city: pittsburgh
wqed studios
from mister rogers’ neighborhood posted in television by prof_improbable
WQED is a public television station that was founded in 1954 as the brainchild of the Pittsburgh mayor, David L. Lawrence.
A friend and supporter of President Harry Truman, Lawrence wanted to have 12% of television programming dedicated to educational television. At the time, the FCC had put a freeze on issuing licenses since there were so many applicants. After much arm-twisting and corporate-wrangling, WEQD began broadcasting on April 1, 1954.
Among the notable productions to come out of WEQD is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the iconic and radical children's program that featured Fred Rogers as the soft-spoken and profoundly compassionate story-teller/moral paragon. The show ran from its initial start in 1966 until 2001 (through repeats and syndication).
The WEQD call letters refer to the latin phrase Quod erat demonstrandum which means "what has been shown."
Clever broadcasters, that group...
view full location details...jonas salk hall
from polio vaccine posted in technology by pete_nice
Jonas Salk Hall is located on the University of Pittsburgh campus.
Constructed in 1941 in the Art Deco style, the building was previously owned by the city of Pittsburgh, and was called the Pittsburgh Municipal Hospital for Contagious Diseases.
In an obvious move of selfishness, the hospital was built by President Roosevelt's Public Works Administration (remember, that guy in the wheelchair who had polio).
In a move that would make an Ayn Rand acolyte's head spin, the research department at this facility was funded by that same selfish Roosevelt's private foundation- the National Foundation on Infantile Paralysis (later named the March of Dimes).
In 1948, enter Jonas Salk, skilled and dedicated research scientist. He put together a team and a laboratory in the basement of this address and got to work. Seven years later, polio is gone. Gone! Seven years!
When asked who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" The estimated value, had the vaccine been patented, was roughly $7 billion.
view full location details...allegheny cemetery
from stephen foster posted in music by pete_nice
Stephen Foster, songwriter of several traditional American songs such as "Oh! Susanna," "Camptown Races," "My Old Kentucky Home," and "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," died at the North American Hotel on January 13, 1864 after a fever caused him to fall on a washbasin and shatter it with his head.
Foster is buried at the Allegheny Cemetery. He was 37 years old when he died.
view full location details...andy warhol’s early boyhood home
from andy warhol posted in art and design by pete_nice
Andy Warhol's second family home (or his first to some accounts) was a two-bedroom slum apartment at this address.
The apartment was within sight of industrial complex, blast furnaces, and belching smoke of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company where Ondrej, Andy's father, was employed.
view full location details...andy warhol’s earliest boyhood home
from andy warhol posted in art and design by pete_nice
Andy Warhol spent his earliest days at this address, in a shack-like row house identical to two-dozen other shacks on the block, and in the company of his parents and two older brothers. There was no bathroom, only a shared commode between the neighbors, and no heat to ease the winters.
The family upgraded to a two-bedroom apartment on Beelen Street as their next home.