The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook

Edited by Ben Gwin

Part of Belt’s Neighborhood Guidebook Series, a probing look at the Steel City’s diverse locales.

Pittsburgh is made up of more than ninety different neighborhoods. And while The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook can’t detail every last one of them, it does its best, exploring the contrasts and contradictions that define the city’s neighborhoods and how they play out through the personal narratives of those who live there. Edited by Ben Gwin (Clean Time), in these pages you’ll find stories about:

• Old Lawrenceville, Garfield, and Squirrel Hill
• Swisshelm Park and Oakland in East Pittsburgh
• Crafton-Ingram, Thorn Street, and the bars of Dormont.

In over thirty poems and essays by lifetime residents, transplants, and transients, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook offers a portrait of a city that’s constantly being hailed for its renaissance but that is still marked by the old remnants of wealth inequality, gentrification, and racism.

The newest installment in Belt’s Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook is a book for anyone who thinks they know Pittsburgh, or just wishes they did.

Ben Gwin is the author of the novel Clean Time: The True Story of Ronald Reagan Middleton (Burrow Press). His writing has appeared in Belt Magazine, The Normal School, Gulf Stream, and elsewhere, and is anthologized in The Pittsburgh Anthology (Belt Publishing) and Voices of the Rust Belt (Picador). Ben grew up in Titusville, New Jersey. He lives in Pittsburgh with his daughter, and is currently working on a nonfiction book about parenting and the opioid crisis.

APRIL 6, 2021 | ISBN: 9781948742719 | REGIONAL INTEREST | PAPERBACK | 6 X 9 | 224 PAGES

See also:
Pittsburgh Bundle

Belt Neighborhood Guidebook Bundle

Table of Contents

PART 1: EAST PITTSBURGH

“Swisshelm Park” by Cameron Barnett
“Solemn Pittsburgh Aubade” by Cameron Barnett
“Paper House” by Corine Duval
“Fanny at the Bingo” by Lori Jakiela
“Wilmerding Pennsylvania Thinking of Fred Voss” by Dave Newman
“Frick Park” by Dave Newman
“Oakland” by Dave Newman
“79” by Brian Broome
“Poem for Greenfield” by Kelly Lorraine Andrews
“Bitter Melody” by Cedric Rudolph
“The Woman in Starbucks” by Cedric Rudolph
“Angel’s Weekend” by Cedric Rudolph
“Big Dirty’s Pickup Truck” by Matthew Wallenstein

PART 2: AROUND LAWRENCEVILLE, GARFIELD, AND SQUIRREL HILL

“The Bride of Penn Ave.” by Alona Williams
“Lawrenceville’s Do-Dah Days Are Over” by Jason Vrabel
“Sweat, Nails, My Father’s Ladder” by Mike Good
“Steel and Glass in Margaritaville” by Mike Good
“The Hour of the Cockerel” by Mike Good
“Lawrenceville 1996” by Lisa L. Kirchner
“Locks of Love” by Jim Daniels
“August Pause” by Jim Daniels
“Hawk, Panther Hollow” by Jim Daniels
“Squirrel Hill” by Ed Simon
“The Jewish Woman in America” by Rachel Mennies
“Echo and Narcissus” by Rachel Mennies
“November 18, 2016” by Rachel Mennies

PART 3: DOWNTOWN, NORTH, AND SOUTH

“Downtown” by Rich Gegick
“Can a Sports-Crazed City Turn a Theater Person into a Baseball Person?” By Shannon Reed
“Exile Poems” by Tuhin Das
“They Just Used Them to Go Everywhere” by Sherrie Flick
“The Bars of Dormont” by Vince Guerrieri
“Miracle in Beltzhoover” by Brittany Hailer
“The Squonk of Beltzhoover” by Almah LaVon Rice
“Crafton-Ingram” by Lisa Pickett
“Thorn Street” by Shannon Sankey
“On Steps” by Shannon Sankey
“The Suburbs Are Stunned” by Bowie Rowan