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Photographer David Aschkenas’ new exhibit, ‘Remembering Pittsburgh,’ documents the city from 1978 to 1982. Abby Mendelson’s foreword from a companion book is excerpted here.

The way we were: David Aschkenas’ photographs of Pittsburgh, 1978-82

Pittsburgh sneaks up on you. It is perhaps the least obvious of all American cities. Its rough beauty is tougher, more masculine than most. Perhaps because Pittsburgh was never built to be pretty. Instead, it was built to be strong. It’s a city that was built to last. Documenting a place of startling vistas — the spiked hills, scarred brickwork, seemingly iron rooftops — demands photos in black and white. Perhaps it’s the endless interplay of light and shadow on the restive, angular environment. Perhaps it’s a remnant of the darkness-at-noon era, when soot coated everything and two shirts a day were de rigueur.

Perhaps, too, it’s the perpetually gray skies, the leaden rivers, the unyielding industrial landscape. Perhaps it’s the jagged skyline, houses fabricated of aluminum siding, asphalt shingles and Insulbrick; houses perched like angry birds on impossible hillsides, hanging precariously off of cliffs.

Perhaps, though, Pittsburgh as black and white, as pentimento, stems from something else. More than steel. More than nostalgia. Perhaps a reverence for place.

Pittsburgh carries with it a palpable sense of time. In a city where it’s always 12 degrees past yesterday, and directions are invariably given by what used to be, there’s a clear feeling that the clock has frozen, that reality is neither glossy nor gussied up. Not pastel-painted or prettified. No lavender blues. Just black and white.

A wonderfully subtle photographer, Mr. Aschkenas has created images here that are gritty, but hardly grotesque; neither grab nor glory shots. There is nothing obvious, in life or landscape, no grimaces (as Ansel Adams dismissed candid portraiture). While some who photograph Pittsburgh seem duty bound to create the extraordinary, Mr. Aschkenas instead reveals — and revels in — the poetry of ordinary life. Things we’ve often seen but have frequently overlooked; things that create a city, the stark, stripped-down poetry of urban spaces.

With none of San Francisco's glory, say, or New York's grandeur, Pittsburgh is innately beautiful — just sometimes you have to look a little harder to see it.

Highland Park photographer David Aschkenas (daschkenas@ received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to support his work documenting Pittsburgh scenes. Squirrel Hill writer Abby Mendelson (abbywriter@verizon.net) is his frequent collaborator. The “Remembering Pittsburgh” exhibit, showcasing 62 of the hundreds of black and white photos taken for the project, is at the Lantern Gallery, 600 Liberty Ave, Downtown. The exhibit opens April 7 with a reception from 5:30 to 10 p.m.

David Aschkenas (All photos made between 1978 and 1982.) East Carson Street on the South Side, about a block from the present site of Nakama restaurant.

Klavon’s drugstore, left, just after it closed, on Penn Avenue in the Strip District. It is now Klavon’s Ice Cream Parlor. Right, Walsh’s Lounge & Bar in East Liberty.

Left, an abandoned house on East Ohio Street, just across the David McCullough Bridge, looking toward Downtown. Right, the Iroquois Building on Forbes Avenue in Oakland.

Left, a gas station, Downtown at the Boulevard of the Allies and Wood Street. Now, it’s a plaza on the Point Park University campus. Right, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens under restoration in Oakland.