We tend to view “bohemia” through a hagiographic lens, but its inception, as depicted by the French writer Henri Murger in a series of vignettes entitled Scenes of Bohemian Life (1851), was hardly ...

I was tenth in a family of 12 children. My mother was a secretary and seamstress. My father was a bricklayer who was in the ...

My twin brother, Allan Block, and I are the third generation in a family business that’s more than 100 years old. My grandfather, Paul Block, was an immigrant from East Prussia, and grew up, through ...

Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, ...

It’s a hell of a thing to know your birth coincides with a line of demarcation in your hometown. On one side is prosperity. On the other, ruin. I was born in Youngstown in 1977. At the time, it was an ...

Like it or not, the Carnegie International eclipses everything the Carnegie Museum of Art does. Every director has grumbled about how it commandeers all available resources. But it’s a time-honored ...

Ghost Park The dog took off near the backhoe stuck in its rutand I followed through tan brush,watching his white shape zip up the mud path. A plateau halfway up the city mountain:an abandoned ...

Everyone is born with a gift from God. Some people discover their gift, and use it to a positive end. Some discover their gift, but squander it. And others, for one reason or another, never discover ...

Some of the deep ravines in the regional landscape provide secluded getaways for hiking and exploring, while not far from the urban center. One such special place is the 370-acre Toms Run Nature ...

Joseph Meyer lives in the former manager’s home of an abandoned company town, where there is no running water, no cell service, and until recently, there was not a single resident. On this cold ...

In a review of a Shakespeare production several years ago I argued that, as a general rule, it has proven easier to do Shakespeare new rather than well, but with Quantum Theatre’s current production ...

To celebrate the beginning of our 20th year, we’ve set out to catalogue the contributions that Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania have made to the world. The list has grown and grown, and despite our ...