Millvale: April 22

Millvale is not the greatest step location in the city--it just doesn't have that many of them--but it's a nice walk across the 40th Street Bridge from Lawrenceville and it has a number of fine destinations on the other end: St. Nicholas church, the French bakery, Attic Records, Panza Art Gallery, Mr. Small's Theater and our particular goal this Sunday morning, Pamela's P&G Diner for a "Big Lincoln" breakfast.

This is a nice wooded set of steps joining the top of Sherman Street to Maryland Ave. (photo: KE)

It's hard to do this particular set justice. An incredibly steep and long stretch from St. Nicholas church all the way up Logan Street. (photo: KE)

Easter Sunday: Spring Hill

One of the sad things about hiking the city steps is the all too often experience of being there too late--as if you're one of the last people who'll ever walk this particular stretch of steps.

My hike today took me to the back side of Spring Hill, part of Pittsburgh's North Side. The neighborhoods that inhabit the hillside crevices from East Street at the bottom of the hill to St. John's Luthern Cemetary, Mathias Street and Sunset Avenue at the top are beautiful and tragic, but more than anything, you feel the loss of the once-thriving business community that was lost when I-279 came through in the mid-1970s.

This side of Spring Hill's steps all inevitably lead down to what is now a stretch of road that certainly no one would would want to walk to and the steps show bare the pain of this disuse.

A very nice double set heading down from Bessie to Heim to Gershon.

I had to pull some major Indiana Jones action to get across this break.
Steps to nowhere: above Royal Street.

Welcome / West End Winter 2007

Pittsburgh is a strange and wonderful place. There's a street and then out of nowhere, sets of concrete steps with their telltale painted handrails mysteriously pop out and disappear into what looks like barren woods. In this case, it was a side street in the West End some time this past Winter.
This is how I first encountered the city steps that are everywhere around Pittsburgh. It wasn't long before I started taking the time to go climb them and find out what was up above. More often than not, the reward is great--terrific bird's eye views, crazy scenes of nature reclaiming abandoned development, quirky neighborhoods full of characters who can't remember the last time they saw a stranger on the steps and hillside homes that look like they're one stiff wind from collapse.

The goal with this blog is to try to document some of the semi-frequent walks I take up the steps. If you're a step walker, or you know of a great set, or have a good story related to them, I'd love to hear it.

I love hiking these steps, even on a cold, gloomy day like this one a couple months ago (the last bona fide step hike I went on, sadly). Above is a very nice stretch from the edge of the West End's business district up into a neat little neighborhood at top of the hill. I found a park with a corkscrew walking path around it and a very dramatic war memorial.
...and no hike to the West End is complete without a view of the obligatory picture postcard shot of downtown Pittsburgh from the overlook.