Pittsburgh / Fallingwater July 2018

Here is a post from my old blog (along with the Disneyworld post) in case anyone is interested in Pittsburgh. I made a few revisions / added some new photos:

To give some background my sons and I visiting Pittsburgh, the decision was based upon a few factors. The first and foremost was the desire to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater but I had also seen many articles and surveys recently listing Pittsburgh as one of the best cities in the country. Needless to say, after spending 3 nights there, it is a bit of a head-scratcher for me as to how it made such lists. The “feel” of a city is always big with me and Pittsburgh was less than desirable on this front. It is probably the worst / most confusing place I have had to drive around (and I’ve had the luxury of driving in crazy cities like downtown Los Angeles and San Francisco) but, more than anything, as much as it has tried to shake the image, it still has a very industrial feel to it.

The biggest highlight / surprise within the city was the Heinz History Center. It really is a great museum which is plentiful with Pittsburgh history and very nice exhibits throughout its multiple stories. My sons and I both really enjoyed it. I would recommend allowing at least 2 hours to get through everything. For those who aren't aware, Pittsburgh is where Mr. Roger's was filmed and likewise Night of the Living Dead was filmed just outside of the city.

I also enjoyed (and my sons to a lesser extent) the Andy Warhol Museum. This too had multiple floors (which were essentially broken down by decades) and probably took us about a hour to get through all of the art exhibits. An area of interest which we did not explore in the museum was a audio/visual area where you have access to over 100 of Andy Warhol’s films. As much as I was curious to check this out I was already pushing my luck with my sons by dragging them to the museum in the first place. Seeing that most of Warhol’s films are currently unavailable to the public I could see how such an exhibit would be worthwhile for locals as there are undoubtedly multiple hours of his work which would take many weekends to get through.

The most impressive “area” of the city was probably across the river / where the Steelers and Pirates stadiums are located. It had multiple restaurants and a very nice view of the three rivers (below). One interesting thing of note (I don’t know if this was just our bad luck) is that the service at almost every restaurant we visited in the city was sub par at best. Although prices were relatively reasonable the waitresses/waiters were almost nowhere to be found after being seated and it took forever to get our food. My sons would likely note the Milkshake Factory as the best “food” establishment we visited - a locally-owned ice cream parlor, it has been around for over 100 years, starting as a soda fountain and chocolate shop.

Aside from the great luck of having Radiohead tour through the city while out there (it was a fantastic concert for which they played almost 2.5 hours), the saving grace of the trip was our visit to Fallingwater. I have always been amazed/intrigued by Frank Lloyd Wright and seeing (arguably) his best-known structure in person was quite surreal. Approximately 1.5 hours from Pittsburgh, the drive was quite scenic, showing very lush, green, surrounds which are all but void her in the desert / Phoenix. The tour itself was fantastic as we were able to see the entire house and most of the guest house. After making the round-trip on the same day I would highly recommend just spending the evening at a nearby bed and breakfast so that you won’t have to rush. We spent approximately 2.5 hours at the site (the tour itself was approximately 1.5 hours) but (depending on the availability) there are different tours (including a Twilight Tour) as well as other houses of interest in the vicinity (one being the Duncan House at Polymath Park) which we were just not able to visit in the space of one day with the travel time and most of the sites closing early.

Final Thoughts : Falling Water makes me recommend going to Pittsburgh but if you choose to drive there from Philadelphia instead (the drive is approximately twice as long), I just don’t see the purpose of visiting Pittsburgh solely to visit Pittsburgh (especially with a 4 hour flight time from Arizona). Our 3 evenings were more than enough (even with the 3 hour time difference) but it would have been best having the middle night near the Fallingwater location; or, better yet, fly into Pittsburgh, stay one evening in the city to check out the few worthwhile attractions, drive to Fallingwater for an evening, then head to / fly out of Philadelphia. I have not yet visited Philadelphia but this would have allowed us to see all of the main areas Pennsylvania (including Gettysburg) has to offer in one trip. I give Pittsburgh 2 out of 5 stars and Fallingwater 5 out of 5 stars.