Pittsburgh joined Cincinnati and St. Louis as a favorite city on my trip. It made a lot of money – and a lot of soot and pollution – on coal, oil, gas, iron and steel, but it has eliminated most of those ill effects and used the money for a lot of public buildings and parks. And the three rivers, the bridges and the hills make it visually dazzling.
My first attraction is unique. The Cathedral of Learning is a 42 story classroom building at the University of Pittsburgh where the first and third floors consist of 30 “nationality” rooms, each designed as a classroom designed in the style of a specific country. I show a couple of examples which will give you a slight feel of the concept.
Henry Clay Frick developed the production of coke from coal, which was so crucial to steel production that Andree Carnegie made him a partner in US Steel. The resulting fortune enabled Frick to build a public park housing an art museum and a mansion that I toured. If the name is familiar, his daughter donated his even larger mansion on 5th Avenue in New York as the Frick Collection. And he had a summer “cottage” in Pride’s Crossing (Beverly) Massachusetts, but it burned down so we never heard of it.
The confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form the Ohio was a strategic military location for the French Fort Duquesne and then the British Fort Pitt during the French and Indian War. I visited the Fort Pitt Museum that tells the history and the Block House, the only remaining building from the fort. This area is now Point State Park and I spent quite some time taking pictures of the big fountain, the downtown skyline and the bridges and stadiums.
My last stop was the History Center, with a special exhibit on Vietnam and a lot on the development of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania, including Mister Rogers.
The songs of the day will be the ones with Rock and Roll in the title. I thought of two more, so I have 13.
Rock and Roll. Led Zeppelin
Rock and Roll Music Chuck Berry (and the Beatles cover)
Rock and Roll Fantasy Bad Company
Rock and Roll Woman Buffalo Springfield
Rock and Roll is Here to Stay. Danny and the Juniors
Rock and Roll Hootchie Coo. Rick Derringer
Rock and Roll Soul Grand Funk
Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution AC/DC
Old Time Rock and Roll. Bob Seger
It’s Only Rock and Roll Rolling Stones
It’s Still Rock and Roll to me Billy Joel
A Little Bit Country and a Little Bit Rock and Roll Donnie and Marie
I’ve Got a Rock and Roll Heart. Eric Clapton
The History Center 
The man in the neighborhood 
A mural of Vietnam in the homefront 
Fort Pitt Block House 
The remaining walls of Fort Pitt 
A funicular going up the steep hills of Pittsburgh 
A cruise boat between a bridge and the Steelets Heinz Field 
Kayaks under another bridge and the Pirates PNC Park
Clayton, the Frick mansion 
The Frick Art Collection 
The Austrian classroom 
The Swiss classroom – on the back of each chair is the coat of arms of a Swiss Canton (province) 
The Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh
Mark's cross-country trip 