Lincoln Highway Road Trip, day 5, end-of-day note from Beaver Falls PA, near the Ohio and West Virginia state lines.
Another very good day with a little bit of bad mixed in. I got on the road pretty early and drove through the mist and rain most of the morning, getting to Pittsburgh by mid-day. It was pretty countryside most of the way but changed very dramatically as I got closer to Pittsburgh and the coal country at which point it got much scruffier (and poorer). The outskirts of Pittsburgh on the northeastern approach on the old highway were grim – the epitome of the decaying eastern rust belt. Lots of boarded up businesses and blighted housing, and rusting and decaying (and some abandoned) factories and mills. It’s not as if I had not seen some rust belt before on the previous portions of the Lincoln Highway – parts of Philadelphia, Trenton NJ, Elizabeth NJ, Jersey City NJ, a lot of Lancaster PA – but the extent of the decay on the outskirts of Pittsburgh was what struck me.
Unintentionally, I wound up off the highway driving around a place called Braddock near the big US Steel plant – it was bad. Very bad. More on that tomorrow. Once I hit Pittsburgh proper, however, I understood why it gets so much good press as the comeback city. Within the same hour or so that I had driven through astoundingly awful Braddock and nearby, and also blighted, Wilkinsburg, North Braddock and North Versailles, I arrived in the truly lovely Point Breeze neighborhood by Frick Park and where the Frick itself is located on the grounds of the Frick home, Clayton (all of these places being on the route of the Lincoln Highway).
After a stop there I headed for the center city for a riverside walk along the Allegheny to see what all the fuss is about. On the drive along 5th to get there I caught glimpses of some other gorgeous neighborhoods. The downtown seems to be doing rather well, especially by American standards. It was popping. Heinz Field (the new ballpark) is right on the river in the downtown, and there were people everywhere (a good number of them heading to the game). I had a fine walk along the river admiring the bridges and the new ballpark. I have to day that I was impressed by what I saw, and the city compares rather favorably to Philadelphia. After the Frick and the walk no time was left for the new Andy Warhol museum – a reason to come back.
In the pix, you can see the little cabin I stayed in near Bedford last night in the Lincoln Motor Court, said to be the only cabin court motel remaining in all of Pennsylvania (somehow the car doesn’t quite fit the scene). It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was good enough and a unique travel experience – totally retro. Also, a couple of shots from the drive to Pittsburgh (check out that old pickup truck in one of them!), the Frick mansion (Clayton), and the Pittsburgh bridges by the downtown along the Allegheny.
More Pittsburgh pix tomorrow but be prepared for something different. A lot of words tonight – that’s it for now.
