Image by zyphbear via Flickr

Jim Krenn RAW is a video podcast by Jim Krenn.  In this video series is a kind of behind the scenes look at what happens in Pittsburgh when Jim isn’t on the radio.  If you are new to Pittsburgh – these videos are a great way to learn about some of the things that are staples here in Pittsburgh.  Start with this episode on the Primanti Brother’s sandwich.  Just in time for Halloween  Jim Krenn checks out one of the Haunted Pittsburgh Tours.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sean Collier has been running Haunted Pittsburgh Tours since 2008.  Tours run April through October each year.  You can read more about Haunted Tours in the Post-Gazette here.

This is the last week for the Haunted Tours for the 2011 season.  Tours are almost sold out! you can buy tickets for the Haunted Pittsburgh Tours online here.  As on Monday am there is still space left on the following tours:

• Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011 @ 7pm – Haunted Oakland Tour
• Thursday, Oct. 26, 2011 @ 7pm – Station Sq./Mt. Washington Tour
• Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 @ 7pm – Station Sq./Mt. Washington Tour
• Friday, Oct. 28, 2011 @ 7:30pm – Ghost Ride
• Saturday, Oct. 29 2011@ 7pm – Station Sq./Mt. Washington Tour
• Saturday, Oct. 29 2011 @ 7:30pm – Ghost Ride
• Saturday, Oct. 29 2011@ 9pm – Station Sq./Mt. Washington Tour
• Sunday, Oct. 30 @ 6pm – Haunted Oakland Walking Tour

We have tours in Oakland on Wednesday at 7:00 pm and Sunday at 6 pm; our Ghost Ride launches Friday and Saturday nights at 7:30; our Station Square/Mt. Washington tour runs Thursday at 7 pm, Friday at 7 pm, and Saturday at 7 pm and 9 pm.

Image by AlxTheRed via Flickr

History lovers, hold on to your hats and pack up your wagons (station wagons) and head out route 30 east to the laurel highlands this weekend – it is a double header of cultural festivals.  We are often asked about what are the must-do events around Pittsburgh.  Both of these festivals are on our list of favorites.  And they happen to be on the same weekend so you can catch a double header of history celebration just outside of Pittsburgh this weekend.

First stop – break out your bag pipes and kilt for the Ligonier Highland Games – a day long celebration of Scottish hertiage.  There will be athletic events such as tossing the caber (throwing a big tree trunk) and the Scottish hammer throw.

Then  steer your wagon (or mini van) down 711 south to Stahlstown – time to celebrate the important fiber of flax.  Flax is what linen fabric is made out of.  The Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival is the 2nd oldest Scutching festival in the United States.  They have been celebrating the scutching every year since 1907.  Yep, 1907 – so join them for the 105th annual Flax Scutching festival to learn about how the flax plant is turned into linen cloth and snack on some buckweat pancakes too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ligonier Highland Games – Saturday, September 10, 2011 @ Idelwild Park

Flax Scutching Festival – Saturday & Sunday, September 10 & 11, 2011 @ Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival Fairgrounds

Here is a map that includes both festivals and 2 other places that you should consider stopping – Joe’s Bar in Ligonier has the largest collection of taxidermy in North America and the Pie Shoppe in Laughlintown has good sandwiches and pumpkin cookies. The Google location for the Pie Shoppe is not correct – the Pie Shoppe is right on Route 30 – directly across from the Ligonier Country Inn.

Harmony Community Day – Saturday, June 18, 2011
11am-6pm
website for more info – http://historicharmony.com/communityday.html

• Car Cruise
• Kids Stuff
• Music
• Food
• Visit the Harmony Musueum for just $1
• Hot Dog Eating Contest – 3pm

A Very Brief History of Harmony

Harmony, PA was home to the Harmonities Society – which was founded in 1804 by Father Rapp.  The Harmonites were in Harmony for about 10 years, then they moved to Indiana and eventually setted in what is now Ambridge.  There isn’t much more to the story of the HArmonities – they were a celebate group so that eventually put an end to their group. But the town exists with lots of well preserved buildings. We have included some links to places to visit below.

You can find out if Oakland is really haunted on one of the Haunted Pittsburgh walking tours.  Now if I were visiting any other city – and saw a haunted tour – I would run the other way.  I have just never been a fan of touristy, haunted tours – really how haunted could Daytona, FL be?

But a haunted tour of Pittsburgh – this could be interesting.  Pittsburgh has history and lots of it.  Oakland has a ton of history packed into one little neighborhood with one very tall old building – there has to be some great stories about the Cathedral of Learning.

Haunted Pittsbugh has just added a Haunted Oakland walking tour.  Join Sean Collier (yep – you have probably heard him on WDVE) for a tour of Haunted Oakland.

Watch Sean Collier discuss the haunted tours on KDKA here.

Haunted Oakland Walking Tour
When: October 17 and 24 (rain or shine) at 6:00 p.m.
Where: At the bottom of the steps of the Hillman Library.
Price: $15 per person. Order above to reserve a spot.
Frequently asked questions: Answeredhere

Looking for more haunted activities? Haunted Pittsurgh also offers other tours and a haunted bar crawl through the southside.   Check out their website – www.hauntedpittsburghtours.com

On Friday, we posted a photo of the very large ship that is docked in the river next to Heinz field.  This is the USS LST ship – it served in World War II.  The USS LST is usually docked in Evansville but it has been out making a tour this summer.  The USS LST is in Pittsburgh September 1-7th.

More details about the USS LST and it’s visit to Pittsburgh are available here

www.lstmemorial.org

Here is an article from the Post-Gazette about the USS LST – “World War II landing craft due on North Shore for 6-day appearance“  – which includes an interview with a Pittsburgh resident who served on this ship.

Do I really want to tour a World War II boat? Well I asked that same question last summer – I was visiting an old Pittsburgh friend who lives in Honolulu – after we visited the Arizona Memorial – (which is free to visit and fascinating) – one of my fellow travelers suggested we visit the Might Mo – the USS Missouri.  The USS Missouri was where Japan surrendered to the Allied Forces on September 2, 1945. 

(The photo below is from the deck of the USS Missouri looking out at the Arizona Memorial.)

One of the interesting things about Honolulu is that it is probably as far away from the East Coast and New England as you can get and still be on US soil – and it is probably one of the only places in the US where so much recent US history took place.

I must say I was skeptical of touring the USS Missouri – but this turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip.  It was really interesting to see how people live and work on these floating cities.  If you have a chance – head on down to the north shore to check out the USS LST.

Looking for some friends who also like to collect beer stuff – well it turns out that Pittsburgh has a club for that too.  Olde Frothingslosh is a Pittsburgh beer can and breweriana collecting club and they are always open to new members.  I want to join because they have such a great name.  In case you weren’t sure about the legitimacy of this organization – please note that Olde Frothingslosh happens to be the 11th 11th Chapter of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America (BCCA) and a Chapter of the National Association of Breweriana Advertising (NABA).

A little history on  the name “Olde Frothingslosh” (thanks to a comment on Flickr)

Image by shannonpatrick17 via Flickr

Long story. A popular KDKA morning drive-time DJ named Regis Cordic had this gag about a beer with the foam on the bottom. He did fake radio commercials for it for several years, until the Pittsburgh Brewing Company (makers of the long-defunct Tech Beer line – yes, the name references Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon) decided to actually market the stuff every Christmas. The parody label changed annually.

More information about the beer Olde Frothingslosh can be found here.

Awesome names and acronyms aside – Olde Frothingslosh, the club, is hosting the 15th annual (why didn’t anyone tell us about this before) Iron City Brewing Oberbrau Haus Beer Collectibles Show this weekend.  Admission is $3 and I believe that includes some Iron City Beer.

Iron City Brewing Oberbrau Haus Beer Collectibles Show
Sunday, June 6, 2010
9am-2pm
Iron City Brewing Building, 3340 Liberty Avenue

hosted by Olde Frothingslosh

For the past 10 year a group of dedicated volunteers has been working to bring back the grandness to Grandview Park – and the timing is perfect.  The park will celebrate its 100th birthday this Saturday, October 3rd with a big community birthday party.

From 15211.org:

The Friends of Grandview Park will host a birthday celebration in the park (499 Bailey Ave., Mt. Washington, 15211), on Sat., Oct. 3, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be activities for all ages ranging from artists and food vendors to musicians and children’s entertainment. Kids will be able to climb to the top of a life-size fort to see the city.

More info on the Park and the birthday Celebration from the Post-Gazette and the Green Tree Times

Grandview Park is part of the larger Grand View Scenic Byway Park.

This is a neat event that is another creative way to think about our city, transit and how cars fit into the urban landscape.   It fits well into the conversation we have been having about if you need a car in Pittsburgh on the post about Zipcar.

Last year, I posted about Parking Day 2008 and recieved this interesting comment that I wanted to share – which puts some historical perspective of how cars have fit into Pittsburgh over the past centruy or so.

I have a nineteenth century “History of Pittsburg” which lists the word “parking” in the index. I thought this odd as I couldn’t imagine someone parking a carriage. When I looked it up, the word meant the placing and creating of parks in the city which was not done until after the Civil War.

Park(ing) Day, Friday, September 18, 2009 is being coordinated by Mattress Factory, the Office of Public

Art and the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.

More info about Park(ing) Day and some great photos of the parks from last year is available at http://parkingdaypittsburgh.blogspot.com/

Read more about Pittsburgh’s Park(ing) Day 2009 at Pop City Media, Bittersweet Harvest, and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy Blog.

read more about Park(ing) day around the country

• PARK(ing) Day Is Coming Friday, Sept. 18th, But Deadline Is Thurs., Aug. 20th! (b-townblog.com)
• Get ready for PARK(ing) Day (phinneywood.com)
• Art-Streets-Life – San Francisco Great Streets Project (sanfranciscofyi.blogspot.com)
• PARK(ing) Day to create mini park on Friday (phinneywood.com)

Well this video popped up on YouTube today – with the entire song and a great slide show of phoos from Vipers Soul Club in January.  The lyrics seem quite fitting for today too.

The song is “The Burg” by Larry McGee was origionally released in 1976 by the label Boogie Band Records and was reissued in 2005 by Licorice Soul Records.  You can purchase an origional copy of this record for $200 here.

You can check out Larry McGee’s MySpace page here.

Check out our other posts on Vipers Soul Club here.

This is a very interesting time for the automobile industry – it is interesting to think about just how much cars have changed when they were first developed.  The exhibit Model T at 100 is at the Frick Musuem until May 3, 2009.  has a 1914 Model T as part of their collection and they have borrowed some other Model T’s for the exhibit.

When Henry Ford unveiled the Model T in 1908, few could have anticipated the incredible 19-year production run that awaited the vehicle. Simply put, the car was a revolution on wheels. More than 15 million Model Ts were sold worldwide, placing it among the top-selling automobile models of all time.

A Revolution on Wheels: The Model T at 100 celebrates the T’s birthday with an exhibition of five examples of the Model T, representing a variety of body styles from 1909 to 1926. The Frick has borrowed four models to supplement the 1914 Model T Touring car already in our collection. They include a 1909 Model T Touring Car, a 1917 Model T Runabout, a 1925 Model T ‘Depot Hack,’ and a 1926 Model T Coupe. All were built by the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan, with the customized body of the ‘Depot Hack’ manufactured by the Calumet Truck Body Corporation in Calumet. Michigan.

Some related blog posts…

• Will Model T replicas replace horse-drawn carriages in NYC? (gadling.com)
• Budget Travel: Detroit (gadling.com)