All We Are Saying… is Give Pittsburgh a Chance

January 25, 2026|Rick Juliusson

For our first new adventure of 2026 we choose the exotic tourist mecca of… Pittsburgh! Home of many championship sports teams, voted America’s most livable city in 1985, and a decayed steel empire - surely those three claims to fame merit a week of our lives?

Really we’re here housesitting and spending a final week with Zekiah, and we spend a lot of time hunkered down in funky coffee shops getting caught up on work/school. But along the way we discover a lot of character and steeltown spunk.

Reclaimed Buildings

When I lived in Akron Ohio, I would cycle through the once-prosperous tire factory neighbourhood, marvelling at the abandoned and decrepit remains of factories, churches, civic buildings. In Pittsburgh, many of the beautiful old buildings were reclaimed and restored after the steel and electronics industries imploded in the early 1980’s.

We enjoy an Acoustic Cafe open mic at Mr. Smalls in our old neighbourhood church. Drink local beer (they treasure their local craft beer) or house-made sodas at The Church Brew Works and Kingfly Spirits - much larger reclaimed churches. Walk past loft apartments and art studios in old factories. Tour the still-vibrant 280,000 square foot East Liberty Presbyterian Church built by Andrew Carnegie, complete with a bowling alley, fitness gym, and 8,000-pipe organ.

House of God has become the House of Suds

Bar table in a holy alcove

The still-holy East Liberty Presbyterian Church

The holy altar

Motor Square Garden - The first market with refridgeration, eventually put out of business when the rise of cars let people shop elsewhere. Ironically, it then became the home for auto shows and AAA.

Old (abandoned) furnace factory

The Macabre

First we visit The Weeping Glass, “a morbidly macabre oddities shop with a focus on odd art, unusual gifts, natural history, antiques, and all things morose” (thank you, Atlas Obscura). We muse over animal bits and bones, strange things stuffed inside glass, and taxidermy critters like the 2-headed below. Sadly, we miss the “Midnight Death Parlor, where a performance artist tells a candlelit tale of tragedy and murder, themed cocktails and dark delicacies are curated, and exclusive ephemera is created for each event.”

"Most 2-headed (diprosopus) animals born do not live very long. Such was the fate of our dear Dippy, the longest-living diprosopus calf lived to be a little over a year old."

The Bizarre

Imagine Jerry Garcia, Willy Wonka, and the set designers of Poor Things creating a theme park. They might come close to Randyland, where a spectacular off-kilter artist turned his house into a “candy-colored anti-depressant of a structure.” Every square inch is brightly painted and decorated with pink flamingos, giant banana plants, mismatched lawn furniture, mannequins, and plastic dinosaurs. Like Havana’s Fusterlandia and Houston’s Orange Show, this has to be seen to be believed.

Millvale

Our trusty Trusted Housesitters has landed us in Millvale, a cosy neighbourhood across one of the three rivers from downtown. Pittsburgh not only has 3 rivers, but steep hills rising up from them. Communities are tucked into tight little valleys like ours or sprawled up the hills, and there are bridges everywhere, arching high above valleys and rivers to connect hilltops.

Here in our little Millvale, we work daily in the old Moose Lodge turned coffee-shop, soup kitchen, renewable energy station (on Healthy Friday getting free massages and an Alexander Technique workshop). Shows at Mr. Smalls and the Poetry Cafe, recommended by the lovely owner of the local food market. B-Sides Vintage and the French bakery are sadly closed for vacation, but locally-owned bars and shops like Pittsburgh Sandwich Society, Steel City Salt and seasoning shop, and Harold’s Haunt “they-bar” keep the block humming.

Work day at the old Moose Lodge

All We Are Saying, is Give Pittsburgh a Chance

So ya, Pittsburgh is not at all the Pits. For one week we enjoyed hunkering down with our son, recharging batteries for return next week to school / Thailand. And we uncovered gems big and small in a city we'd only ever passed through. Here's a few more images as we close out this time in the US.