Ren

Pitt fandom I see you and I love you and I have lived in Pittsburgh my whole life and I am here to help.

Hospitals

This is probably the thing you guys care the most about, and the thing I see people get wrong the most frequently.

Pittsburgh has its share of independent hospitals, but a lot of people get their care through Allegheny Health Network and/or UPMC. Most hospitals in the area are owned by one of the two.

In real life, the building PTMC is in is the Allegheny General Hospital, which is AHN. I don't know if PTMC is supposed to be part of AHN- the family of the kid with measles was trying to get him to West Penn, which is an AHN location, but when they're emptying the ER before the mass casualty patients start filtering in, they send some patients, records and all to urgent care, but AHN is a special little snowflake that calls their locations "express care." (I actually don't know how common that is it just irrationally irritates me.) So it could be either one, or it could be independent.

No matter what, though, if it came up emergency patients from Presby (UPMC Presbyterian) would more likely be diverted to Mercy, which is closer, in network, and has both a level I trauma center and a burn center.

Now onto the fun stuff.

Stuff to Do

There is so much cool shit in Pittsburgh, I swear. And we do actually do it. Like it's not just there for decoration.

Sports

We got three major sports teams here and a lot of pride about them. Our sports are a pretty prominent social pillar. People love going to games, watching games, talking about games... I'm not terribly interested so I've only been to two in my life, but the energy is really fun. People don't fight like I've heard happens in some places- for the most part, everyone's just happy to be there.

Our football team is the Steelers, our baseball team is the Pirates, and our hockey team is the Penguins (the dry ice guy's 'family crest' was straight up the Penguins logo btw)

Hockey games happen at the PPG Paints Arena, which also occasionally hosts other events and concerts that you hear about on the local radio and nowhere else. Baseball happens at PNC park. It's pretty nice, not much else to say.

Our most notable venue is Heinz Field. Like the ketchup. (side note: I and everyone else I know exclusively buy Heinz ketchup and will probably complain if made to use another brand. It's the only good one.) In 2021, it was sold and renamed Acrisure Stadium. People from Pittsburgh do not acknowledge this. Folks from out of town might, and nobody will care enough to correct them, but to locals that is Heinz Field. In general, if a landmark has its name changed, that change won't be acknowledged by anyone old enough to remember what it used to be called.

Museums

We have a lot of museums and they are all cool. I promise.

The Andy Worhol museum is impressive. My art teacher in elementary school was obsessed, she showed us pictures and everything. It is on a Sandusky St., but importantly not the same Sandusky St. as the entrance to PTMC's emergency department. Like they're not even connected.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is also cool as hell if you're into architecture. They offer hour-long tours, and the whole thing is very scenic. Could make for a good date. It is, however, kind of loud, on account of the waterfall underneath the house.

The Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History is exactly what it says on the tin. There's stuff aimed at kids, but I remember being pretty bored there when I was younger, so it's probably kinda hit or miss.

Is an aviary a bird museum? Is a zoo an animal museum? Well, we have both and they're great. The National Aviary is only a few minutes away from PTMC, as a matter of fact. The Pittsburgh Zoo can be a little physically taxing, what with all the hills, but there's plenty of places to rest along the way :) There is also an aquarium, which used to have a touch tank for sting rays and sharks but it was removed </3 Still super fun, though! I would say the aquarium is the best place to rest if you're getting sore or overstimulated, and it's also the most romantic... (i could not be more obviously fishing for a kingdon zoo date fic. pun intended)

There is also the Children’s Museum.

Kennywood

Mel mentions that Becca really likes going to Kennywood. Per usual, Becca is real as fuck for that. Kennywood is part amusement park, part historical site. It's home to the Jackrabbit, one of the oldest operational wooden coasters. It's actually over 100 years old now, and it's still genuinely super fun!

The Racer is another classic. It's actually two coasters that run parallel to each other at ever so slightly different speeds, making it a race! When my family would go to Kennywood as kids, we'd always split into two teams so someone could be the winner. Good times,,,

The Phantom's Revenge is probably the most recognizable coaster, and one of the most intense (though it's still pretty tame.)

You can actually see the shape of the Swingshot from pretty far away from the park. As kids we'd always get real excited when it came into view.

It might just be a my family thing, but no trip to Kennywood ever felt complete without fries from The Potato Patch, topped with cheese, bacon and gravy. They're so fucking good there's so much salt it would probably kill my mother instantly these days but they are so fucking good. There's other typical amusement park food, but the other big iconic treat would probably be ice cream from The Golden Nugget- it's a cone with a square of vanilla ice cream they cut from a big block, then dip in fudge and sprinkles or nuts. Very yummy, kind of essential.

There's a ton of other fun stuff to do, these are just the things I have the best memories of.

IT IS ALSO WORTH NOTING: people do not go to Kennywood for thrills. We HAVE thrill rides, but that’s not the point. You go to Kennywood for nostalgia, for potato patch fries, because that’s just. What you do. I dunno.

Science Center

The Carnegie Science Center is mostly aimed at children with lots of hands-on exhibits and demonstrations.

The whole layout is open, with a long spiraling ramp taking you up between floors. On the first floor in the center of this ramp tower is an exhibit where you can launch toy rockets with pressurized air. They drift back down with little parachutes and sometimes wind up landing on the ramps.

Between the first and second floor is some basic information about water, and a water table for the kids that has like toys in it and stuff. You can build little dams and press buttons to make it rain. Smocks are not provided, and your little ones might get a bit wet. There is also a little setup in front of a green screen where they can pretend to be a weather reporter, with a teleprompter to read off of and everything. It's very cute.

On the same floor there are a bunch of reptiles and insects in tanks, plus preserved specimens. Among these are hissing cockroaches, my personal favorite.

The third floor has a rotating exhibit that's usually pretty cool. Last time I went it was about Mars, before that I saw a billboard for one about sound that involved guitars. So there's a wide range.

Fourth floor has a big playplace for the kiddos. I have not been one of those kiddos in a long long time and I'm sure it's changed since then. But there were more water play tables. Always a big fan of those.

There's a separate building that's got a bunch of sports stuff and the like, a batting cage, a sprint race, and something bungee-jumping adjacent . Also a life size game of Operation.

Carnegie Science Center is geographically close to PTMC.

Phipps Conservatory

Genuinely one of my favorite places in the city. Maybe the world. Lots of slopes and hills so walking around can be kind of tiring, but it is very relaxing. They have a virtual tour you can use for reference, if you are so inclined. They have a holiday lights show in early winter, which is gorgeous, and a few other seasonal displays.

Theaters

The theater scene is pretty expansive. Our big ones are Heinz Hall, the Benedum Center, and the Byham Theater, all downtown in the cultural district. We have a symphony, a ballet company, and an opera. Lots of options. I don’t know much about it admittedly.

Food

Okay listen we do put fries on salads and sandwiches that is a thing we do that stereotype is rooted in reality but ITS ACTUALLY GOOD I PROMISE. They’re not, like, McDonald’s fries. They’re soft, usually baked, and unsalted. It’s just potatoes. It adds TEXTURE.

You can put fries on any sandwich, but a Pittsburgh salad is a very specific thing: iceberg lettuce. cherry tomatoes. cucumber slices. sometimes shredded carrots. now strap in- cause there’s five more ingredients and none of them are salad things. hard boiled egg- cut in half. a protein, usually thinly sliced steak but sometimes chicken. (the meat is not optional, this is not a vegetarian experience.) shredded cheddar cheese. not freshly shredded, right outta the bag, covered in potato starch, shredded cheese. the aforementioned french fries. ranch dressing, you cannot substitute this. i promise it goes hard

Polish cuisine is a big influence here. I mean we literally have a neighborhood called Polish Hill, so I think that goes without saying. (Side note: I thought I remembered a pierogi mascot for the Pirates, I looked it up to confirm and it turns out there’s six. They run a race after the 5th inning. They make “various appearances in the community.”) If you’re watching a Steeler’s game from home, you make kielbasa and saeurkraut (Pittsburghers pronounce it ko-bossy and sar-krat) in the crockpot. For good luck or whatever.

The local restaurant is called Eat n’ Park. There’s a few locations throughout the tri-state area, but it’s mostly in Pittsburgh. You go there for everything. Y’know the thing about theater kids being annoying at Denny’s after shows? That happens at Eat n’ Park here. You go there when you’re drunk, you go there after church, on dates, after break-ups… and the food is actually, like, really good. They also have Smiley Cookies which are not good, they’re dry as hell, but they are a staple of the experience. They’re just circular cookies covered in white royal icing with a smiley face on. The features kinda stick up off the face, so as kids we’d always bite off the eyes and mouth first and depending on what color you got it might make like a stain of the food coloring on the cookie and it’s actually a little horrifying but in a fun way. Their hot chocolate goes hard.

Common thing in PA is Wawa vs. Sheetz. For gas station food. We do not have Wawa; for us, it is GetGo or Sheetz. GetGo is the gas station owned by Giant Eagle, the semi-local grocery chain. Their made to order food is terrible. They fucking microwave their bagels for breakfast sandwiches. I didn’t know chicken could be as dry as their chicken tenders are. The pizza is a notable outlier that shit is SO good, it’s like chuck-e-cheese pizza. And their milkshakes are alright. If you’re in a hurry or you’re tired or whatever anything you get will taste like heaven, but once you stop to think about it the magic is gone.

And of course, there’s a ton of amazing local restaurants in the strip. Primanti’s started there as a food cart I do believe. I’m not sure how local Primanti’s is but no matter what it FUCKS. And the stuff they call coleslaw is not coleslaw I don’t know why they call it that.

Geography

The most important thing to keep in mind about Pittsburgh is that it just sort of happened. It was not planned and honestly there’s no amount of planning that could make it any easier to navigate. The whole thing is split in thirds by rivers. It is on, in, and between two mountains. The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet at Point State Park (we all just call it The Point) and the downtown area is in that triangle. Our major urban area is a fucking triangle.Roads are one-way and split and merge seemingly at random because the terrain is so inconsistent. There are so many brooks and streams and creeks everywhere. It is so hard to navigate. If you can learn to navigate Pittsburg, you’ll never get lost anywhere.

If you get out to the suburbs, you’ll see just huge hills covered in trees in the middle of otherwise developed areas cause the cost and effort of developing there is greater than the payoff. Suburban kids have as much yard space as just open woods to play in, and we get injured about as often as you would expect children running around unsupervised in the woods to get injured.

Misc.

The Pittsburgh Accent. Its most promising feature is the replacement of the “ow” sound with “ah.” Really pronounced accents will replace long e sounds with short i sounds, and Ls occasionally, especially after a vowel sound, will sound more like a W. For example, “Steelers” becomes “Stiwwirs.” It’s more nuanced than that and hard to describe, but Mister Rogers* had a prominent Pittsburgh accent. “Yinz” is the local “y’all.” Younger people don’t typically use it- the accent as a whole is less common these days, but you’ll hear it in older folks who were born and raised here.

Pittsburghers always go “down” to places. You go down to the store, down to your friend’s house, down to places geographically north of you. You could go down to your room when it’s literally upstairs. I didn’t even notice this was odd until one of my teachers corrected me saying I was going “down” to Ohio for a con.

Unlike in other cities, downtown is where the rich people live.

*We take Mister Rogers very seriously here.