Category: Pittsburgh

A home run ball hit into the Allegheny River was retrieved

Two former Pittsburgh movie theaters

I remember the Strand movie theater in Pittsburgh – see the third picture in the Instagram post below. I saw The Godfather and several American Film Theatre movies there. I went to the University of Pittsburgh from 1971-1975. It’s right up the street from the theater.

I also remember the Kings Court theater further up Forbes Avenue even closer to Pitt. A friend sent me a picture a few years ago – it was a T- Mobile cell phone store then.

Google Maps photo of the current building where the Strand was

Google Maps photo of the current building where the Kings Court was

The rise and fall of the waterbed

This reminded me of them. There was a waterbed store in Pittsburgh in the early 1970s called Wet Dream Waterbeds. They had to change it to Dream Waterbeds.

Forbes Field photos on Twitter

I never saw a game at Forbes Field. It was located near my University of Pittsburgh dormitory and we watched it being torn down when I was a freshman. It’s the site of the Pitt Law School now. They kept part of the outfield wall where Bill Mazeroski’s home run went out to win game 7 in the 1960 World Series.

The cylindrical buildings in the background are the Towers – dormitories for the University of Pittsburgh. I lived in them.

More on the towers

When I was a freshman in 1971, Forbes Field was no longer used but hadn’t been torn down yet.

The George A. Romero Archival Collection at the University of Pittsburgh

George A. Romero is best known for the films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.

Link to the collection

George A. Romero Foundation

I saw Loggins and Messina with opening act Jim Croce in 1973

I saw Loggins and Messina and Jim Croce on March 13, 1973 at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh. The Mosque was a great concert hall and I have posted about it.

Jim Croce was the opening act. He was much more of a folk musician than you would know from his hit records. I assume all of the rock background was added on the record to make them more popular with a wider audience. On stage, it was just him and Maury Muehleisen who accompanied him. They both died in a plane crash on September 20, 1973 They both played acoustic guitars. Croce told a lot of stories and was very amusing as I recall.

Loggins and Messina had released two albums by that point. They toured with a full band. I don’t recall much except that Jim Messina stood off to the side when he did guitar solos.

Here are videos of them from 1973.

The Syria Mosque – Pittsburgh

The Syria Mosque is my favorite concert hall. I saw some great concerts when I attended the University of Pittsburgh from 1971-1975. The Mosque was torn down in 1991.

This is a great article on the history of the Mosque. It was built by the Shriners and used by them in addition to the hosting of concerts. The capacity was 3,700.

This is a link to a list of concerts at the Mosque.

Here are shows I know I saw there. I’ll add more if I think of them.

ArtistDate
Allman Brothers Band10/15/71
Poco, Fleetwood Mac11/9/71
John Mayall, Crazy Horse10/8/71
Loggins and Messina, Jim Croce3/13/73

See images here

Two decades later, razing of Syria Mosque still a sore topic | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I saw this concert

The Original Hot Dog Shop

The Original Hot Dog Shop in Pittsburgh was one of the places that closed for good in 2020. I have very fond memories from my time at Pitt from 1971-1975. It was open into the early hours of the morning if you had the munchies.

My favorite memory was from two days before my 21st birthday in 1975. The Original would be lax on carding people so you could get beer. Then they would get busted and couldn’t serve beer for a month. After that, they would card strictly for a while before going back to their lax ways. They had cheap carryout six packs. Miller and Bud were $2.10. If you didn’t have $2.10, you could get Iron City, Stroh’s, Schmidt’s or Koehler’s (a foul beer from PA).

I had been served there about 50 times but got carded on my 21st birthday. I said “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll be able to handle it better on Tuesday!” When I told someone this story decades later, I wondered did I remember it so well that my 21st birthday was really on a Tuesday? It was.

An elegy to the ‘O’: A beloved hot dog shop closes after 60 years

The lives lost in Pittsburgh