Pittsburgh is an awesome town. Very underrated. Lots of friendly people, great food, thriving business, and a lot more culture than you’d think.
It really tweaked my OCD that Pittsburgh is spelled with an h, but Gettysburg isn't.
Half the time when writing my address I'd get them both wrong. I just did now, but googled and corrected it, but I didn't have google back then, so I just had to wing it.
There was a cute little bohemian cafe near a park in Shadyside with back yard garden seating.
Apparently whoever owned the cafe had inherited or otherwise come into a copious supply of used bowling balls.
So they used them to make tables, chairs, fences, and weird artwork and decorations, whole and cut apart, some with extra holes drilled, some metal rods through them.
Lots and lots of bowling balls, artistically arranged. The darnedest thing.
I'll never forget it, but I can't tell if I totally confabulated it or not.
(Like how I can vividly recall that episode of the Muppet Show guest staring Bob Dylan and the Band, where they played Too Much of Nothin' with all the hippie and monster muppets: as far as I can tell it never happened, but I still will never forget it.)
Has anybody else ever seen such a thing, around '92-93 or so?
Was there an old bowling ball factory nearby?
There's some interesting history behind this, which I learned on a tour. The US Board on Geographic Names standardized place names in 1891 by dropping the h from places ending in "burgh". However, residents of Pittsburgh didn't like this change and lobbied for the original spelling, which was restored in 1911. So that's why you have Pittsburg CA and Pittsburgh PA.
It was a very odd place. I think because rent for apartments and business was so incredibly cheap after the 80s that it attracted quite a cast of characters and many strange businesses.
I still like visiting but the city doesn't feel as "artsy" as what I remember. Starbucks replacing the Beehive is the feel to me.
https://www.wqed.org/watch/pittsburgh-history-series/flying-...