Steel city, steel people
The spirit of Pittsburgh, to me, is epitomized by two phrases, one mordant but defiant, and one resounding. The defiant one I heard twice in the space of a week recently. Reviewing the great Pittsburgh comeback, or renaissance, both persons, both lifers, said: “They counted us out.”
The subtext is: But we never were out. No one asked us.
It’s interesting, because many Midwestern and East Coast rust bucket cities lost heart — lost confidence in themselves. I think that happened to Syracuse, and Buffalo, and Newark; and Hartford, and Bridgeport; and Gary, and Akron; and St. Louis. The loss of jobs was too much. The urban problems seemed too overwhelming.
Pittsburgh never thought it was done.
And self-confidence is always ironic isn’t it? It is as self-mocking as it is self-protective and empowering.
Was it the self-confidence that made the reinvention possible? Or did the reinvention, partly a matter of time and luck (good universities becoming great and health care systems becoming large, plus the development of a mini-Silicon Valley around Carnegie Mellon), validate the bravado?
For, make no mistake, the steel mills did not come back and will not come back. Coal, Donald Trump notwithstanding, will not be back. A new regional economy is layered over the wreckage of the old.
And yet, the understated boast stands: They counted us out. And we never accepted that. We came back.
The other phrase, the resounding one, became a mantra of survival, indeed the triumph of the human spirit. After the killings at the Tree of Life Synagogue, the motto “Stronger than hate” was born.
The phrase and symbol, created by Tim Hindes, appeared in the windows of thousands of homes and shops, on t-shirts and on buttons. And became the sign of a city that stood with its Jewish neighbors and would not be broken — the flip side of the “we do not stay on the mat” boast.
And Pittsburgh showed that it
was stronger than hate. Love, as Martin Luther King said, will have the final say.
I went to grad school at Pitt, and started teaching as a grad student at Pitt, many decades past. I lived mostly in libraries and classrooms then and I don’t think I really saw the city. I knew about the Pirates and the Steelers Roberto Clemente and Rocky Bleier and Franco Harris.
But I didn’t begin to truly appreciate the city until I met the late Roy McHugh, the chronicler, par excellence, of Pittsburgh, its boxing heritage, and all manner of athletes and oddballs. Roy, a diminutive man with a voice that landed somewhere between Truman Capote’s and Marlon Brando’s Godfather, had a perfect ear and could put what he heard on paper.
He was tough-minded and tough-willed as hell. Told by a nurse, at age 99, that he could not check himself out of the hospital, he replied, in that tiny, hard voice, “Who’s gonna stop me?”
Roy McHugh helped make the Rooney family the legends they are and affirmed Myron Cope as the legend he was meant to be.
“Who’s gonna stop me,” might be the third text for a Pittsburgh triptych.
And the character of the city can be summed up by three attributes: Loyalty, resilience, and an unwillingness to be conformed or absorbed.
And that character is epitomized by the city’s best. A mayor like Richard Caliguiri truly led. He looked forward and channeled optimism in the darkest days, when the city seemed to be reeling. Does something like the same grit exist in Mayor Ed Gainey or Congresswoman Summer Lee? Maybe. I hope so.
The Rooney family has led, with class and example, since 1933. Everyone knows that. Pittsburgh would not be Pittsburgh without the Steelers and the Steelers would be just another NFL hot mess without the Rooney family.
Mark Nordenberg led Pitt to the promised land — from solid B school to A-plus school. Pitt is now a truly great public university.
Jim Roddey saved the city from one-party rule and chaired or advised what must have been 101 plans and crusades for civic improvement. He served on boards ranging from the Port Authority to Pitt. He is still serving; still giving back.
And how about Cyril Wecht, perhaps our most famous citizen, after the sports stars, and the best one to my mind. I can’t think of anyone who better epitomizes loyalty, resilience, and the stubborn refusal to go along with conventional wisdom, posturing, lies and half-lies. He had guts and insight on issues ranging from the Kennedy assassination to concussions in football.
He’s a mensch, a word that has no equivalent in English, but applies to all great Pittsburghers — Clemente, Caliguiri, Harris, McHugh, Cope, Nordenberg, Roddey, Sophie Masloff, Richard Thornburgh, Fred Rogers and so many more, famous, infamous, and unknown.
Who’s gonna stop a city with people like that?