A Guidebook to the Secrets of Pittsburgh

Welcome to our Guide!

This online guidebook to Pittsburgh’s "secret" places is created by undergraduate students in the University of Pittsburgh's "Secret Pittsburgh" Literature classes, a course inspired by the series of Secret guidebooks published by Jonglez Press. For information about the class, this project, and the copyright of our websites' content, please visit our About page.

We're preparing a new website design for Summer 2020! In the meantime...Secret Pittsburgh entries are organized primarily by neighborhood, listed on the left menu.  You can also search for sites visually through the "Browse By Map" index.

As part of an ongoing Pitt project, designed for students as well for Pittsburgh residents and visitors, our guidebook works a bit differently than many guides. Each location has an entry composed of two parts:

1. At the top of each guidebook entry, you will find general information typical of a guidebook, including hours of operation, address, directions, website, and accessibility. These details are followed by a brief overview about the place and its unusual and appealing features. These general information sections are collaboratively composed by teams of students.

2. Below the general entry are individual student stories. These narrative essays focus on student-selected details about the location (e.g. the history of steel-mill safety protocols, the evolution of graffiti art collaborations, the ways living members of a community use a cemetery). Such stories will appeal to readers interested in learning more about specific locations.

Both the general and individual stories also feature photo-galleries with images captured and edited by students.

 

Looking for something good to read or watch? Check out our Bookshelf, which offers bibliographic details and short, honest, blurbs about the short story, novel, film, historical, and critical works used by Secret Pittsburgh classes each semester.

We hope that you find this guide engaging and useful--and that you will come back from time to time to see what's new.

 

"Live" associated projects: 

Where do stories live by you? Contribute your own space stories to a crowdsourced map or read about spaces beyond Pittsburgh through Secret (_____)  . This crowdsourced map project is part of our COVID-19 response reworking of the Spring 2020 Secret Pittsburgh course.

 

 

Recent, but no longer ongoing, related projects:

The Spring 2019 Semester Showcase occurred on Friday, April 19th from 2:00 to 4:30 pm in the Digital Scholarship Commons on the ground floor of University of Pittsburgh's Hillman Library. 

Attendees learned all about the travels of the Spring 2019 class through Pittsburgh to uncover some of the city's lesser-known destinations and activities. The class shared information on the sites they visited involving Pittsburgh Art, Archives, Industry, and even stories "In Absentia." The free event also included student designed and site-centered games, a class zine, drone and 360-video footage, and snacks.

You can still take their Buzzfeed quiz, which connects to the showcase stations: https://www.buzzfeed.com/secretpittsburgh/unlock-pittsburghs-secrets-5tobsi5khw?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bfsharecopy

The Fall 2018 Showcase featured student-generated 360-degree videos, interactive displays, GIS maps, and illuminated letters collaboratively generated with two Composing Digital Media classes. Part of the Secret Pittsburgh class of Fall 2018 showcase was this interactive Buzzfeed Quiz, which you can still take to find out which Secret Pittsburgh site you are: https://www.buzzfeed.com/secretpittsburgh/what-secret-pittsburgh-destination-are-you-3owxk

**As noted above, we are currently redesigning the website. Please excuse any temporary results of this process.*