Aug 4, 2008

Pittsburgh’s Strip District Tickles Visitors’ SensesBy APWPXI.com

Pittsburgh, PA — The smells of basil, Chinese food, fish and baked goods linger in the humid air along Penn Avenue, mixing with the sweat and grime of packed sidewalks and outdoor vendors.

Children cling to their parents’ hands and young couples stroll leisurely while elderly people zip in and out of stores they have known for generations.

It’s Saturday at Pittsburgh’s historic Strip District, an area stuffed with mom-and-pop businesses, gourmet food stores and eccentric gift shops. The outdoor seating, international foods, homemade clothing and artifacts and even high-end, imported spices and cheeses lend this neighborhood an almost European feel.

“It’s just a wonderful, gritty environment … there’s a sense of discovery,” says Becky Rodgers, executive director of Neighbors in the Strip, a nonprofit group that promotes the area. “It’s Pittsburgh’s favorite neighborhood.”

Pittsburgh is a city of nearly 90 neighborhoods, each with its own story. But the Strip District is one of the oldest, sporting a history that combines the industrial past with the hip image Pittsburgh is trying to portray today.

In the 1700s, when the Strip was born, it was considered the outskirts of the city (today it is almost downtown). At that time, the area was home to major industries, including Westinghouse, Alcoa and Andrew Carnegie’s steel operations, all of which got their start in the Strip.

By the early 1900s, the Strip had reached its peak population, with about 18,000 people living in the neighborhood. It was so dense, Carnegie was forced to move his steel operation to Homestead, where there was room for Bessemers and other new equipment being used to make steel.

“They had the large population, the industrial living, you had three and four families living in a dwelling,” says Rodgers from her Strip District office, located in an old ice house that has been transformed into the Senator John Heinz History Center.

During the Depression, the Strip District became one of many so-called shantytowns, climbing out of the economic crisis by turning to produce and wholesale.

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