Looks like we need to send Tim a bike map so he can avoid S.Braddock Ave and Penn. There are some great side streets through those neighborhoods! -s

Monday, December 03, 2007
By Timothy McNulty, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The new Hot Metal Bridge span for bikers and walkers is a lot like Pittsburgh: a bit behind the times — the $11.6 million walkway/bikeway opened seven years after its twin vehicle bridge did — but still fairly cool.

Connecting two booming post-industrial sites — the SouthSide Works shopping, office and housing complex and Pittsburgh Technology Center in Oakland — it joins two of the most youthful parts of the city and links to the Great Allegheny Passage trail. As such, it promises to make mapping out routes around the rehabilitated city a lot easier for bikers, skaters and the like.

So, in its spirit, we plotted out a tour of other new-ish or notable hot spots around the city — perhaps to tuck away and use once the weather is better for biking. Or better yet, just take the car for a spin: It’s Pittsburgh, after all; there are brutal hills lurking at every turn.

The South Side is known for its wild bar scene, but above the fray on the Slopes at 18th and Josephine streets is Games N’At, Pittsburgh’s largest video game arcade, with old and new video games, pinball, pool and so on. It also hosts rock shows and allows you to bring your own beer.

Go back over to the Oakland side of the bridge and up the hill at Bates Street, then via Bouquet, or continue on the Eliza Furnace Trail through Panther Hollow, to Schenley Plaza Park. Not only did this project add a one-acre park to the heart of this institutional neighborhood, it represents a pristine form of progressive thinking — replacing a parking lot with a green carpet.

From here, it’s easy to visit the new $36 million dinosaur hall at Carnegie Museum of Natural History or the extended run for the Dale Chihuly glass show at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, although advance reservations are suggested for both.

Keep going east through Schenley Park into Squirrel Hill, where there is way too much to do: Music lovers would regret not stopping at the new layout of Jerry’s Records, where the city’s vinyl emporium now shares space with Heads Together video.

Going farther east on Forward Avenue, one passes along the southern border of Frick Park and by the entrance to Summerset at Frick Park, another former industrial site now converted to housing. Dipping down onto Commercial Avenue, one can enter the bottom of the park and explore new trails around the cleaned-up Nine Mile Run watershed.

After exploring this giant, 600-acre city park, one has earned an appetite, which could mean a stop at Legume, the local-food-focused bistro that opened this summer in Edgewood. (Those not riding through Frick Park can get to the neighborhood via Whipple Street in Swissvale.)

Continuing north on Braddock Avenue, one can stop off at the East End Food Co-Op or Construction Junction before going west on Hamilton Avenue for a stop at the Afro-American Music Institute, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Just ahead is the newly-renovated Homewood branch of Carnegie Library, a beautiful building that hosts Jazz Workshop Inc., among other uses.

Take a left on North Dallas Avenue and at the first corner at Susquehanna Street is East End Brewing — three days a week, it pours samples of homemade beers and sells half-gallons to go.

Heading back west on Penn Avenue takes one past the new Trader Joe’s through the heart of rebuilding East Liberty. Among the many new spots is Ava, the club on Highland Avenue run by neighborhood mainstay Shadow Lounge. North on Negley Avenue a few blocks is the Union Project, the multiuse space and cafe.

Back to Penn, one goes through Garfield, bookended by the new site for Children’s Home of Pittsburgh/Lemieux Family Center and the giant, rainbow-colored Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, set for opening in 2009. In between are places like 5151 Gallery, Quiet Storm, Garfield Artworks and the ever-evolving Brillobox bar.

A right on Main Street takes one to the center of another booming neighborhood, Lawrenceville. One could spend the whole day here — or evening, as is the case for dance nights and cheap drinks at Belvedere’s bar at 40th and Butler.

Going west, Butler Street merges with Penn Avenue, allowing a jaunt across the renovated 31st Street Bridge, with its Oz-like view of Downtown. A left on East Ohio Street takes one to two new North Side cafes — Bistro To Go at the intersection with Cedar Avenue or Amani around the corner on Foreland.

Keep going west, this time on North Avenue, and take a right on Buena Vista Street to find another great coffeehouse, Beleza. Another nice pit stop is the cafe at the multiple-award-winning Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and a show at the reopened New Hazlett Theater next door. The theater is celebrating a yearlong Women in the Arts festival.

One can go back Downtown from here on one of the yellow sister bridges, or cross over the West End Bridge for stops at the Vanilla Pastry Studio, the 22 Wabash shops or Artifacts. (A pedestrian/bike span connecting the bridge to trails on both sides of the Ohio River is on the drawing board.)

As for new things Downtown, one could go to the Future Tenant gallery on Penn Avenue. There is inexpensive but great Mexican food at the Mexico City restaurant at Fourth Avenue and Wood Street, and chemically induced wonders at Alchemy, a part of Bigelow Grille in the DoubleTree hotel.

Next year when Point State Park reopens after a $35 million renovation, one will be able to walk or bike over the Fort Duquesne Bridge from the North Side to Downtown, and from there take a planned bike trail through the Mon Wharf parking lot, reconnecting via Smithfield Street with the Eliza Furnace/jail trail.

That connection would ultimately take you back to the beginning at the Hot Metal Bridge, to better explore the South Side and other points south of the city. But, like so many other things in Pittsburgh, we’ll only know how cool that is when, or if, that link is completed.

Correction/Clarification: (Published Dec. 4, 2007) This story about cool sites in the city as published Dec. 3, 2007 included incorrect addresses: Beleza Community Coffeehouse is on Buena Vista Street and Mexico City restaurant is at Fourth Avenue and Wood Street. In the accompanying illustration, East End Brewing’s location should have been North Dallas Avenue.
Tim McNulty can be reached at tmcnulty@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1581.