The Wabash Bridge, about 1904. It ran from Downtown straight into Mt. Washington. Photo: Historic Pittsburgh, public domain.

If you’ve ever cut from Route 51 to Station Square without sitting in the Liberty Tubes, you’ve used it. The Wabash Tunnel runs 3,342 feet through Mt. Washington, from Woodruff Street near Saw Mill Run to West Carson Street. About 1,500 cars still take it every day. Starting Dec. 1, nobody will.

Why: Pittsburgh Regional Transit owns it, and PRT says the lights, fans and wiring are in “poor to critical condition.” Fixing them would cost $43 million. Buses only use it as a detour. CEO Katharine Kelleman’s version: the tunnel “primarily serves private vehicle traffic rather than public transit.”

The tunnel today. Photo: Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

 

The history is the good part. Railroad magnate George Gould built it in 1903 for his Wabash line, which crossed the Mon on its own bridge and ran straight into the hill. The bridge collapsed once before it even opened. The railroad was broke by 1908.

Passenger trains quit in 1931, freight in 1946, and the bridge came down in 1948. Two of its stone piers are still standing in the river by Station Square. You’ve driven past them a hundred times.

Then the tunnel sat empty. In the 1970s the Port Authority spent about $6 million rebuilding it for Skybus, a driverless people mover that never got built. It finally opened to cars in 2004, carpools only, and to everybody in 2017.

What happens now: the PRT board votes Oct. 23. The Wabash Park and Ride in the West End stays open. If the tunnel is part of your commute, you have six weeks to find Plan B. Plan B is the Liberty Tubes, with everybody else.

Myron Cope and the Terrible Towel. Photo: SteelCityHobbies, CC BY 2.0.

Pittsburgh’s Walk of Fame added 10 names Tuesday, each a granite block with a bronze star, set in the sidewalk outside the Strip District Terminal.

The class: Myron Cope, Mario Lemieux, Franco Harris, Charles “Teenie” Harris, H.J. Heinz, George Westinghouse, Jimmy Stewart, Shirley Jones, Henry Mancini and Martha Graham. Cope’s daughter, Elizabeth, unveiled his.

Go find them: the stars run along the lower sidewalk of Smallman Street, about five blocks of it. Bring a Terrible Towel. Nominations for next year’s class open in January.

About 1,500 nurses at Allegheny General voted Thursday to authorize a strike. Their contract was supposed to end Oct. 13. It’s been extended to Oct. 30.

What they want: staffing set by the beds the hospital actually has, not the patient count it budgets for. AGH budgets 417 patients a day this year, up from 395 in 2024, and the union says real admissions run higher. It also says Allegheny Health Network wants nurses to pay more for health care and give up some retirement and time off.

The number they keep pointing to: AHN made $160 million in the first half of this year. Its parent, Highmark Health, made $2 billion. Highmark hadn’t commented as of Thursday night.

What’s next: an informational picket Oct. 29. A strike would take 10 days’ notice. AGH is the North Side’s Level 1 trauma center.

Halloween, officially: the city is running its first-ever house decorating contest. Categories include Spookiest House, Spookiest Street and the Mayor’s Choice. Enter by Oct. 23, voting opens Oct. 24, and winners are announced Oct. 30. Trick-or-treat in the city is Saturday, Oct. 31, 5:30 to 7:30.

The lights stay on: Duquesne Light and its union reached a tentative five-year deal last Thursday night, a week into the strike. Members still have to vote on it.

The Savannah Bananas are coming back to PNC Park Aug. 6 and 7 next year, against the Indianapolis Clowns. Tickets are so hard to get that there’s a lottery, and it closes at the end of the month.

If you’ve never seen Banana Ball: the players dance, no game can run past two hours, and bunting gets you ejected because the rulebook says “bunting sucks.” If a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out.

So, to recap. A team that dances between pitches has a waitlist at PNC Park. The Pirates finished 82–80. Walk-ups welcome.

341 Butler St. in Etna went up in 1876 and spent the 1920s as a speakeasy. After four years of work, it reopens Saturday as the Etna Center for Community: a library with 6,000 things to borrow, a maker space and meeting rooms. Etna is a food desert, so food programs are first on the list. Ribbon cutting at 11, garden party that evening.

 

That’s the den. Coffered ceiling. Glass-front cabinets built into the wall. A window seat under the bay, and a fireplace done in green tile. The house went up in 1923 in Squirrel Hill, and none of that wood has been painted over.

The kitchen is the one room that’s brand new: a Wolf range, and a Sub-Zero hidden behind cabinet panels. Everything else kept its personality. Frick Park and Schenley Park are both close. Go see the woodwork.

Listed by Joe Yost, Compass Pennsylvania, LLC.

White clapboard, black shutters, rocking chairs on the porch. It’s an 1800s farmhouse up in Butler Township, and the listing calls it an unofficial local landmark: the last piece of the old Stirling Farm, on land that was once home to the Skyway Drive-In.

Inside is a country kitchen in green. Out back therethere’s a guest house with its own two-car garagersquo;s a guest house with its own two-car garage. Pull up a rocking chair.

Listed by Amanda Shingleton, Berkshire Hathaway The Preferred Realty.

 

Steelers (3–2): beat the Colts 34–22. Jaylen Warren scored on an 80-yard catch and a 50-yard run, the first player to do both in one game since Herschel Walker in 1986. Sunday at 1 they’re in Tampa Bay, on CBS. Next week it’s the Saints, in Paris.

Pitt (5–1): lost for the first time, 21–17 to North Carolina, on a 75-yard touchdown pass after Pitt had taken the lead. Saturday at noon they’re at Boston College, on ESPN2.

 

Past 7 days, residential. “Was” is last week’s issue.

What we’re seeing

More sellers cut their price than listed a new home. Again.

Why you’d care

 

Next time you’re waiting on a bus between Downtown and Oakland, look at the light pole. Artist Marsha Rollinger has put 20 birds on poles, sidewalks and utility boxes along the University Line, PRT’s new bus route.

There’s a dove on a utility box at Forbes and Magee. There’s a bluebird on Sixth Avenue between Liberty and Wood. Every one of them hides a small heart. Rollinger calls it a bird-watching scavenger hunt.

One more thing. WESA’s photo caption calls the Downtown one a blue crow. The story calls it a bluebird. Somebody go settle this.

 

 

 

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One more thing: I’m off to Montoursville this weekend for one of my good friends’ weddings. A cool 3.5-hour drive. Anything to do on the way back, let me know! Just hit reply.

— Tim