Pittsburgh’s decaying ‘Death Stairs’ are an indictment and an inspiration

For the first 18 years of my life, I assumed it was normal to climb hundreds of steps to get around your city. This is probably one of the many things growing up in Pittsburgh does to a person.

I was always a “wanderer” as a child, much to my parents’ consternation. For me, an hour spent walking was far more fulfilling than 10 minutes spent in a car.

And what city could satisfy a young boy’s craving for exploration and adventure more than Pittsburgh? To a young child, it seemed to be designed with whimsical exploration in mind. Tiny neighborhoods hidden in the shadow of hills and defunct steel mills. Riverside streets accessible only through secret bridges. Entire city blocks hidden among the rolling hills and valleys from all but the most daring wanderers.

The South Side Slopes, “The Run” in Greenfield, the forests of Hays — these were all the places I discovered during my years growing up in Pittsburgh.

And, of course, no one can explore Pittsburgh on foot without encountering its many infamous steps.

By the city’s own official reckoning, Pittsburgh has more public steps than any other city in the United States. Estimates place their total number at around 800 individual sets, some built on existing structures, and some built into the Pittsburgh landscape. But regardless of official statistics or records, each set of steps presents a unique encounter.

For many travelers, Pittsburgh’s steps are less a practical means of navigating an unusually hilly city and more like a doorway to a hidden realm.

I fondly remember the time I discovered the Joncaire Street Steps at Isis Way. Being around 12, my parents figured I was old enough to wander around Oakland by myself without getting kidnapped.

Bored, I tried circumnavigating the Pitt Fine Arts Building a few times while debating if I should wander up to Phipps Conservatory. But then, circling around the back of the building that seemed, at first, to consist entirely of loading docks, I noticed what looked like a long concrete staircase descending a steep slope to a secret street below. I descended the staircase and realized I had managed to find not only a hidden neighborhood but a hidden section of Schenley Park. After that day, I always approached a new set of Pittsburgh steps with a sense of wonder, waiting in gleeful anticipation to see what awaited me at the top or bottom.

Bad place for a dizzy spell

Of course, during my childhood explorations, I assumed accessing these steps would never be an issue.

As an energetic youth, climbing Pittsburgh’s steps resulted in little more than a brief sweat and perhaps a moment or two to catch my breath and enjoy the view at the top. But as age began to catch up with me, health issues complicated things. A complex series of chronic ailments over the past few years has stricken me with a lingering vitamin D deficiency, of all things. And while this doesn’t always pose problems, vitamin D deficiency can sometimes prompt sudden onset fatigue, dizziness and muscle weakness — not the best symptoms to have when you’re climbing a long and steep staircase.

I remember the day I was making a routine climb down the South Side’s 18th Street steps when I was hit by a spell of dizziness and muscle weakness at a particularly precious position on the stairwell. Stopping there, clutching at the old and rusty railing while waiting for my body to get its act together, I was abruptly aware that the steps I was once so enamored by may present downsides as well, especially for pedestrians with limited mobility.

At that moment, I noticed for the first time the cracks and gaps in the old, concrete stairs. I saw the rusted, loose-fitting railings that I now rested upon. I saw how steep the drop was in front of me, should my body or the decrepit infrastructure fail.

Suddenly, the “magical” stairs that I had cherished years ago seemed a bit less magical and a lot more intimidating.

‘Death Stairs,’ starring Pittsburgh

When I first discovered “Death Stairs,” I was living not in Pittsburgh, but rather halfway around the world in the Austrian capital of Vienna. Finishing a graduate program at Vienna’s Central European University, my days were split between stress-filled coursework and Old-World opulence. In this setting, the hills and endless steps of my native Pittsburgh were far from my mind.

Then, on one of the rare moments I had free time to browse the internet, I came across a group on Facebook provocatively titled “Death Stairs.” As its name suggests, the group is dedicated to pictures of dangerous, decrepit or otherwise intimidating staircases around the world. I joined up immediately.

Over the next few weeks, something strange began to happen. From what I can gather, the group’s original scope was global, but I quickly noticed that a disproportionate number of the group’s posts depicted the same Pittsburgh steps that I remembered so fondly from my days growing up there.

The “Death Stairs” group as a whole became something of an unofficial Pittsburgh group. Every time a member posted another Pittsburgh staircase, an esoteric discussion of that particular Pittsburgh neighborhood was sure to follow. And when a member managed to post stairs from somewhere other than Pittsburgh, it was almost sure to come with a brief note on how the group was finally getting a break from Pittsburgh content.

Two types of discussions tended to follow each post. First, the group members who had never been to Pittsburgh (and who, in some cases, had never even heard of Pittsburgh) expressed bafflement and curiosity at this strange American city and its numerous deadly stairs. Second, the large contingent of native Pittsburghers began to express remarkable civic pride at how their city stands out among all the hundreds and thousands of cities across the world, if only in terms of dangerous-looking stairs.

Watching these posts sitting in my small loft in Vienna, I felt both of these reactions at once. And, more than anything, I felt a strange rekindling of my love for my native city and its strange charms.

Rusty railings and rubber hoses

In many ways, Pittsburgh’s “death stairs” are a living fossil of the city’s history.

For obvious reasons, settlers tend to prefer flatter lands to build homesteads, and the settlements in the most accessible land tend to evolve into larger cities once they attract enough people. But Pittsburgh’s spot at the confluence of three rivers gave it a unique geography among American cities. As steel mills began popping up along the rivers in the 19th century, many of the surrounding hills became home to the neighborhoods and boroughs that still define the region today. And how else could the city ensure that its workforce gets to work on time other than to build staircase after staircase along those hills?

Over time, the steel mills closed, the neighborhoods shifted in character, and the city’s economic prosperity waned. But the enduring status of these stairs in their communities is undeniable. Even as the city’s budget dwindled and the old steps fell into disrepair, pedestrians could still see their connection to these Pittsburgh communities built into the stairs themselves.

At some point, volunteers took it upon themselves to do what the City of Pittsburgh could not. The ensuing DIY repair jobs became known to me in a striking way. A few years back, shortly after my health issues began to appear, I was climbing a particularly infamous staircase when I came across a stretch halfway up where the side railing had broken off and fallen into the woody ravine below. In its place was a length of  rubber garden hose that some enterprising volunteer had tied between the two remaining supports.

Looking back, it’s hard not to feel civic pride in the creativity and dedication of Pittsburghers who take care of their community icons in such unique ways. But at that particular moment, trying to catch my suddenly shaky balance on a loose rubber hose instead of a solid metal railing, the shortcomings of this approach were apparent. Instead of celebrating this wacky and unique community, I found myself grumpily lamenting why the damn city doesn’t just fix the stairs properly. This became the first of many “old man” thoughts I started to have as I navigated Pittsburgh’s frequently inadequate infrastructure over the next few months.

We are our stairs

But, even in the worst times, no amount of cynicism or negativity could entirely drown out the civic spirit that Pittsburgh’s steps represent. Today, the city has renewed efforts to make the steps more accessible — at least as accessible as steep outdoor stairs can be.

Perhaps, in the future, Pittsburgh can repair the faults in its infrastructure while keeping its unique, mysterious charms as the guiding star for all residents, both abled and disabled.

The Pittsburgh spirit in me can never let go of the memories of the crumbling stairs, the rusted and fallen railings and the makeshift repairs taken up by a volunteer community army — all of which serve as a cultural touchstone and a badge of honor that Pittsburghers wear with pride in the face of baffled outsiders.

If we can dream of a future in Pittsburgh with better infrastructure, accessibility and public works, we can perhaps hope that doesn’t mean the end of its rough-edged charm …

Nor the loss of  its prime spot in the “Death Stairs” Facebook group.

Steve Hanson is a student, writer, amateur explorer, wannabee photographer and bibliophile from Pittsburgh, and can be reached at genodemax@gmail.com .

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