There are more staircases here than anywhere in the world.
Pittsburgh is a city of layered identities. It never was, and never will be, summed up and pinned down by a single great characteristic. It’s not the Midwest and it’s not the East Coast. It’s equal parts cutting-edge and homegrown. Its worldliness is seasoned and sensible, yet ever in an uninhibited state of transformation. Pittsburgh is organic, unexpected, and dogged in its longstanding dedication to churning out centuries of innovation, a rich confluence of culture and traditions, and surprisingly stunning valley scenery.
The ‘Burgh, as its residents affectionately call it (infamous for creating ketchup, Mister Rogers, and world-class museums) might seem perpetually at a crossroads. But despite all its supposed contradictions, this city has never been confused or afraid of what it might be, and that confidence is exactly what makes it so darn satisfying. It has been quietly effervescing under the surface of the travel radar for decades, but in true Pittsburgh fashion, that’s changing.
A City of Slopes and Flats
Due to its location at the apex of three navigable rivers–the Allegheny, Monongahela, and where they converge to form the Ohio River–Pittsburgh is a showroom for overwater architecture and America’s original “City of Bridges.” Serving as the heart of the mountain region’s cultural pulse with its street art and picturesque promenades, it’s been endearingly coined the “Paris of Appalachia.” Football fans are quick to say the city’s nickname is “Blitzburgh” in homage to the Steelers stacking up an impressive six Super Bowl wins.
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But perhaps its most iconic moniker is “Steel City.” The first mill was built upon Pittsburgh’s heavily coal-laden banks in the 1870s, and thanks to the city’s abundance of rivers and railways, by the mid-20th century, Pittsburgh was the largest producer of steel in the world. The city skyrocketed into its heyday, launching the “Golden Age” and sparking the Second Industrial Revolution. At the time, Pittsburgh was the most influential metropolitan area in America. And its long-term social landscape has been significantly shaped by the legacy of its fiery furnaces.
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As the rest of the globe caught on, Europeans began arriving by the hundreds of thousands to fortify Pittsburgh’s manufacturing workforce, and an influx of immigrants seeking economic opportunity made their homes in the labyrinth of woodland hollows hidden among Steel City’s meandering hills. The result was a multicultural patchwork of 90 distinct neighborhoods, each with its own charm and flair, united by the constraints of the region’s dramatically steep terrain.
The city’s sloping geography is a reflection of its terrestrial timeline, and tracking the origin of Pittsburgh’s abrupt altitude changes starts with a 20,000-year-old glacier. This ice sheet parked itself about 40 minutes north of the city center around Moraine State Park, damming and rerouting the flow of existing rivers and streams. Then as the glacier melted, it poured enormous amounts of water across the great Allegheny Plateau that slowly sculpted the city’s now renowned ravines.
In the early 1900s, factory workers needed an efficient way to trek from their communities (most of which are tucked into valleys or perched upon peaks) to the smoke stacks stationed along Pittsburgh’s flats and shores. Imagine walking a mile in a millworker’s shoes. Traversing this uneven topography required a clever engineering solution, one that could weave and climb and radically link the city’s hill to its mills. The answer: a curated maze of urban stairways.
The first official steps were constructed in 1911 and this essential infrastructure became Pittsburgh’s primary means of public transportation, forming a cooperative city actively thriving on its blue-collar steam. The stairways completely revolutionized transit, conquering geographical boundaries and providing pedestrians with navigation paths around the challenging landscape so robust that they would continue to expand for centuries to come. Today, Steel City proudly boasts over 800 staircases and counting, more than anywhere else in the world.
For decades these steps served as Pittsburgh’s only public thoroughfares, so over 400 of the stairways are technically classified as roads and are announced by independent street signs. To this day, many residents live on such ”roads” where city steps are the only access point to their homes. These roads are sure to lure travelers relying on modern mapping apps into a few wrong turns, but for visitors who don’t mind a bit of misadventure in their journey, the stairways make a unique and stunning way to wander the ‘Burgh.
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Vertical Bridges
“My favorite is Diana Street in Spring Hill. If you drive up Homer and try to turn left on Diana, you’re met with a five-story high wall of steps going straight up,” said Bob Regan, a geophysicist with the University of Pittsburgh and author of Pittsburgh Steps: The Story of the City’s Public Stairways. Regan spent years cycling the city, meticulously plotting the details of each staircase and noting their most interesting features. He added, “In South Oakland, at the intersection of street signs Frazier and Romeo, two staircases intersect completely in the woods, at a telephone pole with a street light.”
Often hiding in plain sight, these seemingly endless vertical bridges cover the equivalent of 18 miles of terrain and tackle 24,000 feet of otherwise impassable elevation. They border highways, waterways, inclines, bridges, houses, and buildings, offering urban hikers, runners, and even extreme cyclists awesome outlets for exercise that are often topped with staggering panoramic views of the city’s exquisite skyline. Historians, photographers, gardeners, and tourists all flock to the stairways to explore Pittsurgh’s extraordinary step environment.
There are a few fun walking tours led by a local artist that dive into the steps’ most noteworthy characteristics. Brookline hosts the longest set with 378 heart-pumping steps while the steepest is in the adjacent Beechview neighborhood, measuring a dizzying 37% grade. With a total of 68, the highest concentration of staircases is in Pittsburgh’s bitty but buzzing South Side Slopes district.
Long ago, when steel production became cheaper overseas and demand declined, Pittsburgh was largely abandoned by the same nation it built. It felt a significant economic burden, and many of Pittsburgh’s infamous staircases fell into unfortunate rickety states of disrepair. They are often called out on social media as “death stairs” for their seemingly dangerous height, slant, and questionable landing sites.
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But across the city, longtime residents are rallying with ongoing efforts aimed at preserving and revitalizing this incredibly important piece of Pittsburgh’s dynamic story. Every October, the South Side organizes StepTrek, a fundraiser and guided staircase adventure event. Pittsburgh’s Department of City Planning has restoration strategies in the works that prioritize the most historic and frequently used stairways, and new programs promote them as a hip, healthy, and eco-friendly transportation alternative.
Steel City is an off-track but flourishing destination where sightseers will feel fortunate to set their feet upon the metamorphoses of an industrial town turning quirky but oh-so-warm contemporary tech hub. It’s a town that has eternally mirrored its own resilience in the constant face of evolution and tradition, its people are rolling with the throes of a personality shifting from happenstance to happening. Maybe Pittsburgh hasn’t yet stolen the limelight, but it’s definitely in no one’s shadow.