Duquesne Incline, Strip District, church Brew works, Lawrenceville – Pittsburgh

With steep narrow streets lined with narrow row houses and so many iron bridges, hills and valleys, Pittsburgh struck me at first as a giant Easton, as in the river town on the other side of Pennsylvania, where my mother grew up.

We went first to ride the atmospheric funicular that climbs Mount Washington at a steep incline (hence the name, the Duquesne Incline), traveling inside an old wooden cable car. As promised, the view of the city fanning out across the valley below and up the opposite hillsides, at the convergence of three rivers, is spectacular. We returned at night to Grandview Avenue, which is lined with viewing platforms to see the city adorned with lights. Dazzling.

We finally found the concentration of old warehouses and ethnic food purveyors along Penn Avenue in the Strip District and I hobbled along (my foot is broken) to window shop. (We stopped at a huge candy store, grandpa Joes to pick up some hard-to-find Royal Crown Sours.) Next stop, Squirrel hill, the fancy and yes, hilly, area with non-attached big brick houses and past the various Carnegie Museums.

Our Airbnb is one of those narrow row houses in Lawrenceville with long caramel-colored wood plank floors and an old red brick fireplace. The street reminds me of my grandmother’s street in Easton (except it has hipster shops and restaurants a block a way on Butler Street). We entered through a little gate on the side of the white wooden row house and walked down a narrow alleyway to the back door. Dinner was good takeout pizza (pandemic style) from Driftwood Oven and then off to church for a beer. No joke. There’s a place called The Church Brew Works in a lovely old high ceilinged Romanesque church in Lawrenceville. Dirck’s brother figured it counts as mass attendance.