or a meatball but it was a baby bella mushroom.

Ellen sported a cool purple outfit, unique art jewelry and turquoise glasses. Plus she wasn’t carrying a purse.  Ellen and one other person would have been selected “best dressed” if I were from the paper.

Glass and found objects artist Elizabeth Fortunato showed her work at the art opening reception this evening, too. The show is open through October 10th.

IMG_2974

 

IMG_2986

 

IMG_2966

 

The title is Waiting for the Rain to Stop

IMG_2964

The white embroidered dress is from Hey Betty! Vintage Clothing down the street (5890 Ellsworth Avenue)

 

IMG_2985Piano accompanied a jazzy singer which added to the life of the party

Couple
Boys
by Categories: Weekly Photo ChallengeTags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Ky Started Yo-Yoing at Age Eleven

I stopped into the old fashioned/classic toy store in the neighborhood of Shadyside on Ivy Street. The cool toy store is around the corner from where we lived when we first moved to Pittsburgh.  This is the same store my three kids would browse in for the longest time on the way home from school in 1989-1991.

Two floors of toy store!    Filled with LEGO®  and Playmobil®, knights, puppets, trucks and trains, dolls and puzzles. Everything you can wish for as a child.  You might see some items you yearned for as a kid but never received.

I was buying a gift for a friend.

And while I was there, the young man came from behind the counter and started yo-yoing. I mean yo-yoing extraordinaire!  His name is Ky.

There was nothing else but to stop my shopping and watch in amazement.  All I had with me was the phone camera.  With a phone memory too full, I had to delete pics to take a few shots. (too much phoneography for challenges?)

Wowee Wow. I don’t know how to describe it -but I was mesmerized.  And then he put down the yo-yo and picked up a kendama.  Yes, we have an old wooden one but I never knew what it was called. Or that it was of Japanese origin. He was smooth and skillful at both the yo-yo and kendama!

If you want to learn how to yo-yo like Ky you can head on over to Shadyside on Sunday at noon and practice how to put your yo-yo into a “sleep” so you can attempt the tricks like Ky was demonstrating.  Learn “looping”.   Ky will be there teaching in  the Yo-Yo/Skill Toy Club at S.W. Randall’s.  I think I need to return with a video camera and you can understand how you had to keep your eye on Ky and the yo-yo or Ky and the kendama.  Do you have any yo-yo tricks?

by Categories: Childhood, PhotographyTags: , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Neighborhood

Phoneography special. The weekly photo challenge I have been talking about it for days.  Unable to do it for a variety of reasons. Out of town.  Too dark.  Many people shoot with their phones.  All day, everyday.  Don’t think much of it, the photos sit and take up space. They have them in the phone and that’s about it.

This is just a snippet.

Tonight Steve drove us over to Shadyside for 1/2 price burger night at Shady Grove.   I’ve added some shots around town I already had in the phone. This is not an attractive time of year to showcase where I live.  If you want to see Pittsburgh at it’s best you can check out Francine in Retirement  of Frizz in Germany.  I take photos of Pittsburgh frequently.  This is a collection of the everyday.  The Historical Marker is where musician Billy Eckstine lived in my neighborhood.

The snowy park is the neighborhood I live in Highland Park.  There are 80 neighborhoods in our city.  The edges of neighborhoods are where I drive through everyday to school and across the bridge, over the Monongahela.  I’ve thrown in a few you’ve seen before just to round out the gallery.

Last Wednesday’s view of the Highland Park Entrance.  The second one is what my driveway looked like!  It’s all gone now.

IMG_4627 (1) IMG_4574 IMG_6867 IMG_6865 IMG_6864 IMG_6863 IMG_6862 IMG_6859 IMG_6857 IMG_6855 IMG_6854 IMG_6853 IMG_6852 IMG_6851 IMG_6850 IMG_6849

by Categories: Weekly Photo ChallengeTags: , , , , , , , , , , 16 Comments

Somewhere Under a Rainbow

The neighborhood is Shadyside.

Almost to Walnut Street along Shady Avenue, I had to stop and pull over.

A summer cloudburst, along with the sun appearing in the western sky- rainbow!

I’m sure the image could be tweaked a bit to darken the colors, but this is just as it was. The building is Calvary Church Parish Hall on the left, the church on the right.  The 50mm 1.2 L lens  was on the camera.

by Categories: PhotographyTags: , , , , , , , 10 Comments

Shadyside in the Snow

We lived in this neighborhood for two years in a little rental behind what was the Balcony Restaurant and Jazz Club.  You could hear the dumpster trucks come in the early morning and the beer bottles clash in the alley.  Today on the way home from school I stopped by the Food Museum where the fruit in the window is like  a Flemish painting in the Metropolitan. Better known as the Shadyside Market. An elegant place. They were really nice to me although they knew I was checking the price tags before I made my selections.   I knew I could buy bacon, eggs, and bread and not break the bank. The plan was to use a box of spaghetti in the pantry, the parmesan in the fridge and make spaghetti carbonara accompanied by a spinach salad with oranges and red onion. (had Spinach Salad on my mind, thanks to Chicago John from Bartolini’s Kitchen blog)

With the snow falling I knew that our big markets would be swamped as everyone rushes there to get the last roll of toilet paper or empty the shelves to stock their larder when they hear of an impending snowstorm.  So no food photos of the great meal I was inspired to cook in the winter weather,  But the neighborhood of Shadyside.   Sometimes I cringe when I realize I would let 7 year old Laura walk around the block ALONE to Rite-Aid to buy the paper. What was I thinking?  Prantl’s Bakery makes the Burnt Almond Torte everyone loves. Well, most people. 

Famous for their Burnt Almond Torte. Pamela's is nice for breakfast, too.
by Categories: Night Light in the City, Pittsburgh PhotosTags: , , , , , 19 Comments

Pug Guard Dog in Shadyside Shop Window

Yesterday was a very happy birthday and thanks for the emails, cards and nice comments! Laura baked a homemade angelfood cake and it was delicious.  We had strawberries on it and some vanilla ice cream. James grilled out bison burgers and bratburgers, some tomato mozzarella salad and broccoli slaw.

You know how dog lovers have their specific breed they prefer?  (Right Sarah and Amber?) And my cousins and their dachshunds and the Payer/McGraths and their Airedales.  Laura and James have gone Golden Doodle.  I know Debbie loves Golden Retrievers.  Anyway, it’s a theme I’ve examined before. My animals in the city series.   E and I were walking on Walnut Street after a summer breakfast last week and we stumbled upon this pug in the shop window.  I think she was snoozing on the job!

by Categories: Animals in the City, Pittsburgh PhotosTags: , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Silly Putty®, Wiffle® Ball,Slinky®- 3 Toys Share a Distinction ( and it’s not short i)

All three are manufactured in the USA!!

Two in Pennsylvania, and one in Connecticut (Wiffle® Ball)

Learned how to make a ® symbol on the Mac keyboard so thought I would use (overuse) it for this post.

These names are familiar I know. And to people my age, a host of memories will resurface after you view these images.

Silly Putty® is now owned by Binney and Smith and is more than fifty years old. Tons of this pliable stuff has been manufactured and sold in the past fifty + years.

Slinky® has an interesting history, too, and About.com lists this memorable jingle but be careful cause it might stick in your head all day and you’ll remember the tune, too. They are manufactured in Holidaysburg PA.

“What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs, And makes a slinkity sound?
A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing, Everyone knows it’s Slinky…
It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, for fun it’s a wonderful toy
It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, it’s fun for a girl and a boy
– Advertising Jingle for Slinky

You can always buy a new Slinky cause who hasn’t gotten one stretched out and tangled up irreversibly?

And I remember when Wiffle® Balls came out ! Do you? They are still selling strong. Especially to college kids.

I was in Shadyside Variety Store, picking up a few items for the grandchildren. I remember when Mark, Matthew and Laura used to shop here in the early nineties. We lived around the corner for two years and they could walk there to shop.

So many nostalgic favorites- and the latest inventive toys from the Toy Fair, like Spot It which Sharon the proprietor demonstrated for me so I can play it with Anna and Michael when I visit. Keeping my brain sharp. I am fairly certain they’ll beat me.

See the rubber chicken dangling inside the colorful hula hoops at the store entrance? Next time the grandchildren come I am going to take them to the Shadyside Variety Store, give them each some money and see what they decide to buy after extensive browsing!

The nicest guy from Texas,who just finished up a Robotics Conference at CMU, was shopping – he held the Etch-a-Sketch up for me when I was exploring the store for classics!

When your shopping list says birthday gift, jumprope, jacks, sidwalk chalk, art supplies, Dots, Pinky Balls, and Silly Putty, Slinky and Wiffle Ball….. Shadyside Variety Store 5421 Walnut Street, Pittsburgh – (412) 681-1716 (Cash or check!)

Someone asked me the other day if I were a reporter. No, a blogger. Self-assigned!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

by Categories: Childhood, PhotographyTags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments