Innovation

Brian O'Neill's take on Pittsburgh is now a charming book that captures the city's unique spirit while pondering a few of its problems.

So why the title, "The Paris of Appalachia, Pittsburgh in the Twenty-first Century"?

Some see it as derisive while others claim to have coined it, says O'Neill, local scribe and storyteller of two decades as a columnist for the Press and now the Post-Gazette. "I never meant it as an insult."

"Most of America has this image of Appalachia as this poor, rural place, but it's a lot more complex than that. Are these hills on loan from West Virginia? We are a part of it, and we have all this great stuff."

The book unfolds with sentimental vignettes of his adopted city culled from past columns mixed with fresh material. How locals continue to call the Golden Triangle "Town," a place where churches and communities "are held together with dollops of dough and cheese" and football heroes like Troy Polamalu can do a mosh dive into the arms of roiling fans and escape unscathed.

O'Neill's Pittsburgh is a place worth yearning for, with neighborhoods where you may get invited to dinner with the Condelucis and have coffee with North Side neighbors on the way home, or argue the history of the French and Indian war from a bar stool. His favorite characters are there, from Robin Troy and LaMont Pruitt to Gus Kalaris, the North Side ice ball guy.

"Better than celebrities," he says.

"What I'm trying to say is this is a great city worth caring about and here are the reasons," says O'Neill, while walking his dog on the North Side where he lives with his wife and two daughters. "I tried to tell it from the ground up, point out the many things that Pittsburgh has that I'm worried it might lose."

The book is selling well, although it's not widely available yet, he adds. Look for it on his website, at the Allegheny YMCA or Gus's ice ball stand.

Writer: Deb Smit
Source: Brian O'Neill

Photograph copyright Brian Cohen