(Incidentally, before you jump on me for being too lazy to spell out Monongahela, know that even people I met from Pittsburgh couldn’t pronounce it, and even fewer could spell it, so being from Omaha, what chance do I have? Hell, I’m not even going to try. I’m calling it the “Mon” and there’s nothing you can do about it. Neh.)

These bridges are not only numerous (one cabbie pegged the number at over 2000, which I totally can’t back up), but they are also quite striking. Rather than build bland, serve-the-purpose-while-looking-shabby bridges, many of their bridges are massive structures with giant steel arches and cool shapes.

If more of this photo was visible you’d see what I mean. As it is, you will trust me when I say the bridges are very aesthetically pleasing. And hey, that railing is gold! And the sky is black! You bet!

On the cab ride to the airport on the way out of town, three BE A Design Group authors shared the backseat: Drew, Donovan, and myself. So of course, the topic of discussion went directly to color. Of course.

More specifically, it struck us as interesting that Pittsburgh is so closely associated with the colors Black and Gold. It is the only city in America whose professional sports teams share the same color palette — baseball’s Pirates, football’s Steelers and hockey’s Penguins are all black and gold. (Even if the Penguins used to be an aqua-marine color, more in tune with their aquatic mascot. They changed in 1980 to capitalize on the success of the Pirates and Steelers, both of whom had won championships in 1979.)

I’d never thought of it that way before. But making quick notes from years of watching SportsCenter, I could not come up with another city that can say that. Miami comes close — the Dolphins and Marlins are both Teal and Orange — but their NBA franchise, the Heat, are red and black. So does Seattle — the Mariners and Seahawks are both blue and green — but the Supersonics wear that gosh-awful gold-green combo, quashing the capital of the pacific northwest as well. Even without the Supersonics, when I think of Seattle in terms of colors I think of browns and tans. Grunge. But maybe I’m just stuck in my high school days of 1995.

From a purely marketing standpoint, what Pittsburgh has done, whether it was planned or not, is brilliant. Why don’t more cities do this? Kansas City and their “Rulers” nickname theme is cool (Royals, Chiefs, the old KC Kings of the NBA before they moved to Sacramento) but they didn’t share a color palette. I mean, think about what you can do when they all share colors. It brands the city. Sounds like a great idea to me. But the geniuses who give teams ridiculous names like “Heat” and “Wild” apparently don’t think so.

But even more than sports, Pittsburgh IS black and gold. Their city flag uses those two colors, and those two only. Their city seal/crest uses black and gold prominently. Their fire trucks are black and gold. Their police cars are black and gold. Even their fire hydrants are black and gold. How cool is that?

The fire hydrants are even black and gold

Now, why they picked black and gold beats me. You would think I’d know these things. I mean, I can tell you what the colors of the astroids/hypocycloids of four cusps in the Steelers logo stand for — yellow for coal, orange for ore, and blue for steel scrap — the three materials used in making steel. But unfortunately, the origin of why Pittsburgh settled on black and gold for their colors is shrouded in mystery. Heck, I can even tell you what an astroid/hypocycloid is. Its those pointy thingies on the Steelers helmets, of course. But black and gold? I dunno.

As for the black and gold, one popular theory holds that the black stands for the sky, which used to be black as night even at noon; and the gold stands for the glow from the furnaces used to heat the steel.

Another theory, one relayed to me by those bastions of reputable knowledge, a cab driver, is that coal was once referred to as “black gold”, and that with all the coal mined in Pittsburgh, that’s where the colors came from.

Now, I’m not sure which theory to believe. My Iowa-born-corn-fed-gut tells me to believe the cabbie. But then again, that same cabbie also told us that Mr.Rogers (a Pittsburgh native) was “a freak with the ladies.” So maybe he’s not exactly the most reliable source.

Drew pays the cabbie for all his good information. The fare was $2.85; the tip $17.15. And hey, would you look at that, the cab is black and gold too.

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