Rust? Must!
A trip to Pittsburgh and Akron.
PART 1: Pittsburgh
When Sweet T. had a piece of art accepted (one of eleven out of many) into the magazine Fiber Art Now exhibition Excellence In Fibers XI at Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA it was decided a drive west was in order. Neither of us had ever been to Pittsburgh, so Sweet T. booked two nights at a Lawrenceville neighborhood boutique hotel recommended by the Contemporary Craft people. I decided to make it a working vacation by reaching out to Mo at Curated Flame in the nearby Millvale neighborhood about selling him my stash of vintage lighters. I’d stumbled on Mo’s social media posts promoting his combination marijuana/THC/smoking accessories store and he responded favorably to my suggestion I stop by his place Friday morning. Then I remembered that my friends Chris Butler and Beth Becker had recently posted about their trip to the antiques store The Bomb Shelter in Akron, where they live. I checked a map and noticed Akron was a ninety minute drive from Pittsburgh, so I contacted Kevin at The Bomb Shelter with the thought of unloading more leftover That Cave store stock. After sending Kevin pictures (including one of the infamous Akron Truss Boy) and prices, we agreed on a number and I persuaded Sweet T. to extend our Rust Belt Road Trip. Chris Butler offered us a guest room in the house he shares with his girlfriend Beth but when I told Sweet T. “It was Jeffrey Dahmer’s childhood home and where he committed his first murder.” she issued a hard No. I asked my friend Melissa, Akron native, for a recommendation and she wrote back My sister says the Sheraton Suites Cuyahoga Falls is good. I booked us a Saturday night room.
I spent the next few days sorting out what was going to Curated Flame and The Bomb Shelter and Wednesday night packed up the Prius for an early departure Thursday morning. Baby Billy and Marty would be seen to by their Nanny Nancy, my cousin, the ultimate cat sitter, and after apologizing profusely to our boys for being away a few days, we lit out Thursday morning around 9:30 am. Chris had suggested taking Route 80 because there’s no tolls but we found ourselves on 78 to the Pennsylvania Turnpike all the way out to Pittsburgh, where we arrived around 4:15 pm after two stops (both at Sheetz) for fuel and bathroom breaks. I’d eaten on the road but Sweet T. got a meal in the hotel restaurant while I nursed the closest they had to a Guinness, a nice milk stout draft. The hotel’s past life was as a technical school and the view (above) from the fifth floor restaurant took in a good swath of Pittsburgh and the Monongahela River.
We took a Lyft to Contemporary Craft, worried there wouldn’t be parking, but Pittsburgh is not New York City. It’s not even Jersey City, which has approximately 11,000 less people and the equivalent number fewer parking spots. After hearing our Lyft driver’s bittersweet take on Lawrenceville’s gentrification, he deposited us at Contemporary Craft where parking beckoned just across the street. Contemporary Craft, like our hotel, is housed in A Building That Once Held Something Else Entirely. I can’t remember if it was a carpet mill or bedding manufacturer or made sewing machines but the space now held two galleries, a resident’s shop, teaching facilities and a store flogging objects – ceramics, metalworks, fiber products – made by those utilizing the place. Sweet T. and I were greeted warmly by the staff and the other artists in the show, some of whom had also traveled from afar, and all of whom raved about Sweet T.’s piece (below), amazed it was all done by hand.
After wandering through the gift shop I found my way to the best spread I’ve encountered at any art opening and had another beer while snacking on dolma, cheese, and madeleines. I fell into a comfy chair opposite Lynn (sp?), formerly of NYC, and we had one of those weird careening pinball conversations that encompassed Pittsburgh, NYC, Coney Island, the music industry, art, culture and politics. By 8:30 they were closing up shop and Sweet T. and I took another Lyft back to the hotel for an early bedtime, both of us exhausted. Then, around 2:00 am, the thudding began. Intermittent and loud, we lay away looking at the ceiling wondering when the next thud was coming. It sounded like someone in the room above us was rearranging the furniture. Sweet T. bemoaned the fact she’d left her new travel-size white noise machine home and I called the front desk to say What the fuck? while wheedling free breakfast for Friday and Saturday morning. Then I found the natures sounds function on my iPhone and cranked it up.
Friday morning I was up before Sweet T. and got dressed quickly for my meetup with Mo at Curated Flame five minutes away. He’s on Grant Avenue, which was largely deserted at 8:30 AM when I arrived.
I parked right in front of the store and Mo opened the door for me so I could tote my Haliburton case inside. He cleared off a table and I unlatched the case and began pulling out lighters I’ve had for five, ten, twenty years. Some were purchased for resale in That Cave, others I picked up long before I thought of opening an antiques store in Saugerties. I might have even been smoking when I acquired a few, and I quit when they were $2.50 a pack. I’ve long been fascinating by lighters and their variety and the degrees of engineering devoted to producing a flame you can use to shorten your life. Mo told me he got the bug eight years ago when someone came into his store and asked if he wanted to buy some old lighters he’d fixed up (the same person now repairs Mo’s finds). Now his shop is filled with vintage glass cases of all sizes holding a range of lighters the likes of which I’ve never seen in one place.
The Haliburton case emptied, Mo made a pile of everything he wanted, which was pretty much everything, and we came to a price I felt was fair.
Then I mentioned the old paper I had out in the car.
What’s old paper? Mo asked.
“It’s anything printed that might be ephemeral. Maps. Catalogs. Postcards. I noticed you’re into old pinup art. I have some of that.”
Man, bring that in here!
I went out to the Prius and grabbed my file box full of old paper, all separated by category, and Mo held the door so I could get it inside. He went straight to the Men’s Magazines section and by the time he was done I added another chunk of change to what I’d done on the lighters and ashtrays. Mo handed me a stack of cash and we parted as friends.
If you find more lighters, just come on back!
No doubt.
Back at the hotel I had a few pangs of seller’s remorse. Not as well known as the buyer’s version, seller’s remorse for me is centered around two thoughts: I’ll never have another one of those again and I should’ve sold all that stuff myself and made even more. Let’s unpack this shit. Yes, maybe I’ll never stumble on another chrome-plated Parker table lighter or Hoboken Wood Flooring blotter paper from the 1950s featuring Gil Evgren pinup girls. But I can’t display everything I like in my house and there’s more interesting finds out there. As for the second thought: I’ve been trying to sell much of this stuff for years, not only at my store but at various record fairs, flea markets, swap meets and garage sales, to no avail. And I’ve been to too many (and worked too many) estate sales to know how this ultimately ends: your shit goes for pennies on the dollar and the proceeds land in someone else’s pocket. All is impermanence, as the Buddha teaches us, but letting go is still hard for me. I like cool stuff too much. What works, sort of, is to focus on what I can do with the money, like travel. It’s time to see more of the world.
But first, Sweet T. and I have to get the Warhol Museum, the main item after Contemporary Craft on our Pittsburgh agenda.
We arrived just after it opened, parking in an eight dollar lot just across the street and getting free admission as a reciprocal for Sweet T.’s Whitney membership. Warhol is a famous son of Pittsburgh and the museum does not disappoint, devoting six floors to an in depth survey of his life from birth (top floor) to his too-soon (58) death. I know a bit about Warhol, having been born the same year (1962) he comes to national prominence with his Pop Art paintings and having seen the recent documentary, but it was lovely to learn about his mom and his childhood and how Pittsburgh was the furnace in which he was stoked.
After the museum we set out in a light drizzle to find Randyland, a tip from one of the artists we met at Contemporary Craft. Randyland, like the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia, is one man’s vision run amok and did not disappoint.
We needed some lunch and ended up on The Strip where Pittsburgh goes to buy food and trinkets, apparently.
The diner we wanted to try was closing at 2:00 pm but a waitress directed us around the corner to Roland’s, an old-line Pittsburgh seafood joint. After passing through a dozen sidewalk stalls selling Pittsburgh sportsball merch and every sort of “Yinz” clothing you could want (I guessed it’s from the sound at the end of “Pennsylvanians” until I looked it up on Wikipedia), we arrived at Roland’s and had a very serviceable meal for prices that wouldn’t have covered appetizers in New York. We went back to the hotel and cooled our heels until it was time to meet Doug Schulkind and his wife Jesse in Squirrel Hill for dinner at The Independent Brewing Company. Doug and I have known each other since the 1980s, having met and then worked together at WFMU. Doug runs the Give The Drummer Some stream and has lived in Pittsburgh twenty-one years now. On the way to The Independent we passed by the site of the 2018 Tree Of Life shootings. The synagogue was demolished in 2024 and the site is being transformed, set to reopen in 2027.
Doug doesn’t look much different since I saw him last but of course both of us are and it was great to get caught up over good beer and great food. We wrapped it up around 7:30 pm and I dropped Sweet T. back at the hotel, explaining I had one more stop. After talking with Trustee Frank earlier in the day I’d arranged to drop by the Allegheny Elks Lodge #339 during their Friday Fish Fry.
Fifteen minutes later I found a parking spot right in front and went in, gobsmacked by the scale of the lodge (purpose-built as one, not a retrofitted private home) and the number of people eating fish. The Esteemed Lecturing Knight Lorraine led me to Frank back in the kitchen, up to his elbows dredging one pound filets (they sold 500 plates a food at $18 a pop). Frank said he’d catch up with me and Lorraine took me to the bar where Lance, a Past Exalted Ruler, bought me a beer in front of their jukebox, stocked with ACTUAL 45s.
Frank eventually found us and gave me a tour, from the bottom floor where diners sat at a long tables in front of a big stage, to the second floor where bowlers utilized a six-lane professional bowling alley (with its own bar)…
…to a massive, currently-shuttered meeting hall on an upper floor (we didn’t go the projection room just above that or the old rooftop dining deck).
Then I was brought to the basement, where Jen, the bartender, was credited with reviving the forgotten bar and Frank raved about the antique chandeliers and all the Elk-specific furnishings.
I left regretting the fish & chips I had for dinner and promising Frank I’d be back someday for their Fish Fry, voted the best in Pennsylvania, apparently.
NEXT WEEK… Part 2: Akron & Kent
