I’ve just got back from a few days in Pittsburgh, which is a city with enough about it that a few days lets you scratch the surface rather than see it all. While walking around, I happened across a vast building now called The Terminal. Originally, this was the Pittsburgh Produce Terminal and the building’s story is quite an interesting one.
Pittsburgh’s growth in the nineteenth century focused around the steel industry, which dominated the city’s Strip District. This narrow neighbourhood lines the Allegheny River, one of three rivers which gave the city’s mills and warehouses a brilliant transport advantage. Heavy manufacturing didn’t only dominate the economy, it dominated every Pittsburgher’s life, whether they worked in the factories or not: up to the 1940s, the thick pollution pumping out of the mills meant that the sky was dark as night, even at midday (the introduction of clean air regulations were delayed due to Pittsburgh’s industrial importance for the war effort).
A shift in transportation infrastructure saw the need for a new wholesale produce market in the city. The Pittsburgh Produce Terminal opened in 1926. Its dimensions – just over 1/4 of a mile long – allowed an ease of loading and unloading in the Strip District’s railway yards.
Sadly, timing was not on the building’s side. The Great Depression hammered Pittsburgh’s economy during the Produce Terminal’s first decade. This pain was added to by a 1936 flood and then the Second World War. Change continued in the second half of the century, with the ongoing modal shift from the railways to highways, just as the decline in river transport had contributed to Pittsburgh’s industrial decline. A more convenient location for produce was sought nearer suburban highways during the 1960s.
A slow decline in the building’s use for its original purpose continued throughout the late 20th century. In 2019, the building was sold to a property developer to repurpose it into leisure and retail space, following similar successful examples in many other cities. Just as other cities’ economies have pivoted to the hospitality sector, the whole Strip District has become a dizzying array of cafes, bars and restaurants. There are still some produce-related businesses mixed in, no doubt able to take advantage of the people now coming to the area to spend their disposable income. It would also be unfair not to note the almost overwhelming number of stores selling merchandise for the Steelers, the Penguins and the city’s other sports teams, all of which seem to have such a strong tribal loyalty.
Walking around the Strip District today, it is not just the colossal Terminal building which offers some insight into Pittsburgh’s past. The stunning St Stanislaus Kostka Church gives some indication of the wealth borne of the industrial prowess, as well as the significant waves of migration which shaped the city’s culture – Polish, German, Italian, Irish and so on – all evident in the architecture, not just the places of worship. Old and faded wall advertising also offer a palimpsest of the past.
Pittsburgh’s perhaps most-famous brand, Heinz, lives on with the giant ketchup bottle on the side of the Heinz History Centre. Showing the role of dynasties in American life and highlighting the interweaving of business and politics, the centre is named after Senator John Heinz, great-grandson of Henry Heinz (the company founder). In another connection, Heinz tragically died in a 1991 plane crash and his widow went on to marry fellow Democrat Senator John Kerry. The museum is itself a repurposed factory building, having once been a lucrative ice business.
Commonplace 