[twangy guitar plays]
[Peter] Good morning guys,
here in beautiful Northern Pennsylvania
and today we’re going 45 minutes south
to the great city of Pittsburgh.
A city that had a huge role in building
‘America with its steel industry.
From what I’ve heard
it’s undergone quite a transformation
So today we’re gonna meet up
with a local, an old school local
who said, “Peter, I grew up here.
I know the city in and out.
I know every street.
I can show you a tour of Pittsburgh
like no other.”
I agreed.
Let’s do this.
[jazz music plays]
[Peter] This is your city, Brian?
You came at a good time, man,
’cause it ain’t even summer yet.
-End of July, 90 degrees?
-You grew up here?
-I did.
-Look here, see that post, that column?
-Yep.
-The black thing.
-Yep.
That goes all the way back
to the early 1900s, the original bridges.
You know how politicians are,
renaissance won.
So they got rid of the bridges.
When I was a kid
they blew that thing up with C4, dynamite,
tried knocking it over.
-They made ’em stronger back then?
-[Brian chuckles]
This looks absolutely nothing
like when I was a kid.
This is Mount Washington.
Now we’re going to Knoxville.
Right around the corner.
Million dollar houses…
ten thousand dollar houses.
-Seriously?
-Yeah.
-So the money hasn’t crept over?
-No.
What do you do for work, Brian?
-Many things.
I’m a licensed restoration contractor,
electrician by trade.
Do you work at some of these homes, Brian?
-Absolutely.
Economy sucks
but they don’t have electricians.
Kids think, “I gotta go to college.”
You can go on the other side of this hill,
drop down there
and you’ll find the IVEW headquarters.
They will train you
as an apprentice electrician for free,
provide tools, and give you a job… free.
When you’re done
you got an associate’s degree,
and you’re making $90,000 a year.
-Right out of the gates?
But that’s the trades.
-So is there a line out of the door
or people aren’t getting into them?
They don’t get it.
A lot of people don’t want
to work,
they don’t want to look like this.
-I’m only 29.
-[Peter laughs] Yeah?
-You got the old cobblestones here?
-All over.
Now you’re in one of the many hoods
and you’ll notice the property
degrading really quick.
I grew up in the North Side
of Pittsburgh ’cause I’m Irish.
We didn’t come over here.
-Irish stuck together back in the day?
-Oh, yeah.
[Brian] This was all steel mill.
-In the ’70s?
-Mid to late ’70s, yeah.
It was hard to breath. [laughs]
-Back in the day?
-Oh, yeah.
Where I went to high school
is on top of one of the mountains here.
Right over the hill from us
was the Heinz factory.
Course, high school
being built in like 1938,
no air conditioning, hot water heat.
It was hot in the summer
or the spring time.
So we had the windows open.
Now we’re smelling everything from Heinz.
But then came butchering
of pigs and all that.
There was an island there,
they’d butcher ’em.
The stench of them
rendering fat and everything
when we were in school was unbelievable.
-Okay, so in your early days
you were smelling the steel mills?
You could smell the mills,
you could see the mills, it was dark.
The sky like…
-Nice beautiful day today…
-Uh-huh.
If they were cranking steel
for two or three days
it was like night time.
Even earlier on in ’20s, ’30s, ’40s, ’50s,
[scoffs] you can dig up some pictures of
Pittsburgh from back in the ’30s and ’40s.
It’s 3:00 in the afternoon,
it looks like it’s 9:00 at night.
My options were work in the steel mill
after graduating high school,
work for my dad who’s an HVAC guy.
I just didn’t like it, [laughs],
or go in the military.
So I chose the military.
-What were you in? What branch?
-I went in the Navy originally.
I’m seeing that tattoo
on your arm there, the anchor.
This? Yeah.
There’s this. [chuckles]
-How many years
did you do in the military?
-Total? Uh, is it 33?
-Oh, wow.
-So at any rate,
original bridge to the city right here.
Built by Eiffel.
Eiffel Tower fame.
-Oh, beautiful
So I was told
Pittsburgh was a blue collar town.
Is it still a blue collar town?
Fair to say?
Pretty much.
I mean we have
you know, our share
of billionaires here and millionaires.
So this is city government,
country government here, lawyers.
We’re going into town here.
-Town’s what you call the downtown?
-Yeah.
-Okay, what’s a Yinzer?
-Yinzer.
Uh, like down South everyone says y’all.
Okay.
Up here everyone says,
“Hey, what are yinz doing?”
-What are yinz doing?
Okay, that’s what it is.
Yeah.
That is the courthouse.
Behind it is the original jail.
Now there is a bridge if you look
to the left when we go through here,
I believe it’s named after
a bridge in France.
It’s called the bridge of sighs.
And that bridge would take you
right from the court right to the jail.
So they said you would sigh
on your way over.
But an interesting fact about this
is in this jail
the warden lived in here with his wife.
-Oh, there’s the bridge
you’re talking about.
-Yep, that’s the bridge of sighs.
-Oh, yeah.
The warden’s wife
developed a relationship with a murderer
and broke him out of jail. [laughs]
Now this building
used to be the county morgue.
Which sat right there.
-Okay.
-So they kept it in operation,
lifted it up, put it on railroad tracks,
used horses, and moved it from there
to where it sits now.
[Peter] What did you say
about that bar right there?
If you got your jail bracelet on
you can go in there and
get yourself a beer for free.
Most of the clientele are lawyers.
You just got out of jail,
they’ll all want to talk to you.
-Maybe we can sue somebody. [laughs]
-No way.
Okay, is this just an old story
or it’s still to this day?
Still to this day.
-This is the new jail?
-Yep, Allegheny County jail.
You walk out of the front of this jail,
you can walk down here and go grab a beer.
-For free.
-Keep that bracelet on and get
a free bus ride to where you’re going.
[chuckles]
-You got a lot of tents
under the highways, huh?
-Yeah, well when you start
handing out stuff for free
you make dope legal and everything,
that’s what you attract.
-So when did that really take off here
or it’s always been like that?
They decriminalized marijuana in
the City of Pittsburgh which I don’t care.
It is illegal to have syringes,
meth pipes, all that.
They don’t prosecute.
Our government here just…
I work hard for my money
and they make sure they spend
every bit of it on crap we don’t need.
Okay, do you pay a lot of taxes
doing your work?
One of the reasons
I’m moving out of here, yes.
-Moving out of Pittsburgh?
-Moving out of the city.
I’m staying in the suburbs.
-Okay.
-But I’m not in the city.
So there’s an extra tax
for living in the city?
-Yeah, City of Pittsburgh tax.
Then as a business owner
I have all those taxes.
-Payroll tax, all that stuff, okay.
So what is the city tax
if you’re living in the city?
-I believe right now it’s 5.78%.
-On top of your Pennsylvania income tax?
And my county tax.
Wow, so you’re like…
If you’re doing well
you’re taking home less than 50%.
You’re never gonna do as well as you can.
Never gonna do as well as you can.
[Brian] This all used to be steel.
These guys are still
flat rolling steel here.
-There’s still a fair amount
of steel in operation?
-Oh, yeah.
This is technology here.
-Carnegie Mellon University Labs.
-Okay.
Okay, so that’s what makes
Pittsburgh a little bit different
than some other Rust Belt cities, right?
It’s got this new tech?
-We recovered.
People think of things to do.
Okay, but I was reading last night
the population of Pittsburgh
is basically half of
what it was in the late ’60s.
-Oh yeah, yeah.
They had a whole lot of guys die
from working in the mills.
-Is that coming back?
-Yeah.
You got a lot of younger people coming in.
Problem is some of these properties,
being a person
that’s recently looking for property…
Yeah.
You can have a shack with
no windows in it completely trashed inside
and they’re gonna want
$70,000 $80,000 for it.
You can’t move in for a year.
You gotta rehab that entire home.
-Okay, but you can buy a house
for $70,000, $80,000 here?
Oh, yeah.
The house I just bought
was listed at 48.
-$48,000?
-Yeah.
Not a big house, small, you know,
two bedrooms, kitchen, living room,
two baths.
-It’s livable?
Oh yeah, it’s move in ready.
Lady’s just trying to get rid of it,
she’s an older lady.
She listed it at 48,
I offered her 32 and she took it.
-$32,000 for a house?
-Yeah.
[Brian] You gotta know these streets
to know which lane to be in, man. [laughs]
This is Hazelwood.
This part of the city’s pretty degraded.
-What’s going on here?
-Nothing.
This guy on the right, this old restaurant
here on the right hand side.
-Oh, what a cool building.
-Hungarian guy.
What’s funny about him is
he’d come in about 8:00 in the morning,
he’d open for lunch up until about 3:00.
He cooks one dish, that was the menu.
If you don’t like it he’d look at you
and tell you get out.
Leave.
-So Hazelwood is part of Pittsburgh?
-Yeah.
So that’s what Pittsburgh is,
a bunch of neighborhoods?
-Neighborhoods.
-Look at that little hole in the wall.
-Little pizza.
Italian Village Pizza.
It’s in flux, right? I mean there’s
new paint on some of these buildings.
-They’re trying to get this back up
but there’s just really
nothing going on down here.
-Hazelwood’s had better days, huh?
-Yeah, yeah.
[somber twangy guitar plays]
[Brian] This is Homestead.
-Right outside of Pittsburgh.
-These all are repurposed buildings
but this was all steel.
-How much for one of these homes here?
-You can get into a house here
for $30,000 easily.
-Wow, you can work
at Subway Sandwiches and buy a home.
-Yeah, lot of room here
for anyone flipping
or just wants to get
a portfolio of rentals.
This would be the place to come.
-Look at this,
you got a garden here in town.
This is really interesting, I gotta say.
There’s like–
-People, you know, they got
a lot somewhere, just an empty lot,
they’ll get together as a community
and make a garden,
swap vegetables with each other and…
-Oh, great.
[Peter] Little change up here,
box shops in the old steel mills, right?
-Right, this was all mill property,
all of this.
Everything you’re looking at now.
Little high-end stuff.
-So how’s it make you feel as a local
to see this transformation?
-I like it.
A lot of people in Homestead
now have good jobs.
These are the stacks
from the old mill here.
Where they’d pump the smoke out.
-So you guys here in Pittsburgh,
I mean you can’t speak for all
but is the steel history
something you’re proud of?
Like you really had a big part
in building the country, right?
Oh, for sure.
There’s a town further up north
up the river here.
The town’s called Ambridge,
and it’s actually named after the company,
American Bridge.
In World War II
they made troop transport ships.
Threw ’em in the river here and towed them
all the way down to New Orleans.
Big, big steel production here
for naval ships and tanks.
The Jeep was invented here.
-Really?
-Yeah.
[Brian] This is Braddock.
-We’re in a suburb of Pittsburgh.
-We’re in a suburb, okay.
So when you move out of Pittsburgh
you’re gonna go more in this direction?
Yeah, moving towards Monessen.
If their windows are out
you know people have been in
and they’re probably like this one here.
Probably eight grand
and that’s just the property.
So this is your ET Plant.
-So this is still in operation?
-Oh, yeah.
They’re making steel right now.
-So it’s just employing
way less people? Is that the story?
It’s automated specialty-type steel.
Church always got
a little food bank going on.
-So what was a place like this
when you were a kid?
-Thriving.
There was four or five mills
all around us.
The neighborhoods were like enclaves.
You had Catholics over here,
Jews over here, they all intermingled.
-Okay.
But everyone had their own area,
their own neighborhood.
-You want to talk to any of these people?
-Let’s do it.
What was this, a school over here, Brian?
-Probably yeah.
-“Szkola”?
-Used to be.
What is that, like Serbian?
I don’t even know what that is.
-What is that, Polish?
-Maybe.
-How you doing, ma’am.
-[ladies] Hi.
How you doing?
-What are y’all doing, surveying?
-We’re making a video of this guy.
He’s a Pittsburgh living legend.
-Okay.
-Yeah.
I love Pittsburgh but they need to
start bringing stuff back
because everything
when I was living in Pittsburgh…
Not living here but when we were younger
Pittsburgh was the place to be
just like Braddock was the place to be.
-So you grew up here?
-Yeah.
What was this like?
We had everything.
We had newspaper, we had a train station,
Cochran Pontiac started
right here in Braddock.
-Pontiac cars?
-Yes.
That was their first place.
-What was this building?
-Catholic church.
That’s the nun’s house.
-Nun’s house?
-Yeah, it was.
-Lot of history here?
-Lot of history.
-You wish it was like before?
-Yeah, but it ain’t gonna happen.
It’s the downsides
with the livelihoods was the steel mills,
and Westinghouse,
and these big corporations.
So when you have those and they leave
that’s the downfall of the communities.
That’s why Rankin, and Duquesne,
Homestead, and they’re building up.
-But that was the demise of everything.
-All the way to McKeesport.
-The jobs just left overnight.
-Yeah, that’s what happens.
-Okay.
-I worked for Westinghouse in
one of the ones when they closed
walked through there.
-How was that that day?
-It was terrible.
I mean you lose your job,
you done been there for 15 years.
You know, luckily
I did get another decent job
but the fact of the matter is you think,
“I’m gonna retire from here.”
Didn’t happen.
-You got kids?
-Uh-huh.
-Did they leave or they still here?
My kids are all here but my grandkids
and great-grandkids are all gone.
-Did you say great-grandkids?
I have 11 great-grands.
-Wow.
[Brian] Man, we’re a hearty breed.
-[Brian laughs]
-You’re doing well.
They had B&L Railroads
went all the way down to Pittsburgh
and the station was right
there on Washington and 7th.
So we had the stations and the trolleys,
and jewelry stores, and bakeries.
-It had everything.
-There was a railroad station right here.
[Peter] Okay, how do we
bring Braddock back?
Everything is technology now.
-I don’t see it coming back.
-We don’t give up.
We got a lot of people is interested
in putting projects on the avenue
and want to buy property.
-It’s residential and commercial.
-Okay.
-And This church is a historical…
-It’s a beauty.
-We trying to get money to get it done.
-Yeah.
[Brian] ‘Nother block, ‘nother church.
When I was a kid
everything revolved around the church.
-Would you only hang out with Irish guys?
You’d stay to your tribe
or it’d mix up?
Not in the North Side of Pittsburgh.
We were the dregs of the city,
Italians, Blacks.
Not too many Jews, they took care of
their thing up in the Squirrel Hill area.
Some Polish.
Everybody was everybody’s friend.
Nobody…
Not like today, you know?
You get a little scuffle with somebody,
out comes a gun, out comes a knife.
When I was a kid though,
yeah, you got cracked in the mouth
or punched in the eye,
maybe gave one back.
-Next day you’re buddies again.
-Right.
[Brian] So this is the first free library
in the country.
-Carnegie Library?
-Yep.
[Peter] Was he loved, or hated, or both?
-Welp, if you worked for him
you hated his guts.
But if you’re in the neighborhood
and you’re the wife or kids of the guy
working 12, 16 hours a day in the mill
he built you a library.
-Yeah, I mean–
-He’d build a bath house.
At least his philanthropy
went into the city, right?
-Oh, yeah.
-All right, so right back in Pittsburgh?
-Yep.
Just a few minutes away.
The big family names here
are Carnegie obviously, Mellon.
Rockefeller, Fricks lived here,
their mansion’s right down the street.
They all had their hands in here.
-So more millionaires here
at one time than New York City?
Oh, absolutely.
They all just went to New York
’cause there’s too many millionaires here.
From like what, 1850s to 1950s?
Yeah, all the way up
until World War II pretty much.
Yeh.
[Peter] Got a little gallery there, okay.
So this is middle class neighborhood?
-Yeah.
-What do you think these homes go for?
-Uh, 200.
-Oh, c’mon, that cheap?
-200, 250, somewhere in there.
-These much more over here though, right?
-Oh, yeah
A lot of these are broken up
into apartments now
and not so much mansions.
These houses down here, you’re
getting into old, old Pittsburgh now.
Turn of the century and before.
-This is old Burgh? Do you guys call it
Burgh or you always say Pittsburgh?
They say the Burgh.
-Picksburgh, yeah.
-Picksburgh?
‘Pends on who you’re talking to, you know?
This is the actual Frick Mansion.
-Beautiful.
-This is a park
the daughter donated to the city.
[Peter] “Frick Museum”.
It’s good to see all this old wealth
at least go into something, right?
-The community.
-Yeah.
The children of Henry Frick,
they were nice people.
Henry Frick himself, not so much.
But you gotta look at the time,
you know, of when he was alive
and how the times were.
You know what I mean?
You can’t compare yourself to, say,
a Pittsburgher of the Civil War
and then you’re a Pittsburgher
of the 1960s.
It’s two different worlds.
-How ’bout a Pittsburgher now?
-I don’t know.
A lot of these younger people
have lost that identity.
They don’t do Pittsburgh things.
-What are Pittsburgh things?
Well for instance, Fourth of July,
I did the audio for the fireworks
down at Point State Park and it used to be
a million people down there… literally.
This year 200,000 maybe
between all the shores and
everything around the point.
-So what’s the identity of Pittsburgh now?
It was steel at one time.
-Technology.
-Technology and healthcare, right?
Yeah.
[tire squeals]
That’s a Pittsburgh left?
What does that mean?
Cuttin’ them off before they get here
’cause I need to make that turn.
I don’t wanna wait.
-So we’re going up
to one of your friend’s places?
-We are, Michelle,
if I can get this truck to move.
-Is this the best sort of old money
neighborhood would you say?
-This is it.
You can tell when
the millionaires had a lot of money
by the amount of chimneys they had.
-Oh, right. That’s how much heat
they were putting out.
Every room had a fireplace,
everybody was warm.
Hell, I had friends when I was growing up,
one family had I think seven sons.
They all slept in the attic.
No air, no heat. [laughs]
-You know, I’m in
my honeymoon period right now.
I’m looking at this I’m like, I could
live here, I love this, it’s beautiful.
-Winter’s not like this though?
-Yeah, winter sucks here.
Bitter cold.
We’re one extreme to the other.
And we’re here.
Now over the garage there you’ll see
the french fries, I put those up.
Oh, you’re calling them french fries,
the lights? Okay.
-So this is one of your clients? Cool.
-Yeah, a friend and a client.
I’ll tell her we’re here.
[Brian] All right.
-So Brian, does anyone ever
give you any flak for having the gun?
-No, never.
[Peter] You’re doing great.
[Michelle] All right so you have
this thing rolling.
So what was I gonna say to you?
Oh, I forget.
[Peter] You love Pittsburgh
is what you were saying.
-I have to tell you I did not
love Pittsburgh when I first moved here.
That was actually 20 years ago
and I did not love it.
I’m fro South Florida,
I lived in the Northeast,
you know, from New York,
lived in DC, blah, blah, blah, okay?
And we were coming from Philly.
And my ex-husband said,
“We’re moving to Pittsburgh.”
and I thought
you gotta frickin’ be kidding me.
And it took me a few years,
like three years
to like really kind of get into it
and now honestly
it’s like a hidden gem.
I mean it’s really crazy.
I mean me, a Northeasterner, you know?
I mean I’m like, “Pittsburgh?”.
-You’re originally from Jersey, right?
-Was born there.
-Born there?
-But then moved to South Florida
when I was two.
-Oh, so mostly–
-Yeah, so I’m like really a–
-You’re SoFla?
-Yeah, right. Totally SoFla.
-So no honeymoon period with Pittsburgh?
It was like an Indian marriage
as in you didn’t fall in love at first?
You spend your life falling in love.
You ever heard of that?
The Indians,
we have love marriages, right?
-Are you an Indian?
-No, look at me, c’mon.
Uh, in the West
we fall in love and we get married, right?
-Right.
-And sometimes then we
fall out of love and get divorced, right?
-Yeah.
-In India a lot of times
traditional weddings,
they’re arranged through the families
-There’s no initial love.
-Oh!
But then they spend
the rest of their lives falling in love.
Sort of like your relationship
with Pittsburgh.
-I love that.
That is totally… yes.
It’s really hard….
I mean to like find your people
because everybody’s very…
you know, they all know each other.
We came right into a community.
You know, my ex-husband is a rabbi.
So we had the community but most people
who move here, they don’t have that.
-So getting in with guys like Brian,
you’re saying is not easy?
-No, and they like don’t care
about people like me or whatever.
They’re like… they have…
-He’s on his phone now, he doesn’t care.
-What are you doing? Get off your phone.
But anyway, yeah…
No, it’s really hard for people.
But I’ll tell you I have
a 19 and a 16-year-old.
They have had the best life, truly.
I have nephews that live in South Florida
and they call my kids the country bumpkins
but I’ll tell you something,
my boys have amazing values.
My boys are down to earth.
-Right Brian?
-[Brian] Oh, they are.
Yeah, they are good kids.
Not entitled.
I mean we have a nice house,
we live in a nice area,
but that’s the thing that I love [snaps]
about this place.
I can hang with anyone.
-I can hang with East Coasters–
-Obviously.
…West Coasters, whatever.
-[Brian] Northsiders.
-[Michelle] Northsiders, right, anyone.
But I’ll tell you this is…
It’s a special place.
It really is.
And I’ve had some crap happen
in the last… right?
Five years… it’s been bad.
-[Brian] Yep.
-[Michelle] Okay?
Lost my entire Jewish community, truly.
Yeah, it was bad, okay?
And I’m still saying this.
Now I’ll stay here
till my youngest gets through college
and then I don’t know where I’ll go
but I will tell you
it’s been a good chapter two in my life.
[Peter] So as an outsider…
which you’re an insider now,
20 years, I’ll give you insider status
but as an outsider,
what do people not understand about
Pittsburgh or what’s so great about it?
[Michelle] So we’re in the city…
I’m in the city and you don’t really feel
like you’re in the city.
-Right.
-Right?
I don’t know I think Pittsburghers…
or outside people don’t know
about the beauty, the art, the culture,
you know, the big companies are here
or were here, right? Were here.
And then coming back and cost of living.
I mean food is all the same
but you know, real estate,
it’s definitely increased but you can go
to football games, or baseball games,
or hockey games, [snaps],
in an instant.
No lines, ten minutes downtown.
That is the gift that we have, right?
-[Brian] Yeah, absolutely.
-[Peter] I haven’t seen traffic.
-Am I wrong?
-And you know what?
What’s so funny is people say,
“Oh my God, there’s so much traffic.”
I’m like you gotta be kidding.
This is no traffic.
-And how ’bout the driving here
compared to South Florida?
[Peter] It’s way better up here.
-Yeah, I have to get major insurance
when I go to South Florida
but I will tell you they have
this thing called the Pittsburgh left.
[Brian] I just made one.
[Peter] He told me about…
and I heard the tires squeal.
-So it was official.
-Yeah.
But honestly, what you’re saying,
absolutely… traffic.
[sarcastically] Please.
[Peter] All right,
I’m gonna go on this watermelon.
[Michelle] Yeah, for sure, have some.
-Brian, you’re saying I have to do salt?
That’s a Pittsburgh thing?
-It is.
-All right, show me the way.
All right, here ya go.
Bit of melon.
Fancy shmancy salt shaker here.
[salt shaker buzzing]
-[Brian] That’s pretty much it.
-[Michelle] That much?
-[Brian] Awesome.
-[Michelle] I haven’t gotten there.
[Peter] That’s at 30 years,
you’re only 20 years in.
You just hold that, I’ll give it a go.
[Brian] A button by your middle finger.
[salt shaker buzzing]
[Brian] There ya go.
[Michelle] Be honest… gross?
You need some time to live in the Burgh
to get used to that one.
-[Peter] Where you seeing him on Friday?
-He better come, he has work to do.
We’re trying to get you
to do work for months. [snaps]
-It’s hard to nail Brian down?
He is something else.
He’s a trooper, he’s still here.
-Still alive.
-You are the best.
-Love you.
-Love you too.
-You guys head out.
-Thank you.
So nice meeting you.
Yeah, great meeting you.
All right, enjoy.
-Later, guys.
-Bye-bye.
So Brian she said something
about your health.
-Did something happen with your health?
-[casually] Yeah, it was the cancer thing.
-Is that okay to talk about or no?
-Yeah, sure.
Did you get rid or it or are you still–
-Ah, so far, so good.
-So you went through chemo and all that?
-All that, yeah.
When did that happen?
-About four years ago now.
I was actually gonna donate
a kidney to a friend of mine.
And when I went in for the testing
her doctor told me
to immediately leave their office
and get to the hospital.
So I went to the VA and
there ya go. [chuckles]
-I know there’s some things
you can’t talk about
but you were overseas, right?
Absolutely, yes.
-Iraq, Afghanistan?
-Yes.
[Brian] The fiance
gets on me once in a while,
“You’re too gruff, you’re too this,
you’re too that.” you know?
I’m used to talking to people
to keep ’em alive, you know?
I shouldn’t be as honest
to people sometimes as I am.
Do you miss that camaraderie
when the stakes are so high
and everything’s life and death?
Every day.
I miss being on ships and being at sea.
There’s nothing like it.
-So you enjoyed it overall.
-Oh, I loved it.
So do a lot of guys
have trouble coming back
when they go from all that activity
and that camaraderie
back to normal life?
Unfortunately, yeah.
You probably heard about
it’s called the 22.
22 veterans kill themselves a day.
-Is it that high?
-Yeh.
The help is there but it’s instilled
in you not to seek that help.
You’re weak.
-Did you ever seek it or no?
-Oh yeah, absolutely.
It helped?
When was younger, “I gotta get out
of here, I don’t believe in you people.”
You know, you get older,
you start thinking,
you know, I might need a little help.
I wanna talk to somebody.
So that was the Point Breeze neighborhood.
-What a neighborhood.
This is… we’re coming into
Squirrel Hill now.
You can always tell
in Pittsburgh on the signs.
-The sign tells you where you’re at.
-Okay.
[Peter] “Tree of Life”.
Solo gunman went in,
shot up 13 people or more. 13 died, right?
That was five years ago, huh?
-Yeah, I guess so.
-Seems like it was a couple years ago.
But that’s a shocker
obviously for any community.
-Oh yeah, absolutely.
-You wouldn’t think it’d be
happening in a place like this, right?
Nah, never in a thousand years.
Not up here.
This is where your money was
way, way back when.
-So this is the Italian neighborhood?
-Yes.
Italian as in when you were growing up
or you think it’s still now?
-Even now.
[Peter] And people
aren’t on the streets today.
Is it because the Pittsburghers
don’t like 95 degree heat?
-Nah, Pittsburghers
actually work, so… [laughs].
Mostly everyone’s at work.
-It’s the middle of the week.
-Yeah, we’re shooting this on Wednesday.
At night this place really takes off?
-Oh yeah, they’ll bring the chairs out.
[Peter] Look at that old place.
[Brian] Everybody will be
sitting on the street.
-What’d you call the Italians?
-Dagos.
What are Dagos?
I have no idea.
-It’s like saying Wop or something?
-Like I’m an Irish Mick.
Just what we call each other.
We just laugh, we didn’t care.
It wasn’t said viciously or anything.
-It was, you know…
-You just gave each other sh*t, right?
“You Dago bastard.”
“Shut up, Mick.”
[laughs]
That’s all.
-That’s how my dad talked.
-Then we’d laugh.
Probably have a beer. [chuckles]
[Peter] This is Carnegie Mellon?
All of this?
[Brian] Yeah, lots of buildings
right and left.
[Peter] What’s the big school here,
the med school?
-University of Pittsburgh.
Ooh, little construction.
Tower of learning right there.
[Peter] So their classroom’s way up there?
What’s really cool is on the first floor
they have what’s called
the International Room.
So they have actually purchased
antique classrooms from all over the world
and installed them
on the first floor here.
-So higher education is a big part
of Pittsburgh’s economy now?
-Well yeah, absolutely.
[jazz music plays]
[Peter] So you’re saying this is
one of the most popular parts of the city?
-The strip?
-It’s a lot of shopping and such.
There’s also awesome food back here.
Real Italians, we can go
into any one of these stores.
Real with the hand talking
and the whole nine yards.
This is one of my favorite spots, Rolands.
There’s your Steeler Country
Yinzer gear shop.
-“Yinzers in the Burgh”.
So a lot of pride you guys have,
fair to say?
-Oh yeah, absolutely.
-What sets you apart from the others?
Uh…
If I hated your guts
and you’re getting your ass beat
I’d still jump in and help you. [laughs]
[siren blares]
-So this is the Hill District?
-This is it.
What’s the story up here?
-Segregation, this was
their neighborhood, the Black folks.
Shameful time for the country.
-So right above downtown?
-Yeah.
This to the right
is the famous Crawford Avenue.
Used to be clubs, jazz, I mean this was
the entertainment Mecca right here.
It’s all torn down now.
Ella Fitzgerald, everybody was here.
BB King, they were all–
-So when you were a kid
the Hill District was a poppin’ place?
-Oh, yeah.
A lot of violence too,
riots, ’60s, you know?
It’s like anything else, you know,
people decide they gotta participate
whether they believe in the cause or not
but these folks here,
I think they had a legitimate beef.
I mean folks up here, they clean up
their areas, their neighborhood,
they’re taking more pride again.
-Oh, nice pool.
-City pool.
That’s the part the city
wants you to see that we just went through
-“Look what we’re doing.”
-Oh yeah, with the new buildings, okay.
We can go this way if you want but…
-Wherever you want, yeah.
-If I tell you to duck… duck.
How is crime in Pittsburgh these days?
[scoffs]
You got the gangsters running around.
You know what,
I don’t have any speed on this truck.
I’m not gonna go any further up here.
-Okay.
There’s no way to get out of here… fast.
[laughs]
Situational awareness.
-You learn that in the military, right?
-Absolutely.
[Brian] A couple things I saw going on
up ahead, we don’t need to be there.
-What’d you see?
Somebody beating the sh*t
out of somebody.
Just pulled them out of their car.
-Oh, really?
That’s why I said I got
no speed in this truck.
-I didn’t even see that.
-See these are nice old houses here,
rehab, and not so much on the left.
-Yeah, that is interesting.
[Peter] So Pittsburgh is the story
of neighborhoods declining
that were at one time pretty good.
-Yeah.
-And coming back,
and everyone’s sort of on their own cycle.
That’s what I’m realizing today ’cause
you said this was pretty bad before.
-Growing up?
-This was terrible.
-North Side right?
-Yeah, it was North Side.
[Brian] These are
the Mexican war streets, okay?
-Mexican war streets, what do you mean?
That’s the name of the neighborhood.
These streets were in existence
during the Mexican American War.
-Oh, okay.
-Some of them are rundown as hell.
I mean bad
but rejuvenated and fixed up
like these ones on the left.
-Uh-huh.
-These are million dollar houses
right here.
-It’s got a cool feel to it.
-This is a great place to hang out.
-Yeah, what a hood.
I didn’t think Pittsburgh
would be this colorful.
-Couple years back I was looking
down here to rehab some houses for rent.
Let’s use the one with
the condemned sign, the blue sign.
-Yep.
-$8,000, and that was for the land.
That piece of property’s sitting
as it is now, I betcha it’s 50.
-Okay, and then the white one next to it,
they’ve totally brought it around.
-Yep.
-And what do you think that’s worth?
Probably 300.
-[Peter] How you doing, ma’am?
-[woman speaking indistinctly]
No, how’s living here? Do you like it?
-It’s quiet.
-It’s quiet?
-Sorry, it changed a whole lot?
-Yeah.
-How so?
-Nobody getting killed back here.
Oh, that’s cool. Crime’s down?
-The owner of the building
actually did a lot.
-Okay.
That’s why your place here looks sweet?
-Yeah, yeah, he changed a lot.
He likes taking care of the community.
He remodeled all of them.
-It’s very cool, take care.
-Have a good one.
-You too.
-[Peter] This is really interesting.
-[Brian chuckles]
She said the owner, is it one guy
that came through here and did all this?
-Probably bought several properties,
look at this thing here.
-Yeah.
-Somebody’ll rehab it.
-They’ll rehab that?
-Yep.
[Peter] It’s so interesting
how they’re so narrow.
-That’s all you needed back in the day.
-Right.
-[Peter] Do you live here?
-[man] No, my old lady does.
-Oh cool, does she like it?
-Yeah.
-This hood really turned around, huh?
-Oh, yeah.
The whole North Side did.
Millenniums is moving in. Millenniums
don’t mind living around Black people.
-Okay.
-That makes the neighborhood
more valuable, keeps the value up.
-You’re a North Side guy?
-All my life, Manchester.
[man] North Side is a nice group too.
A lot of young people.
-Oh, okay.
Yeah, see when I say millenniums,
them is young people.
I do lock work and I go to many places.
This is some prime real estate right here.
Yeah, it’s right close to the city,
-Yeah.
You can see everything.
People been buying
these properties everywhere.
Not just North Side, everywhere.
You see what they did to East Liberty?
-It’s my first day here.
-Oh.
Penn Avenue on East Liberty, they have
high rises, you know, affordable housing.
Knocked ’em down, they built
a Whole Food and all that stuff.
So do you like the changes
that are taking place or no?
What are your thoughts?
-I’m mixed.
-Mixed. Okay, why?
‘Cause some of these houses
ain’t gonna be affordable soon
because the value gonna go up.
-It’s a word for that when they call…
-Gentrification.
That’s what it is.
That’s just what’s happening.
That’s what’s happening in East Liberty.
As a Black person, we want our kids
to be better than us and do more than us,
and that’s what we try to do.
-That’s everyone though, don’t you think?
Everyone wants their kids to do better.
-Yeah, that don’t got no color on it.
-Yeah.
Don’t nobody want to live in poverty.
Nobody want to go out here
and have to shoot nobody
or worry about looking over their head,
but you gotta eat.
You gotta eat.
-You don’t gotta shoot for it though,
you can go work like you.
-You got a locksmith job or–
-Some people can’t get it.
-What do you mean?
-Can’t get a job.
I think if you want a job these days
you can get it.
Work in the back of a restaurant
or whatever, landscaping company.
Lot of people cannot get jobs
because of their history.
Because of their youth.
-Okay, so they have a felony record
or something. Gotcha, okay.
-Yeah.
Or it ain’t worth working
for like $10 an hour.
That’s why they try to bring
minimum wage up so it’d be livable
but once they bring the minimum wage up
the cost of living gonna go higher anyway.
So it’s a no win situation.
And we need more people like you
to see what’s wrong.
What’s going on?
Let’s take some pictures. Let’s see.
Let’s don’t just
talk about it in politics.
Let’s go out here into the field and look.
Let’s look!
Let’s see for ourselves
what’s going on in here.
Then you’ll see, oh, this is the truth.
-Right.
-This is a nice ass neighborhood.
-It’s clean as hell.
-Yeah, it is nice.
-Nice as hell.
-You know what’s crazy–
Some White people won’t even come
to the North Side ’cause they scared.
-Of this?
-For what? Why?
-What’s interesting… you’re name, sir?
-Tony.
Tony, Peter.
Tony, I can do this, I can be with you,
and just put the camera on that
the whole time, right?
-Yeah.
-And be like, “This place is sketchy.”
It’s super dangerous,
look at they’re homeless in there
or I can place it there the whole time
and be like,
“Look at these sweet
refurbished buildings.”
So it’s all in the power
of the camera and the editor too.
-Of the story they want to show.
-Yep, that’s true.
And so I try my best
to get the pulse from the people
but even with that, who am I with,
where I end up, that tells the story.
-You never know fully.
-Yep.
If we respect each other…
That’s why China’s doing good
’cause there’s no racism over there.
-Uh, no, there is.
-Oh, is there? See, I don’t know.
-Big, big time.
See?
-If you’re Hon Chinese, you’re in the–
-Read in the Bible.
Seek knowledge.
If you just let somebody tell you
and you don’t seek it
you won’t know the truth.
Now you just told me
something I didn’t know.
-Well if you’re Hon Chinese,
the Uyghurs, which are Muslim
in the far west of the country,
they definitely don’t have the same rights
a lot of times as the Hon Chinese.
-Oh.
-So there’s a dominant Chinese race,
and then there’s a bunch of minorities.
-I didn’t know that.
-Yeah, no, it’s hard.
I was there, that’s why I know, ’cause
I was seeking… I was looking around.
-You seek knowledge to find out the truth.
-Yes.
You don’t listen to what somebody
tell you, you go find out the truth.
-Fact.
And that’s what we need,
more people like you.
-Thank you, brother.
-Yes, sir.
-You want more people out here?
-Yeah!
Yeah, it’s a nice neighborhood.
All right, be cool, man, be safe.
-You too, see you, Tony.
-Good talking to you, Peter.
You too, Tony, all the best, man.
[Peter] It’s cool to see, you know?
It’s cool to see these old buildings
not getting knocked down.
That will be redone hopefully.
That’s a beauty.
And then the new stuff.
Which the new stuff is functional,
just doesn’t have the soul
of that old stuff, you know?
-Right.
-[Brian] Looking for work?
-[man] Yeah.
What do you do?
Construction,
I’ve worked in restaurants and stuff.
Yeah? I’ll give you a number,
you got a pencil and paper?
4-1-2…
Uh…
4-0-3…
It’s full rehabs and bathrooms.
-All right, cool.
-Guy you’re gonna call is named Eli.
-Okay.
-All right?
-I’ll call later on.
-Appreciate it, man.
-All right, yep.
There ya go.
-[Brian] It’s a helluva day, yeah?
-[Peter] Yeah.
-Real mix of a city.
-[Brian chuckles]
Thanks for showing all the…
not all the neighborhoods.
We can’t see it all in one video.
Impossible but a good flavor
of different sections.
Anything else you want to say?
Eh, be nice to each other.
Okay, okay.
You’ve been to the city
where everybody’s nice to everybody.
-Yeah, that was cool.
-On the most part.
All right guys,
thanks for coming on that journey.
Until the next one.
[twangy guitar plays]