Mt. Washington and Station Square
Blake Boehm, Jenny Lundahl and Devinn Gorey
To get to Mt Washington, you can take any 61 or 71 into downtown and walk from there. We took the 71D and got off at Smithfield Street. We walked about 10 or 15 minutes down the street and across a bridge and ended up right at the incline. The incline was a lot closer than we expected.
It was a cloudy sunday afternoon and there was not a lot of activity downtown at this time. As we walked, we met some die hard Steelers fans (on their way to watch the game of course) when one of them dropped their Steelers towel on the ground. I (Jenny) promptly picked up the towel, because the Steelers towels are like the American Flag to Steelers fans, you never let them touch the ground (especially not the gross sidewalk in Downtown).
This is our adorable selfie as we rode the incline up to Mt Washington ((P.S. This is free with your Pitt ID!!)) and the view from the back window of the incline car. We rode up with a family from Cleveland that was in town for a wedding that was held the night before.
This was our view while riding up the car to Mount Washington. At the bottom, you can see Station Square. Above, you can see the skyline of the entire city as well as the rivers that surround it. The river in our pictures is the Monongahela River. Further to the left, closer to the Duquesne incline, is where you can see the three rivers, Monongahela, Ohio and Alleghany, meet. The car rides along the mountain which sets about 450 feet above the city. This area is much more residential than you would think. That being said, we passed by numerous neighborhoods on the way up. There were many families who rode the car with us to see the view of the city. It is a very popular sight because of the great views it gives of Pittsburgh. Mount Washington enhances the beautiful architecture of the city, such as PPG Place, the UMPC building and Pittsburgh’s many bridges, as well as the three rivers.
Once we reached the top and walked to the overhang, we noticed even more neighborhoods. Mount Washington is organized so that restaurants and shops occupy the bottom and houses dominate the top. This layout keeps Mount Washington’s attractions close enough to Downtown Pittsburgh without taking away from its individual appeal.
This is the view from Mount Washington once you reach the actual incline. There is a clearer cut view of the city than there is in the car since there are fewer trees and buildings in the way.
When we came down from Mt. Washington there were a bunch of fountains putting on a little show for us.
While walking around station square we noticed a few chain restaurants, pubs, fancier dinner restaurants and various tourist attractions.
If you ever want a cool tour of Pittsburgh, you can hop on a “Just Ducky” tour. They leave from right next to Station Square and travel around Pittsburgh for approximately 1 hour. An adult ticket for a tour is $22, so wait until your parents come to town to tour, so you can save your money for other necessities like Chinese takeout at midnight. Also, you can buy a super cool umbrella to show all your friends afterwards.
We grabbed lunch at the Buckhead Saloon in Station Square before leaving. To be honest, the service was mediocre at best, but the food was actually really good (their fries were the best).
We waited probably closer to 30 minutes for our food, but we were one of three parties actually in the restaurant.
The restaurant had the Steelers game projected onto a screens throughout the dining area , , having the largest one in the middle of the room. The other parties in the restaurant watched the game with great enthusiasm, wearing their black and gold Steelers jerseys. They shouted and clapped in praise of the hometown team. Our waitress looked pretty discontent the whole time we were there and was very distracted by her phone.
Devinn ordered pizza and the cook dropped it on the floor right after making it. Our waitress told us that he was having a really bad day and he came out to apologize and explained to us he was just in a funk because his girlfriend of two and a half years just recently broke up with him and he obviously is not taking it very well.
