Chris Briem (www.briem.com)
@chrisbriem
Just an old battleship sailor.
I feel I should have known about the Luley Organ Company of Millvale.
I am far away. Things just find me. This was U.S. Steel’s top accountant in the 1980s.
Coincidentally, there are a few podcasts coming up. But here is one Pittsburgh-focused podcast you may not have heard of yet and my interview with Ken Eshenbaugh on Steel City Soliloquies: youtu.be/FETvjjWcQqA?...
Can everyone in Western Pennsylvania read this! Journal of Rural Studies: Downhill from here? Why shrinking regions are not necessarily ‘left-behind’ www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Wallace says there is a Pittsburgh history book you probably haven’t read, but should.
Factoid of the day: Foreign-Born Population in the Pittsburgh region, 1870-2024
Stoop life. South Side (Pittsburgh) cool. 1980s. Photo: Joel DeGrand
It’s Pittsburgh of the 20th Century Nostalgia Day outside.
More office cleaning. Here is a 'vision' of regional transit for Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh region circa 2003. Just leaving it at that....
Ok historians. An unpublished history I’ve found of the Port Authority lists the first public transit in the city as “Naser’s Hack Line to Lawrenceville” in *1840*, an omnibus, which understand to be a variation of a stage coach. I see no other mention of this anywhere. Anyone know more?
More stuff surfacing in my office. I wonder how much this report has been read in 3+ decades? Developing Pittsburgh's Biotechnology Assets (1988) Now scanned here: beyondsteel.briem.com/References/S...
The results of many feet going up and down these steps.
Ok, historian peeps. It's a work in progress, and I'd say it's 80% done, but I have source links for every reference in the book for future reference. See: beyondsteel.briem.com/references.h...
This is the section of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh left uncleaned as a note for posterity showing how much pervasive soot once defined the city. It was cleaned three decades ago. I swear this was darker in the past. Maybe it has faded over time?
Two 1976 Pittsburgh train stories not to be repeated in 2026
Strange things surface when cleaning my office... 1947, btw:
The origins of Pittsburgh's (digital*) computing era ↓. Pittsburgh was once tied with New York City in civilian installations of UNIVACs, the supercomputer of the era. * The region's analog computing history goes back further.
When Andrew Carnegie’s Edgar Thomson Works began producing steel in Braddock in 1873, it was 56 years closer to 1776 than it is to the present day.
If you ever want to see a living fossil of what the old Krogers of Pittsburgh looked like, look no further than Bloomfield:
Here is the updated version of this: Most Common Age in Each Pennsylvania County, 2025. Yes, this is mode, and yes, lots of caveats, but still fascinating. A bit scary for some places. SWPA has the four counties with the oldest single age cohort at 68: Westmoreland, Cambria, Lawrence, & Greene.
I’m trying something new. Not any presentation or anything. Maybe call it a book meet-up if you have questions, comments, rants, or I suppose raves, on all things Pittsburgh and steel. Find me this Friday, June 19, 945am at Friendship Perk and Brew. Corner of Friendship Ave. and South Pacific.
Nationally? Locally? I'd have to look into my notes. But note the history is much older than that. Pittsburgh's history with PILOTs incorporated in this paper (Leland, 1999 - see pic). Lincoln Institute has a lot of related work and I believe a few books on the topic over the years.