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As an aside, I thought we had at least one comparative thread for most comparative cities in the U.S.
I just did a search for Baltimore in the Pittsburgh Forum, and got NOTHING! That's a surprise! I'm sure we've had threads here comparing those two cities.
As an aside, I thought we had at least one comparative thread for most comparative cities in the U.S.
I just did a search for Baltimore in the Pittsburgh Forum, and got NOTHING! That's a surprise! I'm sure we've had threads here comparing those two cities.
Yes, but Cleveland´s art museum is FREE whereas Pittsburgh´s costs $15... :/
Also, Cleveland´s rail system is much more extensive than Pittsburgh´s. From my gentrifying West Side neighborhood, I can hop on the Red Line and get to the airport (15 min west), downtown (5 min east), or University Circle (20 min east).
Even though Cleveland has a better rail system. IS it possible to get around MEtro Pittsburgh by bus and rail. I mean is there some level of efficiency to transit in Pittsburgh? Such as decent frequency and routes. Thanks
Even though Cleveland has a better rail system. IS it possible to get around MEtro Pittsburgh by bus and rail. I mean is there some level of efficiency to transit in Pittsburgh? Such as decent frequency and routes. Thanks
By bus? Yes. By rail? No. Our one light rail line, the "T", runs from the southern suburbs of the city primarily to Downtown and also juts across the Allegheny River to our North Shore entertainment district (Heinz Field, PNC Park, Rivers Casino, Stage AE, Carnegie Science Center, Andy Warhol Museum, etc.) Many of us fantasize about one more rail line linking the airport in the west to Monroeville in the east via Downtown and the heavily-populated (some census tracts with ~30,000 per square mile density) neighborhoods of the East End. Such an endeavor won't happen due to a lack of funding and a lack of fortitude by local officials to propose a new tax or tax increase upon an electorate that is heavily-liberal yet hates taxes.
For now we DO have bus rapid transit (BRT) in the form of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. East Busway, which can whisk you from East Liberty (East End) to Downtown in about 15 minutes---faster than driving in most cases. There's also a less-utilized (due to lower population density) West Busway going from some western suburban areas to Downtown. A cheaper compromise than a new light rail line for the airport might be to find someway to extend this busway's right-of-way out there so the 28X bus can hop onto it and sail right out to the airport unfettered at 70 miles per hour.
Otherwise my one complaint about the buses here is that, with rare exception, Downtown is the "hub", and everything else is a spoke. The problem? Oakland and some East End neighborhoods are rapidly becoming MAJOR job centers, but if you lived in Brookline, for example, and wanted to get to work at Google in East Liberty or Facebook in Oakland, then you'd have to first take a bus Downtown and then take another bus to those neighborhoods. PAT needs to make Oakland another "hub" at some point soon if this corridor is going to continue to emerge as our "eds/meds/tech" center of the city---otherwise people who don't want the hassle of taking two buses each way to get to work will continue to pile into the East End and turn it into a mini-Manhattan.
Thanks for the info on Pittsburgh transit. Believe me it doesn't sound bad at all. I am so fed up with no transit to speak of in central Florida. That what you have in Pittsburgh sounds great.
Otherwise my one complaint about the buses here is that, with rare exception, Downtown is the "hub", and everything else is a spoke. The problem? Oakland and some East End neighborhoods are rapidly becoming MAJOR job centers, but if you lived in Brookline, for example, and wanted to get to work at Google in East Liberty or Facebook in Oakland, then you'd have to first take a bus Downtown and then take another bus to those neighborhoods. PAT needs to make Oakland another "hub" at some point soon if this corridor is going to continue to emerge as our "eds/meds/tech" center of the city---otherwise people who don't want the hassle of taking two buses each way to get to work will continue to pile into the East End and turn it into a mini-Manhattan.
This weekend my daughter and I had to go to the Southside. We took the P1 (MLK East Busway) from Wilkinsburg to Downtown. From Downtown we used the T(light rail) to Station Square. It took approximately 25 from start to finish. We walked the length of the Carson Street business district. Our final destination was the Southside Works. After the long walk we wondered how we would make it back to the T. I noticed a group of people waiting at a bus stop in front of the LA Fitness. The students were waiting for the 75 bus. This bus bypasses downtown and goes from Carson Street through Oakland, Shadyside, and East Liberty. The bus terminates at the Waterworks Mall and makes the return trip. The bus runs often and was pretty packed. This bus shaved about an hour off of our return trip home. We got off at the East Liberty transportation center (MLK Busway) and caught the P1 back to the Wilkinsburg park n ride.
Cleveland has fast convenient service as well. We usually stay at one of the Tower City hotels. Tower city is the Grand Central Station for the Cleveland metro.
The Cleveland Orchestra has been a world-class orchestra since the mid-20th century. The PSO is also a world-class orchestra. Cleveland has a strongly defined character, a "Cleveland sound" if you will. There are several music-nerdy reasons for this that I won't subject everyone to at this time. They also have a very large discography of definitive recordings dating back through many years and many famous music directors, and this too accounts for their prominence on the international scene.
The PSO is NOT a world-class orchestra. I attended a performance where speakers were used on the stage.
The Cleveland Orchestra is one of the best in the world. Severance Hall often is considered the most beautiful concert hall in the U.S., with excellent acoustics after its last remodeling.
Additionally, Blossom Music Center, the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra, likely is the best summer classical music venue in the U.S.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is one of the best in the U.S. With one of the largest endowments of all art museums, it has free admission. You just walk in, like at a mall. It is much better than the Carnegie Museum of Art, which suffers from Andrew Mellon's donation of his collection to the National Gallery of Art.
Persons should visit both Cleveland and Pittsburgh cultural institutions before they make comparisons.
The Andy Warhol Museum is interesting, but I wouldn't consider it a major art attraction, especially given its paucity of art works.
On the other hand, the National Aviary in Pittsburgh is fantastic and, IMO, one of Pittsburgh's most unique and enjoyable attractions and yet relatively ignored in discussions of Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh has one of the best natural history museums in the U.S., but its art museum and orchestra do not compare well to those in Cleveland.
The Phipps Conservatory is excellent, but the outdoor gardens at the Cleveland Botanical Garden in the summer are superior. The Cleveland Botanical Garden also now is associated with the Holden Arboretum, one of the largest and best in the U.S., with also a National Natural Landmark area (a visit there illustrates that Greater Cleveland is on the western edge of the Appalachian foothills).
The Heinz Center in Pittsburgh is one of the best local history museums in the U.S., although the Western Reserve Historical Society Museum is very good, with an attached mansion and the Crawford Auto Aviation Collection. They are different museums -- the Heinz has a heavy emphasis on an historical narrative and sports history, whereas the WR history museum emphasizes exquisite artifacts, such as cars and gowns. The Crawford collection has a P-51 Mustang, modified for the once famed Cleveland National Air Show races, one of my favorite things to see in Cleveland.
With the Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall, the soon-to-be-expanded Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Western Reserve Historical Society, Case Western Reserve, the renown Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Art (and its acclaimed Cinematheque), the Cleveland Botanical Garden, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, University Circle is one of the nation's great cultural centers.
One other distinction about Cleveland is that it is an international port. It regularly hosts naval warships and tall ship gatherings. The U.S.S. Cod often is considered the best U.S. WWII fleet submarine museum and the Steamship Mather is the city's other maritime museum, both an ASME Historic Engineering Landmark and the one-time queen of the Great Lakes. Visitors can rent kayaks to explore Cleveland Harbor.
Clevelanders can bike to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, 30 minutes from downtown, and Cleveland is circled by its acclaimed Emerald Necklace, such as the Rocky River Reservation. Edgewater Park offers a Lake Erie beach ten minutes from downtown.
Cleveland has numerous marinas and boating is a major recreational activity in the summer.
Playhouse Square in Cleveland is the largest unified theater complex in the U.S. after Lincoln Center in NYC. It is the home of two of the nation's great repertory theater companies and also hosts one of the nation's best and largest series of touring Broadway shows, with three weeks of bookings beginning with the 2016-17 season.
You can read about Playhouse Square, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and much more here:
One of the biggest advantages Pittsburgh has over Cleveland is that Pittsburgh was once a mecca and had an amazing amount of money. That in turn provided an amazing amount of funds to build some of the most beautiful homes and buildings in the US and possibly the world. Drive around East Liberty, Squirrel Hill, Point Breeze, Shadyside and Friendship. There is not only a lack of places like that in Cleveland, but to be quite honest there is nothing like that in most any city in the world.
John D. Rockefeller began Standard Oil in Cleveland and for much of the 20th century, until acquired by BP, Standard Oil of Ohio was headquartered in Cleveland. Rockefeller is buried in Lake View Cemetery, one of the nation's great Victorian cemeteries and worth a visit.
On a mean per capita basis, Cleveland likely was the most wealthy city in the world at the turn of the 20th century.
Much of the wealth still remains, it's just not easily visible, except perhaps on visits to the city's great cultural institutions or on certain stretches of Lakeshore Blvd. in Bratenahl (in the winter, when the great estates aren't hidden by tree cover) or on certain roads such as South and North Park Blvd. in Shaker Heights.
One of the wealthiest communities in the U.S. is Hunting Valley, although the estate houses aren't easily seen, especially in the summer. Get the AAA Northeast Ohio map and look east of Cleveland. You'll see a decent-sized suburb with relatively few roads.
I've never been a big fan of these pissing contests, and I am certainly an enthusiast when it comes to Cleveland... but I will offer my perspective to counter some of the above claims.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is absolutely better than the CMOA. But the dismissal of the Warhol as unimpressive with "a paucity of art" is just flat-out ridiculous.
And while the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland itself is an intriguing piece of architecture, I have been let down by the exhibitions on the three occasions when I've visited. On the modern art tip, Cleveland has nothing like the Mattress Factory or its internationally-famous installation pieces.
I have also been to the Case Western Historical Museum and it doesn't hold a candle to the Heinz History Museum. It's a bunch of antique cars in a basement, and a carousel.
I also believe that Pittsburgh beats Cleveland when it comes to higher education. The University of Pittsburgh and CMU easily outclass CSU and Case Western, respectively.
But the dismissal of the Warhol as unimpressive with "a paucity of art" is just flat-out ridiculous.
What's ridiculous? What Warhol paintings are at the Warhol? Did I miss them?
It was enjoyable, but it wouldn't be high on my list of art venues to revisit. That might have something to do with my relative appreciation of Warhol as an artist.
Your criticisms of the Museum of Art Cleveland have validity. Yet, for the right exhibit there, I could see visiting there before the Warhol again.
Last edited by WRnative; 02-09-2016 at 12:38 PM..
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They also have a very large discography of definitive recordings dating back through many years and many famous music directors, and this too accounts for their prominence on the international scene.
