Review by Dave Robins
When I leave Pittsburgh, I will leave a part of me behind. I love Pittsburgh. I love the hills, the museums, the rotting infrastructure, and the character woven by these things. In my neighborhood, I can't take a walk without getting a serious workout. I moved here after an eight-year stay in both Texas and Louisiana, dead flat. Pittsburgh brought back memories of my old home, Colorado, (well, except for the humidity, the cloudiness, the trash everywhere, people referring to me as "yinz," the museums, the rotting infrastructure, and the character). Unlike Texas and Louisiana, Colorado has hills too, and there is just something about walking up a hill that makes my wild heart go all a-flutter. So I love Pittsburgh.
Consequently when Bob Regan, who is a Project Manager in the Visual Information Systems Center (IS 707) in the School of Information Sciences, told me he was writing a book about the steps that laced their way through the city, I was excited. (At this point, those of you with critical thinking skills might be asking yourselves, "how objective is this reviewer?"). I had been using these steps, many of which were named with official city street signs, for recreational/medicinal purposes (i.e., endorphin producing exercise). Bob wanted me to contribute my thoughts about the steps, which I did, and I can objectively state that these few paragraphs are far and away the highlight of the book. Nevertheless, true to the objectivity I hold dear, I will confine my review on the rest of the book (which is good, too).
Dr. Regan, who holds a Ph.D. in Geo-Physics, is an expert in Geographic Information Systems, and has been an adjunct instructor at SIS for a number of years. He has done an outstanding job compiling a description and history of the steps in Pittsburgh. What I like about the book is that it is both a quantitative and a qualitative look at what this peculiar mode of transportation means to the city. Bob has done everything from counting treads on each stairway, to mapping each stairway's location by neighborhood and street, to identifying the construction materials used to build the steps, when they were built, their width, and length. He provides figures the city has budgeted for maintaining the steps, which as you might imagine, is shrinking.
But it is the qualitative pieces in the book that I find most interesting. For example, the story of Pete Kostiuk, a South Side resident who used the steps to commute to his mill job from the late forties until the early seventies. The story is enriched with Pete's experience of being on two ships that were torpedoed and sunk during World War II. There is a discussion of how children in the Hill District have made up games that could only be played on the stairs. It is these kinds of stories that bring the steps to life, and show them to be a vital part of a city with a unique geography.
I think the real value of the book is that it brings to light the historical and cultural value of the steps. This is not to diminish the documentation of the current state of the system of steps in Pittsburgh. However, it is interesting to compare Pittsburgh with other cities that do have steps in the mix of transportation modes, and Bob does this. I think his purpose with this book is to give the city a means to promote itself via something that most other cities don't have to the extent we do. The question of course is whether tourists or businesses will come to Pittsburgh for the steps. I don't know that they would visit for this reason only, but they might if the steps were well-maintained and took people to places of interest, such as Mount Washington or other scenic places.
I found an article by Tom Barnes (2000) in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that indicated that parks and other recreation facilities were factors in attracting young people to a city (jobs would not hurt either). If that is the case, then this hilly geography provides the perfect opportunity for steps to link up recreational facilities for people who enjoy working out outdoors.
Not everyone is thrilled about the stairs, however. One woman says that by the time she has climbed them, she is so hungry that she eats too much and gains weight. Also, I wish the photographs were in color, though that would obviously increase the cost of the book. But the book is well-written and well-researched. It has been quite successful and is in its second printing. For those of you who are leaving Pittsburgh, as I will, this is a great book to take along and remind you of your time here, assuming you wish to be reminded of it.
Reference:
Barnes, T. (2000). Parks: Key to Attracting Young, Tech Workers. Pittsburgh
Post Gazette, Tuesday, October 3, 2000. Available online: http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/%7Eflorida/pages/new_economy/media_coverage/park.htm
(last accessed:
Monday, July 12, 2004).
Publication of the
Department of Library & Information Science
School of Information Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
135 N. Bellefield Avenue
Pittsburgh , PA 15260
biblio@mail.sis.pitt.edu