When I first started blogging, I set up a google calendar to keep track of and share Pittsburgh events. In 2008 we wrote a post about the Three Rivers Postcard Club and I added a recurring event for their monthly meetings to the calendar. While the IheartPGH Google calendar has not been updated in years, each month I still get a reminder for the monthly meeting of the Three Rivers Postcard Club. And each month I’ve wondered if the club still exists.
As much as I love social media and I love looking at and sharing photos of Pittsburgh, I still love postcards. In many ways, postcards were the original Instagram or Facebook post. A quick photo and a short message to send someone an update. I love sending them and I love browsing through stacks of old postcards when I visit a flea market or Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse (which is an excellent source for both new and used postcards and greeting cards). Who doesn’t like getting a piece of mail that isn’t a bill or a solicitation from Comcast.
Last week, Diana Nelson-Jones published a lovely article about the Three Rivers Postcard club – Diana Nelson Jones’ Walkabout: Recalling postcards: underrated sources of folk history (Post-Gazette, January 9, 2017). The postcard club still exists and still meets at the same time and place as they did in 2008, 7 p.m. every third Thursday at the Fairhaven United Methodist Church, 2415 Saw Mill Run Blvd., in Overbrook.
Pittsburgh Postcards then and now…
Would anyone be interested in helping to recreate some old postcard photos and share what those places look like now? I think it would be interesting to see what some of these places look like now and if they even still exist. The Fort Pitt Hotel, pictured above, was built in 1905 and demolished in 1967. You can read more about the Fort Pitt Hotel here.
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