The Pittsburgh Protractors
Pittsburgh Protractor Master List
Pittsburgh is home to many strange attractions, but one mysterious solution still eludes Pittsburghers to this day. In 2011, someone began to notice colorful protractors popping up all across Pittsburgh. They appear glued on bridges, trash cans, signs, mailboxes, and more. You can find them all over the greater city area. All the protractors are numbered with the highest found number being five hundred. Not all the numbers in between have been found. Will you be the one to find a missing number? Eric Lidji, a man that really brought the protractors into light, created a map and a master list of known protractors in hopes to help find a solution. Each protractor was pre-painted a solid color including green, red, yellow, white, pink, and various shades of purple. How peculiar.
There are several interpretations. Some are as obtuse as to say that if all the locations of the protractors were laid out on a map and the numbers were connected chronologically, using the correct color of the painted protractor, it would create a picture. Others are acute ideas that maybe the protractors are meant as a memorial to Pittsburgh, the “city of bridges,” and its steel history. Maybe it’s a crazy mathematician from one of the nearby colleges who was conducting a strange project.
Some Pittsburghers believe the real reason for the colorful protractors is to get people out to explore overlooked and forgotten parts of the city - the love locks on Schenley Park Bridge, a monument in Arsenal Park, or a hiking trail that gives a tour around the city. While looking for them, people discover little community shops, secret streets they’ve previously passed by without notice, and new friends they may have never met. We can conclude the culprit was successful if this was the goal.
However, if you want to find the protractors, you better hurry. Protractors are slowly beginning to disappear as they are being scraped off, broken, or painted over, making them even more of a challenge. Are you up for it? If so, get out there! Go explore the secret wonders of Pittsburgh and maybe find some of the missing numbers. You could be the one that figures out the meaning behind this entire mystery that has left so many Pittsburghers puzzled since 2011. Happy searching!
