Pittsburgh: Green is for Go

Overlooking downtown Pittsburgh from atop Mount Washington today, it seems inconceivable that the city was once blighted with pollution, the black smoke of coal fires blotting out the sun and its three rivers toxic with waste. 

In 1868, writer James Parton called Pittsburgh “hell with the lid taken off,” a condition that endured until the 1950’s. After its steel economy finally collapsed in the mid-1980’s, it was do-or-die time for the industrial powerhouse. Along with investments in knowledge, education, technology, sports and cultural tourism, the city's focus on environmental recovery has made Pittsburgh one of the world's greenest cities.   

Popularly known as “The Green Heart of Pittsburgh,” the circa-1893 Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is at the forefront of global green development.  Already boasting the first LEED-certified welcome center in a public garden and the world’s most energy-efficient conservatory, the Phipps is also home to the Center for Sustainable Landscapes, a completely self-sustaining building that is among the greenest structures on Earth.  

 

For a riveting encounter with Pittsburgh's industrial past, visit the remarkable Carrie Furnaces National Historic Site in nearby Braddock, Pa. Here, men who once prepared the molten iron that made the steel that built America provide guided tours of the innards of these blast furnace complex, formerly the heart of U.S. Steel's Homestead Works.

Grounds For Sculpture

The beguiling Grounds For Sculpture art park in Hamilton, NJ, features over 270 whimsical sculptures on the site of the former New Jersey State Fairgrounds.

With a history of staging fairs going back to 1745, this 100-acre plot became the site of New Jersey's enormously popular Inter-State Fairs in the late 1800's. Along with displays of horses, cattle and other livestock, agricultural products and farming equipment, culinary arts and needlework, these gatherings also featured entertainment including daredevil stunts and horse races.

Special events included a shooting match between Annie Oakley and Miles Johnson, and demonstrations of horsemanship and lassoing by cowboys and Indians from Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show. Parachutists jumping from hot-air balloons thrilled audiences in the 1890s.

Starting at the turn of the century, death defying shows starring pioneers of aerial navigation, including Harriet Quimby, one of the first women to hold a pilot's license, and automotive racing, were booked to entertain the crowds filling the grandstand. As horses were replaced by automobiles for transportation, cars became the main attraction on the fairground's racetrack.

Located just north of Trenton and under two hours south of NYC, the sculpture park also features the lively Rat's (from Wind in the Willows) Restaurant, with executive chef Shane Cash, a relation of singer Johnny Cash, at the helm.

Frickin' Artful

Outdoor sculptures, hiking trails and indoor galleries make for a great day out in Long Island at the Nassau County Museum of Art on the 145-acre former Frick Estate, one of the bright survivors of the Gold Coast era.

Tuff Stuff: Bandalier National Monument, New Mexico

This remarkable heritage site, named for Swiss-born archeologist Adolph Bandalier who was led to the area in the 1800's, was home to the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here from around 1150 to 1550. Carved in the soft volcano tuff, deposited here some 200,000 years ago following a massive eruption, their cliff dwellings include some remarkably well preserved petroglyphs and masonry walls.