Pittsburgh’s happy to show off its riches

From The Miami Herald: Pittsburgh’s happy to show off its riches
By Eleanor Berman
Travel Arts Syndicate

PITTSBURGH -- Call it the Cinderella City. Like the fairy tale heroine, Pittsburgh has scrubbed away its ashes, the industrial grime and smog of its past steel-making days, to emerge as an American beauty — and a great town for visitors.

Now you can see clearly the awesome vistas in a town ringed by steep, green hills and laced by three rivers and more than 800 bridges. Many days are needed to fully appreciate the legacy of the fortunes made by the likes of the Carnegie, Mellon, Frick and Phipps families when this was the nation’s steel-making center. The riches include world-class museums for art and science and a glorious, art-filled conservatory. The Heinz family, whose food business is still going strong, is a supporter in many areas from art, a history center and concert hall to one of the city’s two fabulous sports stadiums offering river and skyline views. Andy Warhol, a Pittsburgh native, is honored with his own museum.

Pittsburgh remains a major business center, with some 15 skyscrapers rising as high as 60 stories. Three department stores, lots of dining choices, a growing cultural district of theaters and galleries and plenty of green oases are good reasons for a downtown stroll. A multi-ethnic population that came in the past for steel mill jobs created colorful neighborhoods that are full of good eating.

Add a day trip to Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater, just 50 miles away, and there’s every good reason to plan a trip.

To appreciate Pittsburgh, start by boarding the restored 1877 Duquesne Cable Car for its 400-foot ascent to a hilltop where you can get a full perspective on the city. The triangular center is bordered by the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, which merge at the tip to form the Ohio River. The confluence is marked with a handsome park; scenic walking trails border most of the riverfronts.

Next stop is Andrew Carnegie’s grand domain, the free public library, museum and concert hall opened in 1895. The next year, the ongoing Carnegie International was inaugurated, the first showing of contemporary art in the United States. The art museum has grown to include treasures like one of Monet’s Water Lilies plus works by Rembrandt, Hals, Cezanne, Sisley, Cassatt, Klimt, Homer and Hopper, and a fine decorative arts collection.

Carnegie sponsored early expeditions searching for dinosaurs that in 1904 came up with the nearly complete skeleton of an 84-foot saropaud, which was named “Diplodocus carnegii” in his honor. Fondly known as “Dippy,” the huge skeleton warranted an expanded dinosaur hall in 1907. That hall, completely redone in 2007, now is one of the country’s best, featuring 19 skeletons, many of them enormous and in dramatic poses like the fierce fighting tableau featuring a giant T-Rex. The science museum has other excellent displays featuring gems and minerals, American Indians and objects from Egypt.

The expanded 1907 museum also allowed space for a remarkable Hall of Architecture, with cast models of some of the world’s great buildings and sculptures. The Apollo Belvedere, the Venus de Milo and the Nike of Samothrace are just a few of the replicas, fulfilling Carnegie’s goal of allowing those who could not travel to appreciate great works.

The original Carnegie Museums are in the Oakland neighborhood that is also home to the Phipps Conservatory, with 19 indoor and outdoor gardens highlighted by glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly, as well as the impressive campuses of Carnegie-Mellon and Pittsburgh Universities. Two popular newer institutions are in other parts of the city. The Carnegie Science Center and Buhl Planetarium, a modernistic marvel on the Allegheny River with up-to-the-minute interactive displays, opened in 1991