This year has been one of those that has gone by as fast as lightning and as slow as tunnel traffic. January was both five minutes ago and a couple millennia ago. 2023 was the year that gave us cool collabs, medical advancements, and surprisingly, no bridge collapses and only a few minor sinkholes too small to swallow a bus. What good is a year that doesn’t give us a new bus catastrophe-themed ornament or a dumpster-floating-down-a-flooded-street meme that can be turned into a vinyl sticker?
Turns out, quite a bit of good. Let’s wrap up the year in Pittsburgh by highlighting the best things that happened here in 2023, and watch Marty Griffin scream in rage.
In no particular order:
1. Cutch comes home
Don’t call it a comebac— Actually, yes, call it a comeback. Pittsburgh got Andrew McCutchen back, and Andrew McCutchen got Pittsburgh back. Not that we ever left his corner, but it’s a little easier to root for him when he’s in black and gold, even in those terrible City Connect uniforms that look like something a baseball team would wear in Demolition Man. While his season ended with an injury, there is no denying the intangibles (and heck, the tangibles) he brought to the team this year. Not only that, he smacked his 2,000th career hit in a Pirates uniform in 2023. Poetic. As a diehard fan, I stay realistic in my expectations for the team, but that early-season winning spurt was something to behold and gave me a little hope, before the team once again crushed my dreams. It’s okay. Next year they are winning the World Serie— Why are you laughing? Bob Nutting, call me. So I can verbally abuse you.
2. Taylor Swift breaks records and repairs hearts
It can only be assumed that Taylor Swift literally feeds on Haterade, because how else does she keep getting bigger and better? Love her or hate her, there is no denying that the data reflects her immense and historical power. Her two-day visit to Pittsburgh resulted in a record-breaking 145,000+ fans descending on the still-stupidly named Acrisure Stadium. Countless more crowded the public spaces outside to at least hear the concerts. And all of that meant one very important thing to downtown Pittsburgh as it continued its crawl out from the pandemic-related slowdown … cold hard cash. Visit Pittsburgh estimated local spending around her two concerts at $46 million, and downtown hotel occupancy jumped to 96%. In addition, 83% of concertgoers were from out-of-town, further increasing exposure to all Pittsburgh has to offer and that it is not the dystopian crime-y hellscape some are trying to make you believe it is. Taylor personally gave to the city too, by way of a donation to the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank. Add it all up, carry the one, and what you get is “Taylor Swift Kicks Ass,” because math isn’t real. But Taylor Swift sure is.
3. Pittsburgh celebrates 50 years of Pride
Pittsburgh’s first Pride parade was a two-hour walk for around 60 marchers and it featured a “tall, muscular exotic dancer who carried his seven-foot boa constrictor on his shoulders.” What I’m saying is, Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ community has ALWAYS been extra. The Post-Gazette termed the 1973 march as “Pittsburgh’s first gay public demonstration.” 2023’s Pride event was a much grander affair, with thousands in attendance and a half-dozen politicians, including Josh Shapiro, Summer Lee, and John Fetterman on hand to lend support. A review of local papers in 1973 shows advice columnists referring to the “deviant lifestyle” and encouraging parents to expose their feminine boys to masculine influences to turn them back to “normal.” In 2023, threats of violence and abuse from the far-right were enough to push Target to move Pride merchandise to a less visible location out of caution for their employees’ safety. I gotta say, using fear to get your bigoted way only further demonstrates exactly why Pride events are still needed today. On to 2024!
(Also of note in the local onward march of LGBTQ progress, 2023 brought Pittsburgh her first openly gay police chief in Larry Scirotto.)
4. Kenny Pickett’s car gets stolen with the playbook inside and hilarity ensues
Crime? You’re including someone doing a CRIME on this list? When the crime is as funny as the Steelers’ quarterback getting his car stolen while he’s doing a radio interview AT A CAR DEALERSHIP where he LEFT THE WHOLE ASS PLAYBOOK in the back seat resulting in some of the best yinzer jokes and memes since downtown swallowed a bus? Heckin’ yes! By far the best thing to come out of the incident was local comedian Tad Wissel’s hilarious video featuring him playing the role of a good-intentioned yinzer thief accidentally winding up with the playbook (and a nice pair of sunnies). The good news is no one was hurt, Kenny’s SUV was just a bit scratched up, and the playbook was recovered and an arrest easily made because the thief literally just got out of his car at the dealership, got in Kenny’s SUV, drove off and left his own car behind as a calling card. Criminals … they’re just like us—stupid as hell.
5. Downtown gets public restrooms, finally!
All must pee. All must poop. Unless you are a tarantula, because I owned one for like 8 years and I don’t believe he ever pooped once. Yes, downtown visitors and even the homeless (and a few wayward Steelers) need a place to take care of the business of having a human body that insists on ejecting waste at regular intervals. Wising up that perhaps the solution wasn’t to make it so difficult to find a way to answer the call of nature that the unhoused were forced to do it in spaces not intended for such use, Pittsburgh said, “What if, and I’m just spitballing here, we place a public toilet downtown instead of forcing people to beg coffeeshop employees for the bathroom key that’s attached to a parking chair?” The result? The Pittsburgh Potty! It’s a perfectly-named pilot program for now, so let’s take care of them and use them responsibly so that they will stay and maybe expand in scope and just completely piss Marty Griffin off. Not a pun.
6. Kennywood and the Pittsburgh Zoo celebrate their 125th anniversaries
Listen, making it to 125 is a FEAT, and Kennywood Park and the Pittsburgh Zoo both reached that milestone in 2023, yet they don’t look a day over 123.5. I kid.
Nine years in the making, the Pittsburgh Zoo (then known as the Highland Park Zoo) opened June 14, 1898 with a crowd of 10,000 on hand, including Henry Clay Frick, to visit 75 monkeys, three elephants, eight alligators, deer, raccoons, snakes, bears, a host of other animals, and a whole commotion of big cats. Listen. I just decided a group of various big cats is called a commotion. Just go with it.
As for Kennywood, before it was Kennywood Park it was … a park. Ta-da! A “grove” to be specific. The Monongahela Traction Company leased Kenny’s Grove in 1898 and immediately made big plans to turn it into a “pleasure resort,” and here we all are 125 years later singing along to vintage Mariah Carey while shoving cheese-smothered potatoes down our potato holes before we hit the Jack Rabbit where we delight in the looks of terror on our little kiddies’ faces when the double-dip pops them a foot into the air like a piece of perfectly toasted toast. Ah. Memories. Happy birthday, you old girls. Here’s to 125 more.
(Also celebrating an important birthday this year was WAMO, which celebrated 75 years!)
7. Keanu Reeves visits The Coffee Tree Roasters. Period.
That’s the item. Keanu Reeves. In October. Came to Pittsburgh. With his band. And purchased coffee at The Coffee Tree Roasters and then blessed us with a picture. He is good. He is pure. He is wholesome. He is real. None of those people in the background standing in front of the old Alcoa Building (which may still be called the Regional Enterprise Tower or maybe it has a new name, but let’s be real, I don’t care because it will always be the Old Alcoa Building.) who have no idea they are in the presence of Keanu Reeves. If you stare at this picture for 30 seconds, your heart will explode. I don’t recommend it. It hurts like a bitch.
8. The Sister Bridges get new lighting and proceed to knock your pants off
I’m serious. Look down. No pants. And that is because your pants were knocked off from delight at seeing the three Sister Bridges in their 600,000 snazzy new programmable LED lights. These three ladies (Clemente, Warhol, and Carson) have undergone extensive refurbishment over the last several years (and probably more than a little botox). You are very aware of this because DAMN IT WHY ARE ALL THE BRIDGES TO THE NORTH SIDE CLOSED … AM I SUPPOSED TO JUST, LIKE, SWIM FROM HERE? I’m exaggerating just a little. But 2023 brought the project to near completion and the bridge lighting was in place and working by Light Up Night, leaving the rivers glowing in a whole new way and giving all our local photogs a new favorite subject. Suck it, other cities with stupid boring bridges. Looking at you, Venice. What?
9. Jonas Salk honored with mini-museum at Pitt
It’s hard for us today to imagine the terror parents experienced every summer when polio cases would often spike, especially during the 1940s and early 1950s, leaving carefree children in iron lungs or crippled, or even worse, fully robbed of their lives. Parents were understandably desperate for a vaccine that would finally ease that constant fear, and in 1955 when Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh announced he had successfully created and tested just that, he was hailed as a hero around the world. Jonas Salk is why you don’t worry about your child contracting polio (and you can thank him for your flu vaccine too). This year, to honor that legacy, the University of Pittsburgh unveiled a free publicly accessible mini-museum in the School of Public Health building in Oakland. There you can see the centrifuges and incubator his team of researchers used, some of Salk’s personal effects and awards, and even an iron lung. You can also sit at his actual desk and imagine him there, sacrificing so much in the name of scientific progress.
10. Stuff-A-Bus turns 20 with its 791st stuffed bus of toys
What does one bus filled with toys look like? What then does 791 buses full of toys look like? It’s a hard number to imagine, but that’s exactly what Mikey and Big Bob’s annual 96.1 Stuff-a-Bus toy drive has collected for the Marines’ Toys-for-Tots in their 20 years of running the program here in Pittsburgh. The two leave their families and go and live in an RV in a local parking lot for four days while Pittsburghers come from all over to bring them new toys. Truckloads and truckloads of toys and probably a thousand bicycles have been collected from Pittsburgh’s generous residents over the last two decades. This year alone, Burghers stuffed 68 buses (an entire tractor trailer’s worth and then some), the first of which was completely stuffed by rapper Wiz Khalifa alone. Wow. Other faces that showed up this year to donate included Pat Friermuth, Christian Kuntz, David Bednar, iJustine, and more. The drive has become a local holiday tradition, and by my math they’ve arranged the donation of nearly 12 tractor trailers full of toys over 20 years. That is a LOT of bright holiday morning smiles that otherwise might have been dimmed. Pittsburgh is lucky to have Mikey, Bob, and the whole 96.1 crew that works so hard to make this event happen for two decades now.
Bonus: Things that DIDN’T happen in Pittsburgh
Two really fantastic things happened for Pittsburgh this year, but they didn’t happen IN Pittsburgh. They are, however, worthy of a mention!
Tristan Jarry’s historic goalie goal
Tampa Bay, FL: A Pittsburgh Penguins goalie has never scored a goal, which is weird because the word goal is RIGHT IN HIS JOB TITLE. I am joking. Please do not email me to mansplain hockey. But in 2023, that long drought was broken when Tristan Jarry fired a puck 200 feet into an empty net to secure a win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on November 30 in Tampa. It is a thing of beauty as it sails through the air before taking a hop-jump-and-skip into the goal net. Suck it, whatever the hell the Lightning’s mascot is. A salamander alien? Suck it, salamander alien.
The newest USS Pittsburgh keel laid
Pascagoula, MS: There have been four Navy ships named for the city of Pittsburgh throughout history, the last of which was decommissioned in 2019. In June of this year, the keel of the fifth USS Pittsburgh was ceremoniously laid at the shipyard where it is being built in Mississippi. The Navy says, “The contemporary keel-laying ceremony represents the joining together of a ship’s major modular components at the land level, and is a significant milestone in ship production. The keel is authenticated with the ship sponsors’ initials etched into a ceremonial keel plate that is later incorporated into the ship.” The new USS Pittsburgh will be a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock with a hangar and helicopter flight deck. This news video from the keel-laying ceremony is full of Burghy blue-collar shoutouts, so check it out.
And that’s a wrap! So much to recognize and celebrate, and I had to leave like ten things off the list, like the new airport changes and new flights added from PIT, the announcement of the new Space District, the IC Light/Turner’s collab, the city’s new crime portal and archives database, the saving of the Grilled Stickies at Eat’n Park, and lots more. I look forward to adding “Route 28 is finally done!” to the 2062 list. We have 51 weeks out of the year to call attention to Pittsburgh’s problems, so it’s perfectly okay to take a day or two to applaud the progress.
Have a fantastic and restful holiday week and I wish all of you and yours peace, happiness, and success in the new year.
Group hug!