Three pieces we are still getting letters about. Each one carries addresses, transit notes and the kind of detail that only holds up if you actually walked the route or sat in the room.
Saturday column
This route starts at a roastery on Butler Street and ends near Penn Avenue, with stops chosen for seating, pour-over quality and how easy they are to reach by bus. Each entry lists the address, the closest 87 or 91 stop, and the hours that actually hold on weekends. The piece also notes which shops keep decaf on the grinder and which ones fill a thermos without charging extra.
Read the route
Interview
The Hazelwood branch does more than lend books: it holds the neighborhood's tax help sessions, a teen chess table and a shelf of local history binders that regulars keep adding to. This interview covers how the staff decide what stays on the front table, why the meeting room calendar fills up by Tuesday, and what changes when the weather turns. It also includes practical notes on bus routes and the entrance that stays open in winter.
Read the interview
Mailbag
The mailbag this month runs from a Polish hall in the South Side to a takeout window in Brookline, with readers naming fillings, dough thickness and the exact Friday they show up. Several letters argue about whether potato-cheese or sauerkraut deserves the top spot, and one reader shares a family method for sealing the edges by hand. We also print a short correction from last month's roundup and a note about which stands sell frozen by the dozen.
Read the lettersAbout the editor
Editor and lead writer, Boom Pittsburgh
Marlene has spent eleven years reporting on Allegheny County for regional weeklies and public radio, mostly on the blocks between the rivers. She runs the neighborhood archive here, edits the Saturday coffee map and the monthly events roundup, and handles most of the long-form interviews with baristas, machinists and branch librarians. If a piece names a bus stop or a Friday fish fry, she probably walked it first.
She also keeps the diaspora thread going for readers abroad, drawing on her own years in Johannesburg before moving back to the North Side. Pitches for the reader mailbag land on her desk before anywhere else.
Story tips, corrections and photo submissions are read in the order they arrive.
For pitches, read the submissions notes on the contact page first.
The newsletter is short on purpose. Each issue opens with a single piece from the week, then lists three things worth doing around Allegheny County: a walk, a market, a hall supper, a photo show. We add transit notes and the hours that actually hold on weekends, so you can leave the house without checking four other tabs.
Readers from the diaspora thread get the same issue, with occasional notes on what a move to Pittsburgh looks like in practice: leases, bus passes, which neighborhoods feel walkable in February.
Stay in touch
Leave your email and we will send the next issue. No daily blasts, no forwarded press releases. Unsubscribe whenever the walk gets long enough.
Prefer to pitch instead of subscribe? The submissions page takes neighborhood stories, photo sets and mailbag letters. Reach the editors at info@boompittsburgh.com or call 0415662080.