Pittsburgh, You’ve Got Spunk. I Love Spunk

I knew I’d like this city, from the moment I stepped into the Town car that whisked me the 22 minutes from the airport to the Marriot downtown. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else!” said my driver Patrick McArdle. He runs his own art salon in the city, and used to be an ironworker. “It’s big enough, with everything, but it’s friendly.”

He ticked off some of the topics that are on people’s minds here. One is the 28-year old kid named Luke who’s become the mayor, after the other mayor died in office. “He’s made some mistakes,” Patrick said, “like going up in a private jet owned by Ron Burkle, President Clinton’s favorite billionaire pal. Burkle is one of the owners of the local NHL team, who are building a new city-funded stadium. He also has taken some trips to sports events with dubious city benefit, on the taxpayer’s dime.

We took a ride by the big, swift-flowing Allegheny river, a line of us on clownish cruiser bikes with just three gears and pedal brakes. The ride leader told us about an island called Washington’s Landing, where posh condos have been built. “When they were building the tennis courts, they kept finding that they couldn’t keep them level. Then they dug them all up and found a mysterious black goo. It turned out that decades ago, this island was a burial ground for zoo animals. So it was old rhinocerous, elephant and zebra bones that were causing all of the bumps.”

But as I said, I knew I’d like this city because its got spunk. I don’t hate spunk, I love it, and more than a few people have told me today that they’d live no where else. I’ll make my way by taxi tonight to the Sonoma Grill, a place recommended to me by Christine, they have a good bar where I can chat up the ‘tender and ask more questions about this hardworking city.