6 posts tagged “pittsburgh”

Stanwix St. entrance to tunnel under river

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Actually, this is the less interesting end of the tunnel, it just happened that I was downtown for a seminar, and the garage I parked in had a great view of the hole in the ground. On the North Shore end, the TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine, brought over from Germany/Switzerland) has recently entered the earth, and will begin its digging soon. We had bid on making the precast tunnel sections, but they ended up not being able use our price and payment terms, which we knew better than to budge on, so hopefully the company that ended up with the job will be able to make it through. But it's interesting to watch.

Here's a map of what they're doing. The basic idea is to connect the existing subway system (tiny as it is) to the North Shore, where PNC Park and Heinz Field are (and some new hotels, and theoretically a casino coming). And then I see by the map that they feel you can somehow get to the airport from there. That's a little ambitious! But I do think the ultimate goal is not just to get to someplace you can as easily walk across a bridge to, but to open up the North Hills to mass transit like the South Hills has had for decades.

There was much debate about whether it couldn't be done on one of the existing bridges, but then they would've had to figure out where in downtown (which is very tight) the subway could emerge from underground. This way, it doesn't emerge till it gets across the river, where there's more room.

SoHo logo

I looked online this morning for somewhere in the city to have Sunday brunch before taking Alex to the bus station, so the child wouldn't starve on the 8-hour ride. Some place not too dressy, since he'd be in jeans (rules out Grand Concourse). Some place we wouldn't have to mess around too much with parking (rules out most every place downtown). I found a link to this new restaurant on the North Shore (attached to the new SpringHill Suites, right across from PNC Park), and the brunch sounded nice, so we (read I) decided to give it a try.

1) Free on-street parking on Sunday! Although I'm sure this isn't the case on a Steeler Sunday... this didn't happen to be one.

2) Live jazz quartet! Unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the group, but they were good... keyboard, bass, drums, sultry female singer.

3) We were literally the only ones there at 10:45! More people did start coming in by the time we left at noon, so I guess we were just early. But it meant we had the undivided attention of the wait staff and the omelet dude.

Soho interior

4) Great buffet! I chose: smoked salmon (to which I added capers & crumbled egg to make a croissant sandwich), eggs Benedict (very good sauce, just maybe the english muffin was a little tough), a cheese blintz, "breakfast" potatoes, waffle with raspberry sauce, coffee (not bad), and cranberry juice. There was a dessert buffet as well, but I didn't really need that; Alex had a piece of peanut butter pie though. I also guess I didn't take any of the bountiful fresh fruit, not sure why. There were also lots of other things I didn't take: eggs, pierogies, ravioli, carved ham, omelets, pancakes.

5) Personable staff! We learned that the omelet/waffle maker just started working there, and had just started a 16-month program at the Pittsburgh Culinary Institute. His dream job is at a Las Vegas resort. We learned from the waitress that this is the 3rd SoHo in a little chain of restaurants, but she wasn't sure why the name was chosen, since none of them are anywhere near SoHo. I guess just that it's meant to be hip, urban, upscale, etc. Which it is, though still casual.

6) Free mimosas!

Recommended!

Big_pour

Fun, fun, fun!

Sampled [ummm] many microbrews :-)

Good cause, too!

Here's some info about it... we were standing next to these guys while they were being interviewed, so that was fun, too.

Well, not exactly, but a lovely evening at Kaya ...

We (the four of us) met L and her friend Mahnaz (& her husband & daughter) at 7:00 last Tuesday for a fun evening of delicious food (& drink) and good conversation. L & I had Earl Grey marTEAnis, mmm mmm! Then A & I shared a dish of seared sea scallops, with some sort of absolutely wonderful chutney, and I had the seared salmon entree, which was served with watercress on top of cheese encrusted yucca (I think) - also fantastic. AU got to talk with Mahnaz' husband about DC & we talked a good bit of politics in general, which is always interesting when the conversants have first-hand experience.

A very entertaining dinner!

I didn't get a chance to post a response to the VoxHunt a while back which asked for something we like about the place we live in, but yesterday was definitely a day to remind me...

It was an absolutely gorgeous day, especially for late November in Pittsburgh, and Nikki & I met Laura & Indigo at the Mattress Factory to see the new "Factory Installed" pieces. My favorite was the Ascheim work, I think because I can imagine the desire to create it. I especially liked the part of the work that isn't shown on the website, which involved her pasting photos and random thoughts on the walls of two rooms, and interconnecting/associating the thoughts with a network of lines.

We toured the rest of the exhibits too, of course; I hadn't seen a lot of the works in the annex building before, though Nikki had when she volunteered there over the summer. Of those, Laura and I were especially fascinated by a work called Persistence (I think, and unfortunately I can't recall the artist); it was two video displays (facing each other in a dark room) showing unfired ceramic sculptures dissolving in liquid, one a human head, and one a pair of hands, accompanied by tolls of some interesting sort of bells at one end of the room. It was hard to turn away from the fingers disintegrating particle by particle until they crumbled off.

Tom Museum

We also toured the Tom Museum down the street,

which was quite a fun place, and we got to meet Tom, who was greeting at the front door. It's unfortunate there aren't photos online of things like the Organic Space Station (in progress), the wooden maze-y sort of entrance, the Earth Pond in the basement (but watch out for spiders!), the refrigerator magnet wall in the kitchen, and the little informative labels everywhere.

After a good bit of discussion, we decided to head to the Strip District for dinner. It was only 4:30 when we got over there though, so we strolled up Penn Avenue a bit waiting for restaurants to open. We were drawn into Wholey's Balcony cookware shop to look at cookie cutters, and as we were examining flour sifters, Robert Wholey himself came up to us, and seeing that I was still wearing a Mattress Factory admittance sticker, he invited us next door to his office to see a Tom Sarver work he had just acquired. After making our purchases, we did follow him into the adjacent storefront where they were selling Christmas greenery, and were rewarded by a personal viewing of  "Pittsburgh in the Year 2050", a huge and highly-detailed mural by the same Tom whose home/museum we had just toured! Quite an unexpected and fun experience, and one of the things I love about Pittsburgh, the way total strangers are never actually total strangers.

Then we had dinner at Lidia's, always a treat, but delicious Italian food and wine goes especially well with good conversation with people you love...

All in all, a great day in a great place with great people! Life is good!