I spent most of the third day of my vacation at the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. If you only have one day in Pittsburgh you should probably visit the Carnegie Museums. I don’t know why the local travel agencies don’t offer bus trips to the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. Clearly it is a world class tourist attraction that rivals anything else in Pennsylvania. Getting to the Carnegie Museums from my hotel was a little difficult because I had to go to Oakland. The hotel shuttle bus does not go to Oakland. I decided to call a taxi. I really should use taxis more often on my trips because I waste a lot of time walking long distances. I always wind up with sore feet but I avoided any blisters on this trip. I used the Yellow Cab company and it cost me $15.00 (tip included) to get to Oakland. I arrived around 9:30 a.m., a half hour before the museum opened, so I walked around a few blocks and photographed the Cathedral of Learning, the Stephen Foster Memorial, the Giuseppe Moretti statue of Stephen Foster, the Heinz Memorial Chapel, and of course Dippy the dinosaur.
There are two museums between the campus of the University of Pittsburgh and the campus of Carnegie Mellon University; the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Art. However, the museums are connected and you can visit both together for just one price. You can enter at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History entrance which has a convenient circular drive for cars to drop you off. I had my umbrella with me and I was asked to put it in a locker. The Carnegie Museums have self-service lockers. I’ve never seen self-service lockers before. You find a locker with a key, open it, put a quarter in the mechanism inside, and then close the locker and take the key with you. Fortunately I did not forget to retrieve my umbrella before I left.
I was at the Carnegie Museums from the time they opened to the time they closed, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It really takes you that long to see everything. The first thing I saw was the mineral exhibit which was quite impressive. They have large pieces of crystals, gems, gold, and mineral deposits. They even had some radioactive material but I did not spend much time standing in front of that! The dinosaur fossil exhibit was also impressive with massive mounted skeletons. Like most natural history museums, the place was packed with kids on school trips.
They also had a collection of natural habitat dioramas with taxidermied animals; North American Wildlife and African Wildlife. The Botany room was empty, no visitors, but I saw an exhibit on the poisonous plants of Pennsylvania which was informative.
The Carnegie Museum of Art was more interesting. I saw the Hall of Sculpture which can be seen in the 1980s movie Flashdance. I had that Irene Cara song “Flashdance… What a Feeling” playing in my head the whole time. I also found the Hall of Architecture which was quite impressive. This hall has massive life size casts of various architectural details from antiquity. For example, there was a large model of the Parthenon and some casts of the pediment marbles. Of course, I saw the original Elgin Marbles in the British Museum last year. They also had a cast of the Porch of the Maidens from the Acropolis in Athens.You could look into the Carnegie Music Hall but it was roped off.
I saw lots of artwork in the Heinz Galleries and the Scaife Galleries. My favorite painting was The Garden of Adonis – Amoretta and Time by John Dickson Batten. There was a special exhibit of Japanese prints including some Japanese theater actors which I found interesting.
I had lunch at 1:51 p.m. at the Carnegie Café. I ordered a chocolate milk and a salad with Maryland crab cake. Ordinarily I might have left after that but I wanted to spend as much time in the museum as possible so I checked out the third floor. The third floor had exhibits on Eskimos, American Indians, and Ancient Egypt with a few mummies. The Polar World exhibit on Artic Life included some interesting information on Canada’s First Nation peoples. I also checked out the Decorative Arts and Design galleries which I would usually skip.
Before I left at around 3:42 p.m. I stopped off at the art store and bought a book on Art Deco. They did not have a good selection of books unless I wanted to carry around a heavy art book. Art Deco is one of the great retro looks and there is plenty of Art Deco to see in New York City so I thought this was a good choice.
After leaving the museum I decided to explore Oakland since it would be a shame to leave too quickly. I had no plans to return to this part of the city. I walked to Schenley Park and found the Phipps Conservatory but it was too late in the day for a visit. I also saw the Frick Fine Arts Building. There was a very impressive fountain in front of the Frick Fine Arts Building. Unfortunately, my research did not uncover any information on this fountain but I walked all around it and got some great photos of the fountain with the Cathedral of Learning in the background. It is a shame the fountain was not on and spouting water. On the bridge over Panther Hollow I saw a mysterious collection of padlocks chained to the fence. It looked like some sort of public art installation.
There are several bookstores in Oakland because there are huge universities in the area so I visited Caliban Books. I looked for the plays of August Wilson but I did not find any, so I bought a road map of Pittsburgh and the book Symbolist Theater by Frantisek Deak. The book was a great find because I’m definitely interested in Symbolist Theater. I think Symbolism may offer the only way for theater to present the experience of a dream onstage. I’ve recently reread William Butler Yeat’s symbolic play At the Hawk’s Well and the analysis of it in A Jungian Approach to Literature by Bettina L. Knapp. I was impressed by how that play managed to dramatize a mythology through ritual and symbolic actions. I was planning on eating at Crepes Parisiennes further up the street but they were closed by then.
I then tried to take a taxi back to my hotel. First I called the Yellow Cab company but they kept me waiting for an hour. Then I tried to call for a Classy Cab but they said it would be an hour for them to pick me up. I got fed up and told Yellow Cab to forget it, I would take a bus back to my hotel. So on this trip I learned that you can’t rely on getting a taxi in the evening in Pittsburgh. I confirmed this the next day. This is the sort of detail I like to note.
I was really angry at the prospect of walking all the way back to my hotel after being on my feet all day in the museum. But as I was walking down Forbes Avenue I came across the Original Hot Dog Shop so I decided to stop in for a bite because their hot dogs are famous. I had a cheese dog with chili and a large cup of Sprite to keep myself hydrated. The Sprite was flat and tasted like carbonated water. That fueled my anger and deserves to be recorded for all time as part of my trip report. Damn flat Sprite! Eventually I noticed that Forbes Avenue was a one way street so there were no bus stops in the downtown direction. I crossed over to Fifth Avenue and caught a bus at Carlow University. The bus dropped me off near the Steel Plaza Station so I was able to ride the subway to the North Shore Station and walk from there to the Priory Hotel.
