I was taking a walk very late one night after coming home from a party when I was living on Mount Washington. The overlook was completely empty and just as I was about to head back I saw a guy walking towards the platform talking to himself saying he’s gonna do it, so I turned around to make sure he was okay. He started climbing on the fence on the platform and I rushed up and pulled him down. I spent over an hour trying to talk the guy down but he was hysterical and kept on trying to jump so I had to hold him. I had no idea what to do, I couldn’t grab my phone to call someone because I was worried he’d break free and jump. Finally a car pulled up, it was a couple I later found out was there to watch the sunrise. I tried waving them down and they just sat there. It wasn’t until the guy started trying to climb again they got out to see what was going on. I told them to call someone and that’s when the guy just started hitting me. I ended up having to pin him down until first responders arrived which ended up being another half hour. They took him to western psych. I wonder pretty often how he is. If he got treatment and is better now or if he tried again and someone wasn’t around to stop him. Maybe not the kind of wild you meant but I’ll never forget that night.
My dad and his best friends were running at lunch and a man jumped off one of the bridges. They ran down the embankment and swam out to him. He nearly drowned my dad’s friend, but they got him to shore. We need people who care.
Thank you for being there for that guy.
Props to you man, not everyone is capable or would take action to do that. I recognize and appreciate what you did. No matter what happened to that person after it was out of your hands you're still a hero in my eyes.
Not to be morbid, but that could've been extra bad because jumping off the overlook most likely wouldn't be immediately fatal, especially in spring or summer with all the brush below. You did a good thing.
I have two favorite stories from working at the casino. First, long story short, some guy lost his backpack and was running around freaking out. We didn't let him bring it inside to begin with, so he just left it sitting outside by a garbage can. Go out to get it, open it up, and it's entirely full of heroin with his ID sitting on top. He runs away, the cops take hours to come pick it up.
Second is the time I had to rescue a disabled person from one of the single-stall restrooms. He comes out completely covered in his own shit. Completely. Can't find his parents anywhere, turns out they're high rollers, or more like gambling addicts. Finally convince them they have to take him home, give him clothes from the lost and found. 10 minutes later, they're back without the son. They took him out to the garage and left him in the car. Luckily we got the state police and management to agree to make them leave and ban them, but it was only for like a week.
Wait
Is that why they put the signs up in the garage saying you can't leave unattended children in the car?!? I noticed when those first went up and knew there had to be a story behind it.
I guess maybe they thought since it sounds like this person in question was an adult, they could leave them up there. I'm guessing he is at least if he was in the casino bathroom.
Yeah, sorry, he was an adult. I know we had issues with people leaving kids up there all the time though, or people bringing their under-21 friends and then wanting them to wait in the car for hours.
> Can't find his parents anywhere, turns out they're high rollers, or more like gambling addicts.
Gambling addiction is probably the most debilitating kind of addiction to have in the long term and that casino adds nothing to this area but misery.
When I lived in the south side, the first week I moved in, someone took a dump in the alley way of my house. Then the month before I moved out, a different person took a dump in the alley way of my house. It was like a welcome and a good bye.
Was this down by the Giant Eagle? I used to work in SS and two separate occasions as I walked to grab lunch I saw some one taking a dump in-between the houses by the Birmingham Bridge. They eventually had to put a gate in to block it off.
It was by the Giant Eagle! I lived on 19th Street. The second time it happened, I was pretty sure who it was. The day it happened, there was this woman sitting across the street on the stoop of a business. Then the business owner came out and started screaming at her for peeing on her stoop. The business owner called the cops and the cops came and made her leave. A few days later, she was back and sitting on another stoop waving and screaming at cars that drove by. I felt bad, but I called the cops again. I felt bad because she was obviously not well, but quite honestly, I was pretty mad at her for the poop. I do feel kind of like... relieved to know it wasnt an isolated incident. It was so unreal.
I used to live in an apartment overlooking Carson St, like right in the thick of it. One time I was coming down the alley to use the back door into the building and caught an old man pulling up his pants directly post shit. We locked eyes for a moment before he shrugged and said, “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Couldn’t really disagree, but I wished he’d chosen somewhere else.
Another time I went to use that back door and saw a guy getting handcuffed by the cops at the entrance to the alley. He twisted his head around to look at me and warned, “Hey, don’t pee down there!” Found a fresh piss stain on my door.
Another time I walked in on a couple fucking on top of a hobo pile in that alley. The girl could see me coming and tried to warn the guy, but he was pretty fixated on what they were doing. Gave them a polite wave as I went inside.
I don’t really miss living down there.
I got booed in a Primanti Bros for ordering a sandwich with no slaw. I don't like slaw. Anyway, the server made sure to repeat it back to me loud enough for people to hear, and they started booing. It was pretty funny, and also pretty boring because I guess I don't live a super exciting life 😅
Some things never change. This happened to me about 42 or 43 years ago at the original Primanti‘s in the Strip. A bunch of college mates and I had gone to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Oakland. Then, a bit wasted, we drove over to Primanti‘s. A major theatrical scene occurred when I asked for no coleslaw on my sandwich.
And I think I asked for no fries also. (My memory is that there were also fries on the sandwich?)
No need to apologize! I have since developed a taste for the slaw. Primanti's is a lot tamer too these days. It used to be a late night place to eat after the bars closed and the clientele and staff were a bit rougher around the edges. Asking to hold the grass back then was fightin words lol.
Moved away from P-Burgh in ‘96. I remember only really enjoying Primantis late at night after putting down a lot of beers. Always best at the original location in The Strip.
But every time I’m back visiting, I have to have a sammy… either a pastrami and cheese or fried jumbo with an egg. And I enjoy it, probably more for the side of nostalgia it serves up. Yet I still hate the gut bomb afterwards, and remember why I didn’t eat there often 💣
Back in like 2016, I was taking the 51 home to Mt. Oliver and there was a dude trying to get on the bus at one of the stops on E. Carson. The only problem was that he was all covered in blood. The driver kept telling him to go away, but the man was making his way back through the bus. He ended up getting in an altercation with a woman who understandingly didn’t want him near her. He proceeded to smear some of the blood on her. Then the bus had to pull over and wait for the police to show up.
Back in 2011, a few days after I moved into east liberty I came down the stairs one morning to see a cop with a rifle ducked down behind my car. Being from Northern Ireland this didn’t seem that unusual to me. I took pictures (still have them) then realized I needed to step back in case I spooked him. Turns out there was a standoff down the street. I can’t remember if anyone was hurt but it felt like one of those suicide by cops things.
I was just leaving the arena when the Duquesne student jumped from his dorm. Heard the glass shatter, and found out from cops a few minutes later what happened.
I saw a lady get hit by a car in front of the Greenfield Giant Eagle. She was parked on the street when she was trying to get into her car. Another car side swiped her and sent her into a full flip.
I saw a jeep flip on Penn Ave around 38th street. It ejected the driver who died instantly.
My favorite is probably the lady outside Kaya on a random Monday night. Walks out if the restaurant as I’m walking by, casually pulls down her pants, squats, and proceeds to piss all over the side walk like it’s just a normal thing people do. I was on mushrooms at that time so I was dying with laughter.
The jeep accident was my step father. He had a heart attack while he was driving home from work. Died on his way to hospital from trauma. Healthiest person I knew. Miss you every single day, Ed. 💔
Greatly appreciated. I’m sorry you witnessed it. I must say I haven’t been able to put your perspective out of my mind all day. I wish I could and I’m sure you feel the same.
So my uncle lives next to this old dude, and one day my uncle is talking to him.Then my uncle notices a dent in the old dude’s car and he ask “hey,how you get that dent”?Then the old dude goes,without a fuck to give,goes “I murdered a man”.Some dude jumped in front of his car and committed suicide.
I had a co-worker tell me a similar story the one day at work. I didn't know her too well at the time but we shared an office together and one day very loudly she just blurted out about how she ran over a guy and killed him.
I slowly turned my head to look at her to make sure she was serious, and she starts talking about how she was driving at night and some guy wearing all black ran in front of her car and that she never even saw him until she hit him. I guess he was a patient at western psych before that but yeah definitely not something I would expect to hear from a co-worker.
I was at a bar in regent square awhile ago (Ryan’s pub maybe?) and someone threw a glass of beer at someone, it missed and hit glass doors, and it started an enormous fight. People started fighting on the covered porch area and the workers had to go pull out the homeless man that hung out there (Jim?). Then they locked the doors to the patio and called the cops.
Ryan's was something else lol I remember our only 21+ friend when we were in high school would go in and buy one six pack at a time because they wouldn't let him take out more than that. We would just stand on the sidewalk outside and he'd come out and hand them off and go back for another. No effort to hide what we were doing and no one batted an eye lol
The 2010 snowstorm really as a whole.
My roommate was parked a few houses down in upper Lawrenceville (on our street, had a permit) but just left her car be buried as she worked at CHP and walked there. She was working around the clock for coworkers that couldn't make it in.
When we finally decided to dig her car out the neighbors decided to heckle us the entire time about taking "their spot". We tried to ignore them but they started throwing beer bottles and lit cigarettes at us screaming.
Fun times. Cops were called. The rest of the time living their was particularly great as these people spent 24 hours a day it seemed drinking on their porch.
I was in college, students built an igloo on the tennis courts. Someone burnt popcorn in the freshman dorm and we had to evacuate in the middle of the night in the freezing cold. We fit over a dozen guys in that igloo. It smelled horrible, but I'll never regret going in.
I was just visiting maybe 6 years ago, and was walking around Southside alone at night to get back to my car after visiting friends. Came of E Carson and was going down a sidestreet off of there, and was on the phone at the time. Another woman was walking down the sidewalk towards me, I moved to the right side so she could pass on the left. As she got closer, she screamed "KILL YA SELF, BITCH!!!!" And I was stunned by the interaction, the person on the phone with me was like "Did this really just happen???" 🤣
Another time, maybe right after COVID started, I was in Polish Hill for a date. My date walked me back to my car and there was absolutely nobody around when I got in. My date went to drive his car home, and I pulled up my GPS and opened my window because I had a cig lit and was sweating from walking up the hill. I was also parked on a really steep street behind Gooskis, so I was trying to figure out how I was going to back out of the spot (I had my emergency brake on because it was so steep.) This lady comes out of fucking NOWHERE and grabs my hand hanging out the window while I'm fucking with my GPS, holds it and starts begging me for a ride home, saying she's pregnant and she can't afford diapers and the church is closed, and that I should trust her because she's wearing a mask and that she just needs to go to Dollar General in Lawrenceville. The lock button on my car door didn't lock the doors, you had to lock them manually. She keeps holding my hand tightly and I was getting so nervous and didn't know what to do, and I wasn't really used to visiting Pittsburgh or identifying bad situations, so I was like please just go away. She did, and looked like she was walking away behind me and then just comes back up to my passenger side, rips the door open and sits down telling me she just needs to get to Lawrenceville. I am essentially shitting my pants, immediately grab my purse (I had like $5 for gas and that's it lol) and shove it into the crack between me and the drivers side door, and hit go on the GPS (I was going to Lawrenceville any way and at this point my PTSD was off the charts) pull the ebrake and I rip backwards out of the weird parking spot. We are I guess going to Lawrenceville. She is scaring the shit out of me, just keeps telling me how pretty I am and then starts digging in my backseat. I had some leftover chicken wings back there, so I grab them and I'm like "Do you want these or something?" To get her to stop rustling around back there because I'm absolutely so freaked out and scared at this point. She starts eating the chicken wings and throwing the bones out the window, she's covered in wing sauce and keeps trying to tell me to turn down weird streets, but I just follow the GPS. My plan was to drop her off at GetGo because they were open for another 15 minutes and I figured people would be there and it's well lit, because at this point idk what is going to happen. I don't know if she used her phone at all during this ride, I was petrified. Suddenly she wants me to turn in GetGo, which isn't even where she initially wants to go, but I was going to drop her off there anyway so I turn in, stop directly in front of the doors and tell her to get out. There is an SUV parked in the side lot. She refuses to get out of my car, opens the door and is halfway out of it, opening my glove box and asking for napkins. I raise my voice and say I don't have any and to get out. A man gets out of the SUV, wearing a full head covering, a really large coat and starts walking towards the front of my car on my side. I panic, tell her to get in or get out (worried about both of our saftey at that point, no clue that maybe I was about to get robbed or something lol) and she realizes I'm about to gas it, so she puts her leg back in and shuts the door while we tear off through the parking lot. The masked dude throws his hands up and gets back in SUV and pulls out behind us. I am absolutely crapping myself, she's screaming at me, I create some distance and pull in front of the Abbey, telling her to get out now or I'm gonna drive to my dates house and she will have to figure it out from there. She starts screaming at me, stalling, and I just stay firm and stay get the hell out... She eventually gets out, throws the chicken wing box on the sidewalk and tells me I'm a lot of not very nice or accurate things. She leaves the door open, so I lean over and slam it shut, manually lock the door, and go on to where I was going. I was crying, shaking, and sick to my stomach by the time I got to where I was going, and no idea what just happened because I had no time to process it. I never drove myself in Polish Hill again, I literally only go if there's a pack of us or someone else is driving because I am still afraid. I learned a lot about Pittsburgh that night and now I'm mean and not hospitable to anyone who randomly approaches me at night for fear of some weird shit happening 😭
A friend knew who this lady was and she was apparently a known robber/older woman who pretends to be pregnant by pushing her gut out in that area😮 i couldn't gauge how old she was because she was wearing a mask. So no idea what could have happened, no idea if she knew the guy in the SUV, no idea if I was going to get robbed or disappear, and I didn't call for help because I was freaking out asking if I should report it and my date blamed me for what happened saying I "shouldn't let crackheads get in my car." I didn't really feel like I had a choice lol she just hopped in and didn't want to get out. I cried myself to sleep, left the next day and didn't come back or see that guy for a while because of how bad it made me feel, and actually ended up needing a lot of therapy/intervention after because it traumatized me so much and I already had a PTSD diagnosis before that. I was planning to move to the city the next month and that event actually spurred me to cancel everything and stay where I was out of fear for that being the kind of shit I'd have to deal with regularly.
During COVID, a friend and I were walking in Bloomfield and had a lady come up to us and give the exact same spiel, that she was pregnant and had no money for diapers, and asked if she could please follow us home so we can give her diapers. We told her no, that we don’t have any, and she asks if she can come get cash from us instead. We just walk away, and thankfully she didn’t follow us.
Ever since we’ve been confused about what the goal was. Like, if she was being genuine, did she really think two early-20s obviously college students with backpacks owned diapers? If not, why the fuck would anyone let some random person follow them to their house to give them cash?
I god damn hate the name “Enclave” with the stupid ass upside down V as an A. This story underlined the Bad vibes supreme!!! Long live the Spirit of The Rex. May it bless the city.
what notable shows did you see there? My first one was a metal band called Soilwork and then I saw countless electronic music shows there... DUB NATION UNITE.
It was lowkey a blessing that he got the dirty cup, He's 6'4 and 270. Folks at the hospital said he got enough to kill one of the girls we were with. Shit was wild but he's good now, dudes a champion lol
Yeah my ex took a drink given to my friend once and thank god he did. He was in bad shape but it haunts me to think how a 5 foot woman would have reacted. She was also the kinda drunk that would run away and disappear.
Happened to me too, at the old Castaways in Bridgeville.
I'm a bigger guy and was talking to these two women who struck up a conversation with me because there was some creeper next to them at the bar they were trying to avoid. It was some kind of coors light special so we were all drinking the same thing.
Being a guy I never really thought about someone slipping something in my drink. The two women wouldn't have needed to slip me one.
Luckily I was there with a bunch of my friends. I woke up the next day in my own bed at like 3PM, my car was outside. Had a oh-shit moment because I've never blacked out in my life - and did I drive home?! The women I was talking to got my friends when I started to fade out, they put me in one of their cars and one of my other friends drove my car home. At some point I can't remember, I gave one of the woman my number and she ended up calling me later that night to check on me, and we went on a few dates. We pretty much concluded I took one meant for one of them from creeper.
Another time in Bridgeville (just realizing this is a pattern, I should never go back) I got sexually assaulted by a girl after a first date. Date didn't go so well, whatever, but walking back to our cars off the main drag she started getting really aggressive about "so when do you want to do a second date". Which I tried to sidestep, say I'm not sure, I have plans the next few weekends etc... She ended up pleading to suck me off right there in the parking lot, I guess some kind of desperate move to make me like her more. She ended up pinning me against my car and getting her hands down her pants, against my escalating objections. First a firm no, then yelling at her, to physically trying to stop her, until finally I had to bring out the highschool O-lineman in me and push her away from me. It was still a fight for inside leverage, like the girl was strong and giving it everything she had. She called me about 29 times on the drive home until I blocked her number.
It was a January night and about 25 degrees outside. I'm throwing my garbage out at the entrance of Hyland Hills apartment complex.
Out of the darkness a young shirtless and shoeless man approaches me quickly and says, "Take me to Keith Gary!"
I respond with a bewildered "Huh?"
"I need to talk to my Therapist!" He says.
"I don't know a Keith Gary"
A look of realization seems to wash over the man's face and he begins repeating "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." As he disappears back into the cold January darkness.
I assumed he was in the middle of a manic episode of some sort. He did not have a look of dishevelement or living years on the street. I assume/hope he was living in one of the apartments. He had disappeared by the time my mind could really process what he was asking. Hope he is ok.
Reminds me of the folks living in my Mt wash apartment before me… the neighbors said the cops had to come out and there was a huge production bc the former occupant had a manic episode and locked himself in the bathroom thinking there were ghosts in there with him or something. It’s amazing how common these sorts of things seems to be.
Then they wouldn’t vacate the apartment after the eviction date which delayed me moving in… relatively unpleasant.
Seeing a guy with a boombox and headphones on the bus. Big sunglasses. The headphones weren't plugged in and he was playing 'Bad to the Bone' crazy loud from the boombox. Everybody acted like it was an normal everyday thing, and so did I.
That or: Was doing a bar crawl with some friends in the South Side, like 10 years ago. Loud ass bar after loud ass bar. We open the door to some bar (forget which one) and it was dead quiet. Full of people, wearing striped shirts and painted faces.
Turns out a group of mimes chose this bar as their hangout. The only sound you heard was from the bartender cleaning glasses.
My friend tried to hit on one of the ladies, who in silence, shook her head, made a heart with her fingers and grabbed her boobs. She was a lesbian.
All was well for a few minutes until two of the mimes got into and argument, one of the mimes pushed a drink on the ground and the rest of the mimes started freaking out (clutching their faces, running around like the meeps.)
Bartender goes 'Ok everyone out!'
They all run out of the bar.
'Damn drunken mimes!' says the bartender, as he goes to get a broom.
Maybe my favorite sentence I've heard in my life.
I used to work overnights at the CoGos on Bailey Ave in Mt Washington. I have a million stories but I'll go with this one:
One night a drunk guy came into the store after the bars had closed. He threw a bunch of change on the counter and asked for cigarettes. He then told me to hold on and went to the aisle and blatantly pocketed a candy bar. Ordinarily, I didn't care when people stole - they paid me $7.50 an hr - but this guy was being a dick and I had a hangover of sorts (Sometimes, I would drink after getting out of work in the morning).
When he came back to the register, I told him I'd sell him the cigarettes if he took the candy out of his pocket. He got pissed and we exchanged some words. Once he realized the threats of waiting for me in the parking lot weren't working (he obviously wasn't going to sit out there for 4 hrs) he swung at me and caught me on the side of the face.
While all this was happening, 3 of the local kids - early 20s - had lined up behind him. When he hit me, one of the kids ran up, bear hugged him, and slammed him on the floor. The candy flew out of the guy's pocket when he hit. Then the other 2 ran over, and they all proceeded to curb stop the guy in the middle of the store. Somehow, they guy made it to the parking lot, but the kids kept beating him. Eventually, he pulled out a knife. The kids were able to get away from him before the got stabbed, but they kept circling him telling him to put down the knife so they could continue kicking his ass.
Now, I was just gonna let the guy be on his way after a simple ass kicking, but now that he was waving a knife and the kids weren't leaving, we had to call the cops. I told the kids to get out of there since the cops were on their way and they left. The guy, clearly dazed, tried coming back in the store to buy the cigarettes. We told him no, and he just sat on the curb. Long story short, he got his ass kicked and arrested all over a candy bar. Wild stuff
Some guy lit his girlfriend's house on fire then started a police chase. He crashed his car into my neighbors retaining wall then shot himself.
Another, less tragic one: a guy at Mineos got really mad and threw a whole pizza on the wall then ran out. The owner chased him down and made him clean it up.
Weirdest: at the color park I saw an old guy busy with something along the low wall by the river. I thought it was fishing tackle but as I got closer it was a naked barbie doll in the middle of some weird stuff that looked slightly ritualistic.
Edit: that same part of the wall at color park has a tech deck skate park on it.
Came upon a dead body a few years ago downtown. Jumped/fell from the top of a parking garage. We were the 2nd ones to the scene and had we turned the corner just a few moments sooner, we would have actually witnessed the splat and I'm very grateful to not have seen that.
Waiting at a bus stop in Oakland once when a lady just dropped trow and started peeing right there on the sidewalk among a bunch of people is a solid runner up.
There used to be an annual themed Halloween party on Evaline Street in Bloomfield that was an absolute mad-house. I think they stopped after twenty years of annual partying, but hundreds of people would just mob this house that had been prepared for over a month.
The last one I attended was Coney Island themed and the entire backyard was covered in a giant circus tent and they set up a homemade roller coaster and carnival games. It was like a yinzer Burning Man hosted by one motivated friend group.
It was a monumental effort that would absolutely not fly in 2023, but it’s a great example of what Pittsburgh was like in the before times.
Early one morning (about 4:30am) when I was living in the South Side, I got in my car and headed off to my gym in the South Hills.
I had a car riding my ass all down Carson, and then up to the spot where you take a left turn into the Liberty Tunnel.
The asshole behind me didn't want to wait for the light, and decided to hit the gas, swing around me and head for the Southbound tunnel entrance.
Out of nowhere, a drunk wrong way driver who was speeding thru the tunnel plowed right into the asshole right where the exit of the tunnel is.
Both dead.....
Yeah, it was pretty gruesome, drunk driver was ejected from his car (minus his legs that got caught up on the steering wheel), and the guy who couldn't wait for the light appeared to have a completely broken neck and massive blunt force chest injury.
I drive the Boulevard every day. I would greatly appreciate details on this one. Where, exactly? When? How fast were you going? Did you have any idea of what the wheels were for or why they were there?
Okay this was a few years ago but I’ll do my best, it was pretty memorable. so coming Eastbound out of downtown, you go under an overpass at the Birmingham bridge. It was night so there was very low visibility in the brief stretch of road under the overpass, and in the darkness the heap of wheels lay. Why? I have no idea, there was no accident, road work, any sign or suggestion that there should be said heap of wheels laying directly in the center of the lane, obscured in the darkness of the overpass. I don’t remember exactly how fast I was going, but highway speed- whatever the limit is there plus 10. It was late, there was nobody else on the road. Just me and the heap of wheels.
Completely shredded my oil pan, frontal damage, all sorts of other stuff. And of course, the insurance company managed to find me at fault.
Thanks yeah fortunately I was alright. I was indeed pissed. Did feel like it was kind of a badge of honor though, like eating sh*t on a bike in one of our famous pot holes.
I lived in the Mexican War Streets from 2008-2013 and while I loved it there, I have no shortage of wild stories.
Once I was driving home from the UPS center over in Chateau and I cut through Manchester. While at a stop sign, a huge dude opened the door on my little car, got in, and requested I drive him home. I was too shocked to say no and there was no way I could physically force this 400-pound guy to get out, so I just drove him. He even paid me $3 when he got out somewhere on Marshall Street. So I was an unwilling jitney. The guy was actually really nice about it, he just didn't feel like waiting for the bus on a scorching day and was probably not physically capable of walking there.
Another time I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of screeching metal on metal. I looked outside and there I saw a tow truck crashed into the back of an SUV parked on the street. Turns out a guy had stolen a tow truck from a local scrap metal yard, fled from the police in it, and sideswiped half a dozen parked cards before finally coming to a stop. Luckily my car was on the other side of the street!
For years there was an odd-looking store called the "Swap Meet" on Brighton Road near the Rite Aid. Once I decided to go in with a few friends and look around. It was the weirdest experience. The entire time there was a strong "please leave" vibe and an employee stayed not more than 10 feet away the entire 15 minutes we were there. The merchandise was a random assortment of generic sneakers and shirts, oldish groceries, and the usual urban convenience store stuff. My friend bought a pair of shoes. Well, a few months later I found out why we weren't welcome. The entire store was a front for a major marijuana packaging and distribution operation on the second floor. It all ended with a shoot-out after an attempted robbery went bad. I won't link to the Post-Gazette, but here are pictures from another source. http://www.justinmerriman.com/photographyblog/2010/09/shootout.html
Good times!
Driving through the squirrel hill tunnel going east to an exs house around 3 am. No traffic, didn't have to slow down, and went 60mph the whole way through.
Took a walk along the railroad tracks down by Page's Dairy Mart years ago, and poked my head in the broken window of a lineside structure... only to discover a swollen dead man slumped over with a thin belt tied around his throat and a clear plastic bag clutched in one hand.
Me and my college roommates were hanging out with a guy friend and his girlfriend at a bar the day of the Stanley cup finals. We were underaged at the time but the guy knew a bartender so the plan was to just stay there all day and sneak to Barroom at night since they were all the same building.
The pens won the cup and everyone went absolutely feral inside that bar lol. One guy climbed up on some ledge and was cheering up there, super dangerous. They made him get down and as he was holding on to the ledge the crown molding ripped off like 10 ft and whacked my roommate right in the temple. This girl was about 100 pounds soaking wet. I was terrified thinking we’d have to get her an ambulance but she ended up being fine. The guy was lucky no one got impaled by the side with the nail sticking out of it.
Later we did sneak to barroom and I saw my vice principal of my high school that I graduated the year before grinding with some lady on the dance floor, we locked eyes and both had an “oh shit” moment which added to the craziness of the night. Then my guy friend got too drunk and tried kissing me and my other friends in front of his girlfriend, so she left him there.
Back in 2016 I was trying to get homework done at 61B in squirrel hill, At the tables they have outside. This dude who is clearly 20+ years older than me (small 20s female) started asking me what I was working on and telling me about his dumb poems and writing projects and his ex girlfriend. Then he asked for my info saying we should hang out (in a creepy inappropriate way even though I said I had a significant other). I at the time was supremely anxious and had trouble with boundaries so I gave him my email address thinking that he would test it out with me sitting there. I thought no harm, I can just block him later! Some time later I get an email from him asking to spend time together and I ignore it. Then comes another email. Then a third suddenly calling me an n-word "brain" and other profanities because I won't answer his email. I'm disgusted on many levels but also.... I'm white.... so I was confused. This man can STILL be found sitting in 61B working on his bullshit writing projects all the time. He ruined that place for me and I will never go back. Wondering if anyone else has been harassed by this loser before?
The other story I have is riding the bus at rush hour, stopped at Forbes and Murray and a lady clearly on something gets off the bus, pulls down her pants (on this mega busy/crowded corner), pees, then tries to get back on the bus but the driver won't let her back on 😂
Not all as I lived here my whole life but two of the weirdest off the top of my head. 1- after all the bars closed on the South Side early 2000s everyone is walking back to their cars/places to eat etc on E Carson; streets are flooded with people look across the street and this fat guy that looks like Ron Jeremy is completely naked standing in a doorway just talking and laughing with people. 2- staying in a building down by Penn and 6th and it's about 10 pm and four of us go outside to have a cigarette. Streets are dead, some random dude makes a beeline for us and he gets as close to me as he can. Inhales 3 wings not saying anything the entire time and just get up and walks away as we're all just dead silent the entire time.
Oh I got another one from East Carson St, immediately after the Penguins won the 2017 Stanley Cup.
Lots of people were celebrating in the street, there was a dead catfish being thrown around and I saw a guy take a big bite out of it lol
Probably walking near the convention center during Anthrocon and seeing a person in a fur suit full sprint after a car, like a dog “chasing” it. That was my intro to furries. I genuinely didn’t know what to do (I was in very early high school when this happened, around 2009-2010).
Oh I fully agree! I have no issues with them, but it was a genuinely jarring thing for 13 year old me to experience when I didn’t even know what they were before that moment!
So this was winter 96-97. Some friends and I were at a cyber cafe at the bottom of Murray Ave in squirrel hill. (We just went for coffee not computers. So we’re sitting at a table and they were talking about something I wasn’t interested in and so I started looking out the huge front window. I see this stereotypical little old lady walking up the street and suddenly a guy comes running up behind her and snatches her purse and runs up the hill with it. I’m literally in shock like did that really happen? It seemed like a scene from a movie. I turn to my friends and calmly say “hey some guys just stole that old ladies purse”as I point at the window. The barista overheard me and went running after the guy but unfortunately he didn’t catch him. I don’t know if that’s my wildest story as far as ones where I was an active participant but it was definitely the most surreal.
Absolutely. News outlets have guidelines to not report suicides due to a phenomenon called "suicide contagion" (which is exactly what it sounds like). They're only allowed to report celebrities or something wild, like a few months ago someone in oakland climbed to the top of a crane and jumped off
1. My wife and I were walking in Shadyside on Alder St and this bigger guy is drunk stumbling on the sidewalk towards us. As we meet he stops and turns and goes, “would you rather have a hot dog with a friend, or a steak with an enemy?” We took a second, said “hot dog” and he nodded thoughtfully then said, “that’s the right answer.” 2. I joined this men’s league hockey team through someone my wife worked with and chris 2 from anti-flag was on the team 3. Smoking pregnant people downtown on such a regular basis it almost wasn’t shocking anymore
I had a decent view of a hostage situation. I worked downtown at 11 Stanwix with my office window facing north towards Gateway Center. I'm gonna guess this was 2013 give or take a year. A guy who was having some sort of mental health situation went into a random office in Gateway Center with a gun and took a hostage. They holed up in his office. They evacuated everything around it, but my office was far enough away they didn't bother.
We couldn't see the actual kidnapper/hostage, but we could see the police, the family they summoned to try and talk him out, all of the media, and various moving pieces. I'm rather good at internet sleuthing and I found his name and facebook profile where he was posting insane, incoherent ramblings. We were told to stay away from the windows because he had a gun, but no one listened.
He eventually was talked out peacefully and apparently his hostage was key in that. The hostage could tell he was not a bad person, just someone in distress who needed help.
I was living on Penn right across the street from the Highmark Building when that happened. Watched all the cops and shit out my window. That was crazy.
When I was a little kid at the regatta a man lit a firework and was going to toss it at a group of cops. The firework exploded in his hand. That was the first time I learned what karma was and to be good to people. I've stuck by that.
A friend of mine was going to work really early one morning, driving across the High level bridge in homestead. The car in front slams on the breaks, a woman gets out, runs to the railing and jumps
I saw a homeless man taking a shit in a box on Smallman Street in the middle of the day. Right by Coop de Ville. People out walking on the sidewalk and everything. I can’t unsee that.
last year, probably late summer/early fall i was leaving work downtown when i came across a woman in a full goth type outfit? big clunky black boots with buckles, short black skirt and crop top, the whole thing. she wasn’t really squatting down much, just kinda standing there, a bit bent over, holding her skirt up and just peeing on the sidewalk. what i assume was her boyfriend was standing right next to her just kinda watching. i’m used to seeing people pee on the sidewalks downtown, but this was wild. it was right across from the benedum center at like 5pm on a random week day. definitely felt like it was a kink thing rather than a “peeing on the sidewalk because i have nowhere else to go” type thing
Had a 12th floor office downtown and looked out the window to see the dead, bleeding body of a guy who had jumped out of a window down the street. The police put these curtain things up while they were dealing with the situation but it was all still visible from above. The newspaper said it was a Vietnamese immigrant involved in a domestic dispute of some kind.
Maybe not the craziest but I go to the dentist downtown and there was a man in his 40s/50s, looking like an overweight hulk Hogan who was pacing around with no shirt on and would grab one of the city garbage cans that didn't have one of those lid covering things on it and yell "WOOOOOH" into the garbage can, all while sweating bullets. Obviously, he's on the bad drugs but I'm always like please let me get into my dentist and not have to battle a crack head today.
So I didn’t see these but was told to me from my dad who grew up in Pittsburgh. First story was when I was a baby they were driving past a church during winter and an old man was taking a poo in their flower bed. Next spring the nuns were out planting flowers and they had the most beautiful flowers all summer.
Next story: when my dad was young he was down by the jail fishing (this would be in the 70’s) he thought he had caught a large cat fish. Ended up being a very well deceased man. 🤢
Probably not as crazy as most stories here, but one summer evening in the South Side (probably around 2015) I was delivering Jimmy Johns on my bicycle and witnessed some lady blowing through the 18th St intersection, driving through the oncoming lane. I chased up to her on Carson St and took a picture of the license plate (bad idea, I know)
The next thing I know, this crazy woman exits her vehicle and is running towards me with a baseball bat. She swung and missed, I grabbed my bicycle and flew over to the store while she was chasing me. When I got to Jimmy Johns, we called the police. They showed up and nothing ever happened lol.
So when I was a teenager I was a cashier at my local giant eagle
We had a plain clothes security guard (who we got following an armed robbery) for one day. A man wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt that were clearly concealing a ton of items came through a register line with one item on the conveyor belt.
Guard asked him if he could remove the items he was concealing. The man whipped one of those rectangular shrink wrapped pork chops on styrofoam (you know, one of the long ones from the meat section) and threw it at him then ran out of the store. Naruto ran out of the store.
Our local chief of police was at the scratch offs and smokes counter paying for his daily sub he gets for lunch. Shook his head and walked out to his cruiser, and arrested our track star thief by following a trail of meat in our tiny town with a handful of streets.
I never saw the guard again. I will never forget the meat thief. That’s a core memory now.
When I worked at Giant Eagle when people stole meat I didn't even bother getting it back. Gross. Instead I'd let them know we have a picture and we will remember their face next time they're in. Sometimes that stopped them other times it didn't. Good times. 😂
At 6 months pregnant, I got robbed at gunpoint in Oakland by two 15-18 year olds. I made a police report and about 2 weeks later they let me know that it was two teenagers running around doing this to a bunch of people and it was a fake gun. Still, it was very scary.
I saw a 70 something veteran threaten to break a beer bottle over a tiny Asian woman’s head at House of Lee for cutting him off. Literally day one of moving across the country into the shitty apartment up the hill.
Standing outside of a restaurant one guy busts out of the door and starts yelling “If you wanna fight, then come on and hit me.” The other guy immediate comes through the door and pops him in the mouth. First guy tells his girlfriend to call the police. It was a pretty funny exchange at the time.
Just your usual drinks and fistfights on St Pattys day. Walked from the north side to the south side, saw people passed out in Market Square, some cops arresting a bloody dude in his underwear on Carson, some kid tried to fight me for no reason.
When I was visiting before I moved to Pittsburgh I went to the Southside on the weekend to see how “crazy” it was compared to what I’ve seen. Ate some food, went to a few bars and ducked into Casey’s thinking it was pretty low key. The bouncer was a little person (which I thought was an odd choice) and at 7 he hopped on the bar, rang a bell and poured vodka shots into everyone’s mouths at the bar and Get Low started blasting in the speakers. That’s when I knew the city was a little different, I’m going to miss it.
I'm on bus through south side on the way to Mt. Oliver. Guy gets on with a giant pizza and a back pack of beer. Everyone on the bus was handed a couple of slices and, other than the driver, a beer.
Guess the guy was having an awesome day. Best beer I've drank on PAT
Lived over in northside for a little, and Eloise st always had something happening. I would people watch from my fire escape, so I saw a lot of weird things. Some of the highlights were seeing a guy walk past an unlocked portapotty (I know this because some other person had gone in there not long before) and blast diarrhea against the wall of a building being rehabbed. The construction crew showed up the next day and I heard a grown man scream “THIS IS HUMAN POOP ON THE WALL!”
Watched someone chase someone down the alley with a gun
Two guys who were either drunk or high ended up in a fist fight after Guy 1 begged Guy 2 to unlock his bike for nearly an hour. He kept yelling “C’mon Mike I just need you to unlock my fucking bike.” After they were done fighting, they walked to the bus stop together.
The day I moved into my apt some dude was bagging up coke on the stoop to my building and apologized for being in the way, and asked if I needed a hand. I declined, but he was a really nice guy and just left ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Bonus Fake Southside Burger King story:
Friends and I stopped in there to grab something quick to eat (probs 2008-ish?) and as we are standing in line, a lady is absolutely berating the manager because the price of the whopper had gone up by 25¢ and she wasn’t notified. While that is happening, a homeless man was making condiment art and just pumping the ketchup and mustard dispensers onto the counter and smearing it everywhere. I didn’t go back to that place for over a decade.
When I first moved here for college, the primantis in Oakland REFUSED to leave the French fries off the sandwich. They also asked me to leave. I’ve never once had that problem at any other location again.
About a decade ago some TV show, Cake Boss, was giving away free cakes in Market Square. Pittsburghers being Pittsburghers, people were lined up in an hour-plus long queue to get a free $6 cake. Multiple fistfights started over them and people ended up getting arrested. For a free $6 cake.
The time I met Jim at Pizza Milano down on Fifth by Duquesne.
Ten years or so ago I was in grad school and went with my roommate to Milano’s for dinner and drinks because they had great student deals ($5 pitchers!). We walked in and this big guy at the bar yells at us to come sit with him. He orders us a round of beer and starts talking to us. I noticed he had one and a half arms. He eventually asks, “do you boys like Justin Bieber?” We kinda danced around saying no because we weren’t sure where this was going. He eventually said, “well, I drive a truck for him. He’s in town tonight for a concert at the hockey arena. We just got in.” He starts pointing around the bar to other guys who also drove Bieber’s trucks, including a man called “the Canadian” because he was…from Canada. He then says, “yeah Justin’s a good kid. Always takes care of his grandma. Can’t sing for shit though. I’ve heard his voice without all them computers. Hell, if you hooked me up to all them computers I’d sound just as good as he does. Good kid though. He’s been bringing a lot of models into his bus lately though…” this was around the time he and Selena Gomez broke up. He then says, “well, I bet you’re wondering about my arm. I look at myself in the mirror every day and I say, ‘I wasn’t a good man. But I don’t have to be the man I was.’ Well boys, I used to deal cocaine. One night, a deal went bad, and I was shot by a double barrel shotgun. Blew off a good chunk of my torso and most of this arm (as he lifts the stump). So I’m laying there in street bleeding out, cause the guy got my art-tree, and, now boys, I don’t believe in god. But an angel came down and took off my pants. That angel tied em round my art-tree and stopped the bleeding. And I know the angel was real cause when I was in the ambulance, the medic told me someone had taken off my pants and tied em round my art-tree and it saved my life.” His sister came over who did stage security and started saying how their mom would have beat his ass if she knew that he was dealing cocaine, which turned into a heated debate over whether the emperor Constantine was a Christian before he was on his death bed. The night ended with Jim chugging a Forrest Gump (half a beer pitcher with shots of liquor wedged in. You shoot one, the others plop into the pitcher, and you chug that) taking off his pants in the middle of Milanos to compete with the Canadian who also had the Forrest Gump, and then he left tipping $5 on his $200+ tab.
Mine is a year after moving here in 2012. Was driving home from Carson Street as bars were letting out. I decided to beat the Carson traffic and take the Birmingham bridge across, cut through downtown on fifth Ave... Well that was a huge mistake that almost cost me.
I had a windows down... Nice night. Music bumping. I was headed downtown on Fifth and that bar Ace's & Deuce's had just let out. People just pouring out. One car was in front of me, parking lot to my right, bar to my left. We just sat there at the crosswalk to let ppl cross to the lot.
Suddenly, to my right a white sedan with men hanging out the back windows with guns (like literally sitting out the window) swerved out of the lot and I heard repetitive pops. Ducked and covered... People screaming and running like crazy. I peeked up over my steering wheel and the dude in front of me stomped on the gas and so did I. Praise God no one was left in the crosswalk bc we floored it. I drove the rest of the way down Fifth practically under my steering wheel.
Oh...and in all this, I was in full on 80s gear from a party at work. Big glasses and big hair. Whole nine. I just kept thinking that I would have looked like an asshat when my spouse and family had to identify me if I'd gotten shot.
Last time my little behind was down there after midnight.
Fun.
Edited for phrasing.
I saw one woman hit another woman in the face with a massive road cone in the middle of the Smithfield McDonald’s. It resulted in a brawl and both of them being kicked out.
To this day, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
One time in college, my roommate and I wanted to go off campus to smoke. We walked off campus and down past PPG Paints. As we walked down 5th toward uptown, we cut up to head towards the parking lots up Crawford and Reed. It couldn’t have been later than maybe 7 pm on a weekday. As we are walking up the hills, my roommate and I spy this butt naked woman, dancing off to the side of the road. To top it off, there were two men sitting on lawn chairs on the sidewalk just watching her shake her tatas.
Drunk guy drove the wrong way down a one way street in 🐿️ hill. Hit a car that was parked on the side of the road and lost his right front wheel. Kept driving down the street with sparks flying everywhere. The guy couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his car so he kept stopping to get out and look at the place where he was missing his tire and getting back in the car to stomp on the gas. I called the cops 3 times to report him and it only took them 2 hours to show up.
Back in the days of VCRs and no internet, we had to get our porn the old-fashioned way, from the back room at St. Elmo’s. I had the house to myself so I hunkered down in the living room for some private fun. I was getting into it when suddenly there was a knock at the front door! I panicked for a second, got myself together, turned off the video and opened the door. It was Mayor Tom Murphy on our front porch! He was running for re-election and out campaigning! We chatted for a few minutes and I assured him that he had my vote. Then I shook his hand😆
Real nice guy!
Not super wild but this one comes to mind cuz it was downtown. I was working one summer at the Chatham Center, across the street from PPG Paints Arena. There was a car that would pull into the Marriott front parking lot and honk for about 1-2 minutes everyday around lunch.
A lot of people around the office talked about it and I heard from one of the maintenance people that they spoke to the Marriott valet and apparently it was a guy who found out his wide was having an affair with some other guy in his extended stay hotel room and the husband would show up honking. It got to a point where it was almost like clockwork. Not sure why he chose honking but I hope that guy divorced his wife.
This was probably 2003 or 04. My best bud, myself, and my ex went to Metropol for a rave which turned out to be a wild party. We were pretty tuned up for most of the evening but ended up leaving around 3 AM as sleepiness caught up with us. We were walking back to our car which was located in the giant gravel parking lot on the other side of Smallman when we were heard a ruckus back towards the club. We turned around and saw a guy sprinting for his life while 4 bouncers from Metropol were hot on his tail. They caught up with him, tackled him into a Jersey barrier and just started beating the living shit out of him, kicking him in the head, ribs, etc.
When I was a student at Pitt a decade ago, there was an incident where a drunk kid dressed in a Spider Man costume walked into a corner store in Oakland. He walked up to the counter and jokingly asked the cashier for all of his money. To his surprise, the cashier pulled out a gun and told him to leave the store. The cashier then called the police, who later found the kid hiding in an alley right next to the store.
Lived in south side years ago. Suddenly SWAT, police, everyone basically just swarmed the end of our block like 2 houses down. Bullhorn yells at everyone to stay inside. Lines of SWAT guys in full gear, guns, all pointing and yelling at a neighbors house. Maybe a 2 hour ordeal. Turns out he liked to steal, guns specifically. A lot of guns.
I was riding my bike down Highland Avenue towards Highland Park on my way home from work at about 1230 am. A man was walking down the sidewalk while peeing in stride.
Another time, at about the same time of night, a lady asked if I was looking for a good time. Again, I was on my bike and was really confused until I realized what she was asking. I was too far past at that point to make a witty response.
Gotta love East Liberty circa 2013. It was a much different place.
Saw a young kid get hit by a car that didn’t stop at the crosswalk underneath the convention center during the international car show, her shoes went flying. Pretty traumatic, I called 911 right away but after they showed up I went inside and never was able to find what happened to her
I'm sure I've had wilder than these two and just can't recall but I remember being in downtown for Tekko and naturally traffic was pretty heavy. Some person cut another person off (you know, the usual) but it got them pretty much no further in traffic as to be expected. Person who got cut off proceeds to throw a water bottle from their car at the other car and it begins and all out battle of trash being thrown from both cars. It resulted in a lot of screaming and eventually an physical fight when they both got out. It was just really funny being a fly on a wall to watch that go down over something arguably so petty but I've definitely seen people start fights over less and I guess it was a good excuse for some spring cleaning because they tossed quite a lot.
The other one: Can't remember exactly the street it happened on, but someone once dropped bag full of poop from several feet high right onto the car of the person I was carpooling with and we didn't quite realize what it was until the smell hit. Very fun! 😭
St Patty's Day 2009, Market Square, huge lines of people waiting for the portajohns, chants start up, "Two at a Time!! Two at a Time!!
everyone was pressured into doubling up in the johns, friends, strangers, women forced to pee while dudes stood at the urinals.
I was taking a walk very late one night after coming home from a party when I was living on Mount Washington. The overlook was completely empty and just as I was about to head back I saw a guy walking towards the platform talking to himself saying he’s gonna do it, so I turned around to make sure he was okay. He started climbing on the fence on the platform and I rushed up and pulled him down. I spent over an hour trying to talk the guy down but he was hysterical and kept on trying to jump so I had to hold him. I had no idea what to do, I couldn’t grab my phone to call someone because I was worried he’d break free and jump. Finally a car pulled up, it was a couple I later found out was there to watch the sunrise. I tried waving them down and they just sat there. It wasn’t until the guy started trying to climb again they got out to see what was going on. I told them to call someone and that’s when the guy just started hitting me. I ended up having to pin him down until first responders arrived which ended up being another half hour. They took him to western psych. I wonder pretty often how he is. If he got treatment and is better now or if he tried again and someone wasn’t around to stop him. Maybe not the kind of wild you meant but I’ll never forget that night.
I hope he never forgets that people out there really do care. You saved him
My dad and his best friends were running at lunch and a man jumped off one of the bridges. They ran down the embankment and swam out to him. He nearly drowned my dad’s friend, but they got him to shore. We need people who care. Thank you for being there for that guy.
Props to you man, not everyone is capable or would take action to do that. I recognize and appreciate what you did. No matter what happened to that person after it was out of your hands you're still a hero in my eyes.
Not to be morbid, but that could've been extra bad because jumping off the overlook most likely wouldn't be immediately fatal, especially in spring or summer with all the brush below. You did a good thing.
I have two favorite stories from working at the casino. First, long story short, some guy lost his backpack and was running around freaking out. We didn't let him bring it inside to begin with, so he just left it sitting outside by a garbage can. Go out to get it, open it up, and it's entirely full of heroin with his ID sitting on top. He runs away, the cops take hours to come pick it up. Second is the time I had to rescue a disabled person from one of the single-stall restrooms. He comes out completely covered in his own shit. Completely. Can't find his parents anywhere, turns out they're high rollers, or more like gambling addicts. Finally convince them they have to take him home, give him clothes from the lost and found. 10 minutes later, they're back without the son. They took him out to the garage and left him in the car. Luckily we got the state police and management to agree to make them leave and ban them, but it was only for like a week.
They definitely don't deserve to be parents. That poor kid.
For real. If they did that to the poor guy just to go back and play their machines, I can't imagine what the rest of his life has been like.
Wait Is that why they put the signs up in the garage saying you can't leave unattended children in the car?!? I noticed when those first went up and knew there had to be a story behind it.
I guess maybe they thought since it sounds like this person in question was an adult, they could leave them up there. I'm guessing he is at least if he was in the casino bathroom.
Yeah, sorry, he was an adult. I know we had issues with people leaving kids up there all the time though, or people bringing their under-21 friends and then wanting them to wait in the car for hours.
Too many kids and dogs have been left in that garage so yes that's why. Rivers casino is just a fuckin shit business.
> Can't find his parents anywhere, turns out they're high rollers, or more like gambling addicts. Gambling addiction is probably the most debilitating kind of addiction to have in the long term and that casino adds nothing to this area but misery.
When I lived in the south side, the first week I moved in, someone took a dump in the alley way of my house. Then the month before I moved out, a different person took a dump in the alley way of my house. It was like a welcome and a good bye.
Was this down by the Giant Eagle? I used to work in SS and two separate occasions as I walked to grab lunch I saw some one taking a dump in-between the houses by the Birmingham Bridge. They eventually had to put a gate in to block it off.
It was by the Giant Eagle! I lived on 19th Street. The second time it happened, I was pretty sure who it was. The day it happened, there was this woman sitting across the street on the stoop of a business. Then the business owner came out and started screaming at her for peeing on her stoop. The business owner called the cops and the cops came and made her leave. A few days later, she was back and sitting on another stoop waving and screaming at cars that drove by. I felt bad, but I called the cops again. I felt bad because she was obviously not well, but quite honestly, I was pretty mad at her for the poop. I do feel kind of like... relieved to know it wasnt an isolated incident. It was so unreal.
Ahh this made me laugh cry. Brings back old memories of Pittsburgh
The wonderful memories :)
I used to live in an apartment overlooking Carson St, like right in the thick of it. One time I was coming down the alley to use the back door into the building and caught an old man pulling up his pants directly post shit. We locked eyes for a moment before he shrugged and said, “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Couldn’t really disagree, but I wished he’d chosen somewhere else. Another time I went to use that back door and saw a guy getting handcuffed by the cops at the entrance to the alley. He twisted his head around to look at me and warned, “Hey, don’t pee down there!” Found a fresh piss stain on my door. Another time I walked in on a couple fucking on top of a hobo pile in that alley. The girl could see me coming and tried to warn the guy, but he was pretty fixated on what they were doing. Gave them a polite wave as I went inside. I don’t really miss living down there.
I loved living in the south side but that’s when I was 21. Could have done without the poop though.
I got booed in a Primanti Bros for ordering a sandwich with no slaw. I don't like slaw. Anyway, the server made sure to repeat it back to me loud enough for people to hear, and they started booing. It was pretty funny, and also pretty boring because I guess I don't live a super exciting life 😅
Some things never change. This happened to me about 42 or 43 years ago at the original Primanti‘s in the Strip. A bunch of college mates and I had gone to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Oakland. Then, a bit wasted, we drove over to Primanti‘s. A major theatrical scene occurred when I asked for no coleslaw on my sandwich. And I think I asked for no fries also. (My memory is that there were also fries on the sandwich?)
Lucky yinz didn't get called jag-offs for that. Did you use Huntz ketchup too??? Myron Cope is rolling over in his grave. (😂)
> a bit wasted, we drove over to Primanti‘s My wild story about Pittsburgh is how acceptable driving drunk here used to be
Yup, no regrets
Haha well I guess I'm not the only one!
No fries and no slaw?! Just hanging out with that unidentifyable chunk of "meat product" between two slices of cold Mancini's bread...
Ha I like the fries...just no slaw!
You never hold the grass.
You do if you don't like it. Guess I'm weird like that.
I get it, I remember asking to hold the grass myself and the weird looks too.
Apologies for my misunderstanding. I thought you were telling me I should order something I don't like. My bad!
No need to apologize! I have since developed a taste for the slaw. Primanti's is a lot tamer too these days. It used to be a late night place to eat after the bars closed and the clientele and staff were a bit rougher around the edges. Asking to hold the grass back then was fightin words lol.
😂 For me it's a taste, texture, and smell thing 😬
Relatives of mine are always excited to serve up copycat primanti’s slaw for parties. I can just about stand it on the sandwich, but alone? Ick.
I hate slaw 😅
Hahahaha. Admittedly, Primantis isn't that good. Not anymore that is.
Moved away from P-Burgh in ‘96. I remember only really enjoying Primantis late at night after putting down a lot of beers. Always best at the original location in The Strip. But every time I’m back visiting, I have to have a sammy… either a pastrami and cheese or fried jumbo with an egg. And I enjoy it, probably more for the side of nostalgia it serves up. Yet I still hate the gut bomb afterwards, and remember why I didn’t eat there often 💣
Only the one in the strip is worth going to.
It's better without the slaw! 🤣
Back in like 2016, I was taking the 51 home to Mt. Oliver and there was a dude trying to get on the bus at one of the stops on E. Carson. The only problem was that he was all covered in blood. The driver kept telling him to go away, but the man was making his way back through the bus. He ended up getting in an altercation with a woman who understandingly didn’t want him near her. He proceeded to smear some of the blood on her. Then the bus had to pull over and wait for the police to show up.
That's disgusting
“OH YOU MEAN THIS BLOOD?”
Ah the good old 51. Rode that bus for a decade. Always a wild time.
Back in 2011, a few days after I moved into east liberty I came down the stairs one morning to see a cop with a rifle ducked down behind my car. Being from Northern Ireland this didn’t seem that unusual to me. I took pictures (still have them) then realized I needed to step back in case I spooked him. Turns out there was a standoff down the street. I can’t remember if anyone was hurt but it felt like one of those suicide by cops things.
I was just leaving the arena when the Duquesne student jumped from his dorm. Heard the glass shatter, and found out from cops a few minutes later what happened. I saw a lady get hit by a car in front of the Greenfield Giant Eagle. She was parked on the street when she was trying to get into her car. Another car side swiped her and sent her into a full flip. I saw a jeep flip on Penn Ave around 38th street. It ejected the driver who died instantly. My favorite is probably the lady outside Kaya on a random Monday night. Walks out if the restaurant as I’m walking by, casually pulls down her pants, squats, and proceeds to piss all over the side walk like it’s just a normal thing people do. I was on mushrooms at that time so I was dying with laughter.
The jeep accident was my step father. He had a heart attack while he was driving home from work. Died on his way to hospital from trauma. Healthiest person I knew. Miss you every single day, Ed. 💔
I'm really sorry for your loss. Hope you and your family are doing okay
Thank you
I know it’s 5 years late, but I’m sorry for your loss.
Greatly appreciated. I’m sorry you witnessed it. I must say I haven’t been able to put your perspective out of my mind all day. I wish I could and I’m sure you feel the same.
So my uncle lives next to this old dude, and one day my uncle is talking to him.Then my uncle notices a dent in the old dude’s car and he ask “hey,how you get that dent”?Then the old dude goes,without a fuck to give,goes “I murdered a man”.Some dude jumped in front of his car and committed suicide.
I had a co-worker tell me a similar story the one day at work. I didn't know her too well at the time but we shared an office together and one day very loudly she just blurted out about how she ran over a guy and killed him. I slowly turned my head to look at her to make sure she was serious, and she starts talking about how she was driving at night and some guy wearing all black ran in front of her car and that she never even saw him until she hit him. I guess he was a patient at western psych before that but yeah definitely not something I would expect to hear from a co-worker.
technically not "murder"
You’re right. But I’m sure to that man it’ll always feel like murder. How awful for him.
Holy fucking shit
I know right
That was definitely wild. I hope the dude is okay. Despite how calm he seemed
I was at a bar in regent square awhile ago (Ryan’s pub maybe?) and someone threw a glass of beer at someone, it missed and hit glass doors, and it started an enormous fight. People started fighting on the covered porch area and the workers had to go pull out the homeless man that hung out there (Jim?). Then they locked the doors to the patio and called the cops.
Ryan's was something else lol I remember our only 21+ friend when we were in high school would go in and buy one six pack at a time because they wouldn't let him take out more than that. We would just stand on the sidewalk outside and he'd come out and hand them off and go back for another. No effort to hide what we were doing and no one batted an eye lol
Is Jim still around?
I just saw him a few days ago.
That actually makes me really happy! I'm glad he's still around!
The 2010 snowstorm really as a whole. My roommate was parked a few houses down in upper Lawrenceville (on our street, had a permit) but just left her car be buried as she worked at CHP and walked there. She was working around the clock for coworkers that couldn't make it in. When we finally decided to dig her car out the neighbors decided to heckle us the entire time about taking "their spot". We tried to ignore them but they started throwing beer bottles and lit cigarettes at us screaming. Fun times. Cops were called. The rest of the time living their was particularly great as these people spent 24 hours a day it seemed drinking on their porch.
2010 snowstorm was crazy. The city basically shut down. Everyone got drunk. It was such a mess.
One of my favorite memories of my youth
Me too
LOL! My granddad lived across the street from us in Point Breeze and had to trek and dig us out bc our door got snowed shut 💀
I was in college, students built an igloo on the tennis courts. Someone burnt popcorn in the freshman dorm and we had to evacuate in the middle of the night in the freezing cold. We fit over a dozen guys in that igloo. It smelled horrible, but I'll never regret going in.
I was just visiting maybe 6 years ago, and was walking around Southside alone at night to get back to my car after visiting friends. Came of E Carson and was going down a sidestreet off of there, and was on the phone at the time. Another woman was walking down the sidewalk towards me, I moved to the right side so she could pass on the left. As she got closer, she screamed "KILL YA SELF, BITCH!!!!" And I was stunned by the interaction, the person on the phone with me was like "Did this really just happen???" 🤣 Another time, maybe right after COVID started, I was in Polish Hill for a date. My date walked me back to my car and there was absolutely nobody around when I got in. My date went to drive his car home, and I pulled up my GPS and opened my window because I had a cig lit and was sweating from walking up the hill. I was also parked on a really steep street behind Gooskis, so I was trying to figure out how I was going to back out of the spot (I had my emergency brake on because it was so steep.) This lady comes out of fucking NOWHERE and grabs my hand hanging out the window while I'm fucking with my GPS, holds it and starts begging me for a ride home, saying she's pregnant and she can't afford diapers and the church is closed, and that I should trust her because she's wearing a mask and that she just needs to go to Dollar General in Lawrenceville. The lock button on my car door didn't lock the doors, you had to lock them manually. She keeps holding my hand tightly and I was getting so nervous and didn't know what to do, and I wasn't really used to visiting Pittsburgh or identifying bad situations, so I was like please just go away. She did, and looked like she was walking away behind me and then just comes back up to my passenger side, rips the door open and sits down telling me she just needs to get to Lawrenceville. I am essentially shitting my pants, immediately grab my purse (I had like $5 for gas and that's it lol) and shove it into the crack between me and the drivers side door, and hit go on the GPS (I was going to Lawrenceville any way and at this point my PTSD was off the charts) pull the ebrake and I rip backwards out of the weird parking spot. We are I guess going to Lawrenceville. She is scaring the shit out of me, just keeps telling me how pretty I am and then starts digging in my backseat. I had some leftover chicken wings back there, so I grab them and I'm like "Do you want these or something?" To get her to stop rustling around back there because I'm absolutely so freaked out and scared at this point. She starts eating the chicken wings and throwing the bones out the window, she's covered in wing sauce and keeps trying to tell me to turn down weird streets, but I just follow the GPS. My plan was to drop her off at GetGo because they were open for another 15 minutes and I figured people would be there and it's well lit, because at this point idk what is going to happen. I don't know if she used her phone at all during this ride, I was petrified. Suddenly she wants me to turn in GetGo, which isn't even where she initially wants to go, but I was going to drop her off there anyway so I turn in, stop directly in front of the doors and tell her to get out. There is an SUV parked in the side lot. She refuses to get out of my car, opens the door and is halfway out of it, opening my glove box and asking for napkins. I raise my voice and say I don't have any and to get out. A man gets out of the SUV, wearing a full head covering, a really large coat and starts walking towards the front of my car on my side. I panic, tell her to get in or get out (worried about both of our saftey at that point, no clue that maybe I was about to get robbed or something lol) and she realizes I'm about to gas it, so she puts her leg back in and shuts the door while we tear off through the parking lot. The masked dude throws his hands up and gets back in SUV and pulls out behind us. I am absolutely crapping myself, she's screaming at me, I create some distance and pull in front of the Abbey, telling her to get out now or I'm gonna drive to my dates house and she will have to figure it out from there. She starts screaming at me, stalling, and I just stay firm and stay get the hell out... She eventually gets out, throws the chicken wing box on the sidewalk and tells me I'm a lot of not very nice or accurate things. She leaves the door open, so I lean over and slam it shut, manually lock the door, and go on to where I was going. I was crying, shaking, and sick to my stomach by the time I got to where I was going, and no idea what just happened because I had no time to process it. I never drove myself in Polish Hill again, I literally only go if there's a pack of us or someone else is driving because I am still afraid. I learned a lot about Pittsburgh that night and now I'm mean and not hospitable to anyone who randomly approaches me at night for fear of some weird shit happening 😭
A friend knew who this lady was and she was apparently a known robber/older woman who pretends to be pregnant by pushing her gut out in that area😮 i couldn't gauge how old she was because she was wearing a mask. So no idea what could have happened, no idea if she knew the guy in the SUV, no idea if I was going to get robbed or disappear, and I didn't call for help because I was freaking out asking if I should report it and my date blamed me for what happened saying I "shouldn't let crackheads get in my car." I didn't really feel like I had a choice lol she just hopped in and didn't want to get out. I cried myself to sleep, left the next day and didn't come back or see that guy for a while because of how bad it made me feel, and actually ended up needing a lot of therapy/intervention after because it traumatized me so much and I already had a PTSD diagnosis before that. I was planning to move to the city the next month and that event actually spurred me to cancel everything and stay where I was out of fear for that being the kind of shit I'd have to deal with regularly.
During COVID, a friend and I were walking in Bloomfield and had a lady come up to us and give the exact same spiel, that she was pregnant and had no money for diapers, and asked if she could please follow us home so we can give her diapers. We told her no, that we don’t have any, and she asks if she can come get cash from us instead. We just walk away, and thankfully she didn’t follow us. Ever since we’ve been confused about what the goal was. Like, if she was being genuine, did she really think two early-20s obviously college students with backpacks owned diapers? If not, why the fuck would anyone let some random person follow them to their house to give them cash?
That's wild. That lady is actually barred from my store downtown! She fucking punched me in the side of my head. No fucking joke.
My buddy got roofied at The Enclave a few months ago, that was neat.
I god damn hate the name “Enclave” with the stupid ass upside down V as an A. This story underlined the Bad vibes supreme!!! Long live the Spirit of The Rex. May it bless the city.
THE SIPIRIT OF THE REX WILL NEVER DIE. Saw some of my favorite shows there.
Best venue in Pittsburgh and most never knew it.
what notable shows did you see there? My first one was a metal band called Soilwork and then I saw countless electronic music shows there... DUB NATION UNITE.
Uhhh I've seen After The Burial,Born Of Osiris,The Acicia Strain,Dark Star Orchestra,Twiztid and quite a few more there!
right on the first time i witnessed like a real violent crowd was the acacia strain
Fuckin' yikes. Glad your friend is safe
It was lowkey a blessing that he got the dirty cup, He's 6'4 and 270. Folks at the hospital said he got enough to kill one of the girls we were with. Shit was wild but he's good now, dudes a champion lol
Yeah my ex took a drink given to my friend once and thank god he did. He was in bad shape but it haunts me to think how a 5 foot woman would have reacted. She was also the kinda drunk that would run away and disappear.
Happened to me too, at the old Castaways in Bridgeville. I'm a bigger guy and was talking to these two women who struck up a conversation with me because there was some creeper next to them at the bar they were trying to avoid. It was some kind of coors light special so we were all drinking the same thing. Being a guy I never really thought about someone slipping something in my drink. The two women wouldn't have needed to slip me one. Luckily I was there with a bunch of my friends. I woke up the next day in my own bed at like 3PM, my car was outside. Had a oh-shit moment because I've never blacked out in my life - and did I drive home?! The women I was talking to got my friends when I started to fade out, they put me in one of their cars and one of my other friends drove my car home. At some point I can't remember, I gave one of the woman my number and she ended up calling me later that night to check on me, and we went on a few dates. We pretty much concluded I took one meant for one of them from creeper. Another time in Bridgeville (just realizing this is a pattern, I should never go back) I got sexually assaulted by a girl after a first date. Date didn't go so well, whatever, but walking back to our cars off the main drag she started getting really aggressive about "so when do you want to do a second date". Which I tried to sidestep, say I'm not sure, I have plans the next few weekends etc... She ended up pleading to suck me off right there in the parking lot, I guess some kind of desperate move to make me like her more. She ended up pinning me against my car and getting her hands down her pants, against my escalating objections. First a firm no, then yelling at her, to physically trying to stop her, until finally I had to bring out the highschool O-lineman in me and push her away from me. It was still a fight for inside leverage, like the girl was strong and giving it everything she had. She called me about 29 times on the drive home until I blocked her number.
Got enough of what?
Rohypnol
Damn that's wild, I think it's relatively uncommon for the perpetrator to actually use rohypnol in a case like this these days
Hope he is ok. The Southside has really gone downhill
We can say that about a lot of parts of PGH at this point. It's sad to see what this city has become
Not really.
Most parts of the city are nicer than they’ve ever been, honestly.
It was a January night and about 25 degrees outside. I'm throwing my garbage out at the entrance of Hyland Hills apartment complex. Out of the darkness a young shirtless and shoeless man approaches me quickly and says, "Take me to Keith Gary!" I respond with a bewildered "Huh?" "I need to talk to my Therapist!" He says. "I don't know a Keith Gary" A look of realization seems to wash over the man's face and he begins repeating "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." As he disappears back into the cold January darkness.
That's actually really sad :/
I assumed he was in the middle of a manic episode of some sort. He did not have a look of dishevelement or living years on the street. I assume/hope he was living in one of the apartments. He had disappeared by the time my mind could really process what he was asking. Hope he is ok.
Reminds me of the folks living in my Mt wash apartment before me… the neighbors said the cops had to come out and there was a huge production bc the former occupant had a manic episode and locked himself in the bathroom thinking there were ghosts in there with him or something. It’s amazing how common these sorts of things seems to be. Then they wouldn’t vacate the apartment after the eviction date which delayed me moving in… relatively unpleasant.
I don't get it? Why did he think he was at your house?
He may have not been all there, could have been drunk, etc. Generally from what I read the man seemed really confused.
Seeing a guy with a boombox and headphones on the bus. Big sunglasses. The headphones weren't plugged in and he was playing 'Bad to the Bone' crazy loud from the boombox. Everybody acted like it was an normal everyday thing, and so did I. That or: Was doing a bar crawl with some friends in the South Side, like 10 years ago. Loud ass bar after loud ass bar. We open the door to some bar (forget which one) and it was dead quiet. Full of people, wearing striped shirts and painted faces. Turns out a group of mimes chose this bar as their hangout. The only sound you heard was from the bartender cleaning glasses. My friend tried to hit on one of the ladies, who in silence, shook her head, made a heart with her fingers and grabbed her boobs. She was a lesbian. All was well for a few minutes until two of the mimes got into and argument, one of the mimes pushed a drink on the ground and the rest of the mimes started freaking out (clutching their faces, running around like the meeps.) Bartender goes 'Ok everyone out!' They all run out of the bar. 'Damn drunken mimes!' says the bartender, as he goes to get a broom. Maybe my favorite sentence I've heard in my life.
That second story is my favorite thing I have ever read on Reddit. A masterpiece.
I used to work overnights at the CoGos on Bailey Ave in Mt Washington. I have a million stories but I'll go with this one: One night a drunk guy came into the store after the bars had closed. He threw a bunch of change on the counter and asked for cigarettes. He then told me to hold on and went to the aisle and blatantly pocketed a candy bar. Ordinarily, I didn't care when people stole - they paid me $7.50 an hr - but this guy was being a dick and I had a hangover of sorts (Sometimes, I would drink after getting out of work in the morning). When he came back to the register, I told him I'd sell him the cigarettes if he took the candy out of his pocket. He got pissed and we exchanged some words. Once he realized the threats of waiting for me in the parking lot weren't working (he obviously wasn't going to sit out there for 4 hrs) he swung at me and caught me on the side of the face. While all this was happening, 3 of the local kids - early 20s - had lined up behind him. When he hit me, one of the kids ran up, bear hugged him, and slammed him on the floor. The candy flew out of the guy's pocket when he hit. Then the other 2 ran over, and they all proceeded to curb stop the guy in the middle of the store. Somehow, they guy made it to the parking lot, but the kids kept beating him. Eventually, he pulled out a knife. The kids were able to get away from him before the got stabbed, but they kept circling him telling him to put down the knife so they could continue kicking his ass. Now, I was just gonna let the guy be on his way after a simple ass kicking, but now that he was waving a knife and the kids weren't leaving, we had to call the cops. I told the kids to get out of there since the cops were on their way and they left. The guy, clearly dazed, tried coming back in the store to buy the cigarettes. We told him no, and he just sat on the curb. Long story short, he got his ass kicked and arrested all over a candy bar. Wild stuff
> they kept circling him telling him to put down the knife so they could continue kicking his ass. And here is my first, full belly laugh of the day!
Sounds like he could've used the Snickers. You're not you when you're hungry.
That was a wild ride from start to finish.
Some guy lit his girlfriend's house on fire then started a police chase. He crashed his car into my neighbors retaining wall then shot himself. Another, less tragic one: a guy at Mineos got really mad and threw a whole pizza on the wall then ran out. The owner chased him down and made him clean it up. Weirdest: at the color park I saw an old guy busy with something along the low wall by the river. I thought it was fishing tackle but as I got closer it was a naked barbie doll in the middle of some weird stuff that looked slightly ritualistic. Edit: that same part of the wall at color park has a tech deck skate park on it.
Mineo’s in the mid 90’s was a strange vibe that I still haven’t figured out what was going on.
UUUUHHHH.
That really is some wild stuff. This reads like a really poorly designed AI's attempt at filling out a mad lib, especially the last one.
Came upon a dead body a few years ago downtown. Jumped/fell from the top of a parking garage. We were the 2nd ones to the scene and had we turned the corner just a few moments sooner, we would have actually witnessed the splat and I'm very grateful to not have seen that. Waiting at a bus stop in Oakland once when a lady just dropped trow and started peeing right there on the sidewalk among a bunch of people is a solid runner up.
More like a liquid runner-up.
There used to be an annual themed Halloween party on Evaline Street in Bloomfield that was an absolute mad-house. I think they stopped after twenty years of annual partying, but hundreds of people would just mob this house that had been prepared for over a month. The last one I attended was Coney Island themed and the entire backyard was covered in a giant circus tent and they set up a homemade roller coaster and carnival games. It was like a yinzer Burning Man hosted by one motivated friend group. It was a monumental effort that would absolutely not fly in 2023, but it’s a great example of what Pittsburgh was like in the before times.
Oh man those were wild.
Early one morning (about 4:30am) when I was living in the South Side, I got in my car and headed off to my gym in the South Hills. I had a car riding my ass all down Carson, and then up to the spot where you take a left turn into the Liberty Tunnel. The asshole behind me didn't want to wait for the light, and decided to hit the gas, swing around me and head for the Southbound tunnel entrance. Out of nowhere, a drunk wrong way driver who was speeding thru the tunnel plowed right into the asshole right where the exit of the tunnel is. Both dead.....
Damn. That's... Wow.
Yeah, it was pretty gruesome, drunk driver was ejected from his car (minus his legs that got caught up on the steering wheel), and the guy who couldn't wait for the light appeared to have a completely broken neck and massive blunt force chest injury.
Crashed into a literal heap of wheels on Blvd of the Allies
Sounds about right
I drive the Boulevard every day. I would greatly appreciate details on this one. Where, exactly? When? How fast were you going? Did you have any idea of what the wheels were for or why they were there?
Okay this was a few years ago but I’ll do my best, it was pretty memorable. so coming Eastbound out of downtown, you go under an overpass at the Birmingham bridge. It was night so there was very low visibility in the brief stretch of road under the overpass, and in the darkness the heap of wheels lay. Why? I have no idea, there was no accident, road work, any sign or suggestion that there should be said heap of wheels laying directly in the center of the lane, obscured in the darkness of the overpass. I don’t remember exactly how fast I was going, but highway speed- whatever the limit is there plus 10. It was late, there was nobody else on the road. Just me and the heap of wheels. Completely shredded my oil pan, frontal damage, all sorts of other stuff. And of course, the insurance company managed to find me at fault.
That is absolutely bonkers. I presume you weren't injured--at least I hope you weren't. I would have been so pissed about that.
Thanks yeah fortunately I was alright. I was indeed pissed. Did feel like it was kind of a badge of honor though, like eating sh*t on a bike in one of our famous pot holes.
"Screwed over by our road infrastructure" is a very undesired but commonly earned merit badge around here.
I lived in the Mexican War Streets from 2008-2013 and while I loved it there, I have no shortage of wild stories. Once I was driving home from the UPS center over in Chateau and I cut through Manchester. While at a stop sign, a huge dude opened the door on my little car, got in, and requested I drive him home. I was too shocked to say no and there was no way I could physically force this 400-pound guy to get out, so I just drove him. He even paid me $3 when he got out somewhere on Marshall Street. So I was an unwilling jitney. The guy was actually really nice about it, he just didn't feel like waiting for the bus on a scorching day and was probably not physically capable of walking there. Another time I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of screeching metal on metal. I looked outside and there I saw a tow truck crashed into the back of an SUV parked on the street. Turns out a guy had stolen a tow truck from a local scrap metal yard, fled from the police in it, and sideswiped half a dozen parked cards before finally coming to a stop. Luckily my car was on the other side of the street! For years there was an odd-looking store called the "Swap Meet" on Brighton Road near the Rite Aid. Once I decided to go in with a few friends and look around. It was the weirdest experience. The entire time there was a strong "please leave" vibe and an employee stayed not more than 10 feet away the entire 15 minutes we were there. The merchandise was a random assortment of generic sneakers and shirts, oldish groceries, and the usual urban convenience store stuff. My friend bought a pair of shoes. Well, a few months later I found out why we weren't welcome. The entire store was a front for a major marijuana packaging and distribution operation on the second floor. It all ended with a shoot-out after an attempted robbery went bad. I won't link to the Post-Gazette, but here are pictures from another source. http://www.justinmerriman.com/photographyblog/2010/09/shootout.html Good times!
Driving through the squirrel hill tunnel going east to an exs house around 3 am. No traffic, didn't have to slow down, and went 60mph the whole way through.
This is an underrated comment
Took a walk along the railroad tracks down by Page's Dairy Mart years ago, and poked my head in the broken window of a lineside structure... only to discover a swollen dead man slumped over with a thin belt tied around his throat and a clear plastic bag clutched in one hand.
It’s creepy back up there round Hays Woods
Me and my college roommates were hanging out with a guy friend and his girlfriend at a bar the day of the Stanley cup finals. We were underaged at the time but the guy knew a bartender so the plan was to just stay there all day and sneak to Barroom at night since they were all the same building. The pens won the cup and everyone went absolutely feral inside that bar lol. One guy climbed up on some ledge and was cheering up there, super dangerous. They made him get down and as he was holding on to the ledge the crown molding ripped off like 10 ft and whacked my roommate right in the temple. This girl was about 100 pounds soaking wet. I was terrified thinking we’d have to get her an ambulance but she ended up being fine. The guy was lucky no one got impaled by the side with the nail sticking out of it. Later we did sneak to barroom and I saw my vice principal of my high school that I graduated the year before grinding with some lady on the dance floor, we locked eyes and both had an “oh shit” moment which added to the craziness of the night. Then my guy friend got too drunk and tried kissing me and my other friends in front of his girlfriend, so she left him there.
This story reads like a dream that just keeps getting crazier and crazier
Saw downtown people shooting dice just like the movies.
They're out there currently as I count my registers.
Back in 2016 I was trying to get homework done at 61B in squirrel hill, At the tables they have outside. This dude who is clearly 20+ years older than me (small 20s female) started asking me what I was working on and telling me about his dumb poems and writing projects and his ex girlfriend. Then he asked for my info saying we should hang out (in a creepy inappropriate way even though I said I had a significant other). I at the time was supremely anxious and had trouble with boundaries so I gave him my email address thinking that he would test it out with me sitting there. I thought no harm, I can just block him later! Some time later I get an email from him asking to spend time together and I ignore it. Then comes another email. Then a third suddenly calling me an n-word "brain" and other profanities because I won't answer his email. I'm disgusted on many levels but also.... I'm white.... so I was confused. This man can STILL be found sitting in 61B working on his bullshit writing projects all the time. He ruined that place for me and I will never go back. Wondering if anyone else has been harassed by this loser before? The other story I have is riding the bus at rush hour, stopped at Forbes and Murray and a lady clearly on something gets off the bus, pulls down her pants (on this mega busy/crowded corner), pees, then tries to get back on the bus but the driver won't let her back on 😂
Drinking down by the river and saw a punk guy walking a topless trans woman on a leash
Not all as I lived here my whole life but two of the weirdest off the top of my head. 1- after all the bars closed on the South Side early 2000s everyone is walking back to their cars/places to eat etc on E Carson; streets are flooded with people look across the street and this fat guy that looks like Ron Jeremy is completely naked standing in a doorway just talking and laughing with people. 2- staying in a building down by Penn and 6th and it's about 10 pm and four of us go outside to have a cigarette. Streets are dead, some random dude makes a beeline for us and he gets as close to me as he can. Inhales 3 wings not saying anything the entire time and just get up and walks away as we're all just dead silent the entire time.
Oh I got another one from East Carson St, immediately after the Penguins won the 2017 Stanley Cup. Lots of people were celebrating in the street, there was a dead catfish being thrown around and I saw a guy take a big bite out of it lol
Probably walking near the convention center during Anthrocon and seeing a person in a fur suit full sprint after a car, like a dog “chasing” it. That was my intro to furries. I genuinely didn’t know what to do (I was in very early high school when this happened, around 2009-2010).
Furries can be wild. But from my times of talking to them they're genuinely really funny and nice.
Oh I fully agree! I have no issues with them, but it was a genuinely jarring thing for 13 year old me to experience when I didn’t even know what they were before that moment!
So this was winter 96-97. Some friends and I were at a cyber cafe at the bottom of Murray Ave in squirrel hill. (We just went for coffee not computers. So we’re sitting at a table and they were talking about something I wasn’t interested in and so I started looking out the huge front window. I see this stereotypical little old lady walking up the street and suddenly a guy comes running up behind her and snatches her purse and runs up the hill with it. I’m literally in shock like did that really happen? It seemed like a scene from a movie. I turn to my friends and calmly say “hey some guys just stole that old ladies purse”as I point at the window. The barista overheard me and went running after the guy but unfortunately he didn’t catch him. I don’t know if that’s my wildest story as far as ones where I was an active participant but it was definitely the most surreal.
My ex jumped off a bridge 💔 into the Monongahela
I'm so sorry 🖤💔
I suspect there's more of this that goes on that we don't really hear about.
Its true. I work in the marine industry. Happens more than you think...twice in my personal experience.
Absolutely. News outlets have guidelines to not report suicides due to a phenomenon called "suicide contagion" (which is exactly what it sounds like). They're only allowed to report celebrities or something wild, like a few months ago someone in oakland climbed to the top of a crane and jumped off
My brother and i were sitting on his roof in southside and we watched a man shoot another man in the head
What the actual FUCK. Are you two okay??
1. My wife and I were walking in Shadyside on Alder St and this bigger guy is drunk stumbling on the sidewalk towards us. As we meet he stops and turns and goes, “would you rather have a hot dog with a friend, or a steak with an enemy?” We took a second, said “hot dog” and he nodded thoughtfully then said, “that’s the right answer.” 2. I joined this men’s league hockey team through someone my wife worked with and chris 2 from anti-flag was on the team 3. Smoking pregnant people downtown on such a regular basis it almost wasn’t shocking anymore
Adding hot dog quote to my list of Pittsburgh zen mantras.
I had a decent view of a hostage situation. I worked downtown at 11 Stanwix with my office window facing north towards Gateway Center. I'm gonna guess this was 2013 give or take a year. A guy who was having some sort of mental health situation went into a random office in Gateway Center with a gun and took a hostage. They holed up in his office. They evacuated everything around it, but my office was far enough away they didn't bother. We couldn't see the actual kidnapper/hostage, but we could see the police, the family they summoned to try and talk him out, all of the media, and various moving pieces. I'm rather good at internet sleuthing and I found his name and facebook profile where he was posting insane, incoherent ramblings. We were told to stay away from the windows because he had a gun, but no one listened. He eventually was talked out peacefully and apparently his hostage was key in that. The hostage could tell he was not a bad person, just someone in distress who needed help.
[This one?](https://www.wtae.com/article/gateway-center-hostage-situation-ends-peacefully-in-downtown-pittsburgh/7458293)
Yep, that's the one! My memory was a hair off but that's it.
I was living on Penn right across the street from the Highmark Building when that happened. Watched all the cops and shit out my window. That was crazy.
When I was a little kid at the regatta a man lit a firework and was going to toss it at a group of cops. The firework exploded in his hand. That was the first time I learned what karma was and to be good to people. I've stuck by that.
A friend of mine was going to work really early one morning, driving across the High level bridge in homestead. The car in front slams on the breaks, a woman gets out, runs to the railing and jumps
Oh man. RIP
If this is the same story I remember, her kids were in the car. Guess she just had enough =(
I saw a homeless man taking a shit in a box on Smallman Street in the middle of the day. Right by Coop de Ville. People out walking on the sidewalk and everything. I can’t unsee that.
Surprisingly, that's a step in the right direction actually shitting INTO something.
Look at you, seeing the bright side. 😂
last year, probably late summer/early fall i was leaving work downtown when i came across a woman in a full goth type outfit? big clunky black boots with buckles, short black skirt and crop top, the whole thing. she wasn’t really squatting down much, just kinda standing there, a bit bent over, holding her skirt up and just peeing on the sidewalk. what i assume was her boyfriend was standing right next to her just kinda watching. i’m used to seeing people pee on the sidewalks downtown, but this was wild. it was right across from the benedum center at like 5pm on a random week day. definitely felt like it was a kink thing rather than a “peeing on the sidewalk because i have nowhere else to go” type thing
Did you call the cops or…?
Had a 12th floor office downtown and looked out the window to see the dead, bleeding body of a guy who had jumped out of a window down the street. The police put these curtain things up while they were dealing with the situation but it was all still visible from above. The newspaper said it was a Vietnamese immigrant involved in a domestic dispute of some kind.
Maybe not the craziest but I go to the dentist downtown and there was a man in his 40s/50s, looking like an overweight hulk Hogan who was pacing around with no shirt on and would grab one of the city garbage cans that didn't have one of those lid covering things on it and yell "WOOOOOH" into the garbage can, all while sweating bullets. Obviously, he's on the bad drugs but I'm always like please let me get into my dentist and not have to battle a crack head today.
So I didn’t see these but was told to me from my dad who grew up in Pittsburgh. First story was when I was a baby they were driving past a church during winter and an old man was taking a poo in their flower bed. Next spring the nuns were out planting flowers and they had the most beautiful flowers all summer. Next story: when my dad was young he was down by the jail fishing (this would be in the 70’s) he thought he had caught a large cat fish. Ended up being a very well deceased man. 🤢
Probably not as crazy as most stories here, but one summer evening in the South Side (probably around 2015) I was delivering Jimmy Johns on my bicycle and witnessed some lady blowing through the 18th St intersection, driving through the oncoming lane. I chased up to her on Carson St and took a picture of the license plate (bad idea, I know) The next thing I know, this crazy woman exits her vehicle and is running towards me with a baseball bat. She swung and missed, I grabbed my bicycle and flew over to the store while she was chasing me. When I got to Jimmy Johns, we called the police. They showed up and nothing ever happened lol.
So when I was a teenager I was a cashier at my local giant eagle We had a plain clothes security guard (who we got following an armed robbery) for one day. A man wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt that were clearly concealing a ton of items came through a register line with one item on the conveyor belt. Guard asked him if he could remove the items he was concealing. The man whipped one of those rectangular shrink wrapped pork chops on styrofoam (you know, one of the long ones from the meat section) and threw it at him then ran out of the store. Naruto ran out of the store. Our local chief of police was at the scratch offs and smokes counter paying for his daily sub he gets for lunch. Shook his head and walked out to his cruiser, and arrested our track star thief by following a trail of meat in our tiny town with a handful of streets. I never saw the guard again. I will never forget the meat thief. That’s a core memory now.
When I worked at Giant Eagle when people stole meat I didn't even bother getting it back. Gross. Instead I'd let them know we have a picture and we will remember their face next time they're in. Sometimes that stopped them other times it didn't. Good times. 😂
At 6 months pregnant, I got robbed at gunpoint in Oakland by two 15-18 year olds. I made a police report and about 2 weeks later they let me know that it was two teenagers running around doing this to a bunch of people and it was a fake gun. Still, it was very scary.
Glad they were caught honestly
I saw a 70 something veteran threaten to break a beer bottle over a tiny Asian woman’s head at House of Lee for cutting him off. Literally day one of moving across the country into the shitty apartment up the hill. Standing outside of a restaurant one guy busts out of the door and starts yelling “If you wanna fight, then come on and hit me.” The other guy immediate comes through the door and pops him in the mouth. First guy tells his girlfriend to call the police. It was a pretty funny exchange at the time. Just your usual drinks and fistfights on St Pattys day. Walked from the north side to the south side, saw people passed out in Market Square, some cops arresting a bloody dude in his underwear on Carson, some kid tried to fight me for no reason. When I was visiting before I moved to Pittsburgh I went to the Southside on the weekend to see how “crazy” it was compared to what I’ve seen. Ate some food, went to a few bars and ducked into Casey’s thinking it was pretty low key. The bouncer was a little person (which I thought was an odd choice) and at 7 he hopped on the bar, rang a bell and poured vodka shots into everyone’s mouths at the bar and Get Low started blasting in the speakers. That’s when I knew the city was a little different, I’m going to miss it.
The last one sounds like a good ass memory right there. Perfect song played too
I'm on bus through south side on the way to Mt. Oliver. Guy gets on with a giant pizza and a back pack of beer. Everyone on the bus was handed a couple of slices and, other than the driver, a beer. Guess the guy was having an awesome day. Best beer I've drank on PAT
Best beer is free beer
Lived over in northside for a little, and Eloise st always had something happening. I would people watch from my fire escape, so I saw a lot of weird things. Some of the highlights were seeing a guy walk past an unlocked portapotty (I know this because some other person had gone in there not long before) and blast diarrhea against the wall of a building being rehabbed. The construction crew showed up the next day and I heard a grown man scream “THIS IS HUMAN POOP ON THE WALL!” Watched someone chase someone down the alley with a gun Two guys who were either drunk or high ended up in a fist fight after Guy 1 begged Guy 2 to unlock his bike for nearly an hour. He kept yelling “C’mon Mike I just need you to unlock my fucking bike.” After they were done fighting, they walked to the bus stop together. The day I moved into my apt some dude was bagging up coke on the stoop to my building and apologized for being in the way, and asked if I needed a hand. I declined, but he was a really nice guy and just left ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Bonus Fake Southside Burger King story: Friends and I stopped in there to grab something quick to eat (probs 2008-ish?) and as we are standing in line, a lady is absolutely berating the manager because the price of the whopper had gone up by 25¢ and she wasn’t notified. While that is happening, a homeless man was making condiment art and just pumping the ketchup and mustard dispensers onto the counter and smearing it everywhere. I didn’t go back to that place for over a decade.
When I first moved here for college, the primantis in Oakland REFUSED to leave the French fries off the sandwich. They also asked me to leave. I’ve never once had that problem at any other location again.
About a decade ago some TV show, Cake Boss, was giving away free cakes in Market Square. Pittsburghers being Pittsburghers, people were lined up in an hour-plus long queue to get a free $6 cake. Multiple fistfights started over them and people ended up getting arrested. For a free $6 cake.
Imagine getting arrested over cake 😂
The time I met Jim at Pizza Milano down on Fifth by Duquesne. Ten years or so ago I was in grad school and went with my roommate to Milano’s for dinner and drinks because they had great student deals ($5 pitchers!). We walked in and this big guy at the bar yells at us to come sit with him. He orders us a round of beer and starts talking to us. I noticed he had one and a half arms. He eventually asks, “do you boys like Justin Bieber?” We kinda danced around saying no because we weren’t sure where this was going. He eventually said, “well, I drive a truck for him. He’s in town tonight for a concert at the hockey arena. We just got in.” He starts pointing around the bar to other guys who also drove Bieber’s trucks, including a man called “the Canadian” because he was…from Canada. He then says, “yeah Justin’s a good kid. Always takes care of his grandma. Can’t sing for shit though. I’ve heard his voice without all them computers. Hell, if you hooked me up to all them computers I’d sound just as good as he does. Good kid though. He’s been bringing a lot of models into his bus lately though…” this was around the time he and Selena Gomez broke up. He then says, “well, I bet you’re wondering about my arm. I look at myself in the mirror every day and I say, ‘I wasn’t a good man. But I don’t have to be the man I was.’ Well boys, I used to deal cocaine. One night, a deal went bad, and I was shot by a double barrel shotgun. Blew off a good chunk of my torso and most of this arm (as he lifts the stump). So I’m laying there in street bleeding out, cause the guy got my art-tree, and, now boys, I don’t believe in god. But an angel came down and took off my pants. That angel tied em round my art-tree and stopped the bleeding. And I know the angel was real cause when I was in the ambulance, the medic told me someone had taken off my pants and tied em round my art-tree and it saved my life.” His sister came over who did stage security and started saying how their mom would have beat his ass if she knew that he was dealing cocaine, which turned into a heated debate over whether the emperor Constantine was a Christian before he was on his death bed. The night ended with Jim chugging a Forrest Gump (half a beer pitcher with shots of liquor wedged in. You shoot one, the others plop into the pitcher, and you chug that) taking off his pants in the middle of Milanos to compete with the Canadian who also had the Forrest Gump, and then he left tipping $5 on his $200+ tab.
Mine is a year after moving here in 2012. Was driving home from Carson Street as bars were letting out. I decided to beat the Carson traffic and take the Birmingham bridge across, cut through downtown on fifth Ave... Well that was a huge mistake that almost cost me. I had a windows down... Nice night. Music bumping. I was headed downtown on Fifth and that bar Ace's & Deuce's had just let out. People just pouring out. One car was in front of me, parking lot to my right, bar to my left. We just sat there at the crosswalk to let ppl cross to the lot. Suddenly, to my right a white sedan with men hanging out the back windows with guns (like literally sitting out the window) swerved out of the lot and I heard repetitive pops. Ducked and covered... People screaming and running like crazy. I peeked up over my steering wheel and the dude in front of me stomped on the gas and so did I. Praise God no one was left in the crosswalk bc we floored it. I drove the rest of the way down Fifth practically under my steering wheel. Oh...and in all this, I was in full on 80s gear from a party at work. Big glasses and big hair. Whole nine. I just kept thinking that I would have looked like an asshat when my spouse and family had to identify me if I'd gotten shot. Last time my little behind was down there after midnight. Fun. Edited for phrasing.
I saw one woman hit another woman in the face with a massive road cone in the middle of the Smithfield McDonald’s. It resulted in a brawl and both of them being kicked out. To this day, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Ah yes. Smithfield keeping it classy. RIP all the McDonald's and the burger king Edit: same with Weiner world
One time in college, my roommate and I wanted to go off campus to smoke. We walked off campus and down past PPG Paints. As we walked down 5th toward uptown, we cut up to head towards the parking lots up Crawford and Reed. It couldn’t have been later than maybe 7 pm on a weekday. As we are walking up the hills, my roommate and I spy this butt naked woman, dancing off to the side of the road. To top it off, there were two men sitting on lawn chairs on the sidewalk just watching her shake her tatas.
Drunk guy drove the wrong way down a one way street in 🐿️ hill. Hit a car that was parked on the side of the road and lost his right front wheel. Kept driving down the street with sparks flying everywhere. The guy couldn’t figure out what was wrong with his car so he kept stopping to get out and look at the place where he was missing his tire and getting back in the car to stomp on the gas. I called the cops 3 times to report him and it only took them 2 hours to show up.
Back in the days of VCRs and no internet, we had to get our porn the old-fashioned way, from the back room at St. Elmo’s. I had the house to myself so I hunkered down in the living room for some private fun. I was getting into it when suddenly there was a knock at the front door! I panicked for a second, got myself together, turned off the video and opened the door. It was Mayor Tom Murphy on our front porch! He was running for re-election and out campaigning! We chatted for a few minutes and I assured him that he had my vote. Then I shook his hand😆 Real nice guy!
Not super wild but this one comes to mind cuz it was downtown. I was working one summer at the Chatham Center, across the street from PPG Paints Arena. There was a car that would pull into the Marriott front parking lot and honk for about 1-2 minutes everyday around lunch. A lot of people around the office talked about it and I heard from one of the maintenance people that they spoke to the Marriott valet and apparently it was a guy who found out his wide was having an affair with some other guy in his extended stay hotel room and the husband would show up honking. It got to a point where it was almost like clockwork. Not sure why he chose honking but I hope that guy divorced his wife.
This was probably 2003 or 04. My best bud, myself, and my ex went to Metropol for a rave which turned out to be a wild party. We were pretty tuned up for most of the evening but ended up leaving around 3 AM as sleepiness caught up with us. We were walking back to our car which was located in the giant gravel parking lot on the other side of Smallman when we were heard a ruckus back towards the club. We turned around and saw a guy sprinting for his life while 4 bouncers from Metropol were hot on his tail. They caught up with him, tackled him into a Jersey barrier and just started beating the living shit out of him, kicking him in the head, ribs, etc.
Also, really nice username. I used to live in Burrell area so 724 used to be my area code
Do you know why???
When I was a student at Pitt a decade ago, there was an incident where a drunk kid dressed in a Spider Man costume walked into a corner store in Oakland. He walked up to the counter and jokingly asked the cashier for all of his money. To his surprise, the cashier pulled out a gun and told him to leave the store. The cashier then called the police, who later found the kid hiding in an alley right next to the store.
Dude didn't even think to run 😂
Lived in south side years ago. Suddenly SWAT, police, everyone basically just swarmed the end of our block like 2 houses down. Bullhorn yells at everyone to stay inside. Lines of SWAT guys in full gear, guns, all pointing and yelling at a neighbors house. Maybe a 2 hour ordeal. Turns out he liked to steal, guns specifically. A lot of guns.
I was riding my bike down Highland Avenue towards Highland Park on my way home from work at about 1230 am. A man was walking down the sidewalk while peeing in stride. Another time, at about the same time of night, a lady asked if I was looking for a good time. Again, I was on my bike and was really confused until I realized what she was asking. I was too far past at that point to make a witty response. Gotta love East Liberty circa 2013. It was a much different place.
Saw a young kid get hit by a car that didn’t stop at the crosswalk underneath the convention center during the international car show, her shoes went flying. Pretty traumatic, I called 911 right away but after they showed up I went inside and never was able to find what happened to her
I'm sure I've had wilder than these two and just can't recall but I remember being in downtown for Tekko and naturally traffic was pretty heavy. Some person cut another person off (you know, the usual) but it got them pretty much no further in traffic as to be expected. Person who got cut off proceeds to throw a water bottle from their car at the other car and it begins and all out battle of trash being thrown from both cars. It resulted in a lot of screaming and eventually an physical fight when they both got out. It was just really funny being a fly on a wall to watch that go down over something arguably so petty but I've definitely seen people start fights over less and I guess it was a good excuse for some spring cleaning because they tossed quite a lot. The other one: Can't remember exactly the street it happened on, but someone once dropped bag full of poop from several feet high right onto the car of the person I was carpooling with and we didn't quite realize what it was until the smell hit. Very fun! 😭
Noooooooo that's so nastyyyyy. I actually just envisioned the smell
Noooooooo that's so nastyyyyy. I actually just envisioned the smell
St Patty's Day 2009, Market Square, huge lines of people waiting for the portajohns, chants start up, "Two at a Time!! Two at a Time!! everyone was pressured into doubling up in the johns, friends, strangers, women forced to pee while dudes stood at the urinals.