Greetings From - Taylor Allderdice High School

Postcards are magical things. Small windows into the past. If you aren't careful, you can sometimes fall into them and have a hard time finding your way back.

It's been quite some time since my high school days, but this postcard extends even further back into the past, likely predating my graduation by three decades. In this particular rendering, Taylor Allderdice High School, located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, looks pretty much as it did when I attended classes there in the mid-1970s. A later expansion saw a building placed directly in front of the school's main entrance, greatly diminishing the building's grand and stately architectural aesthetics. The large smokestack that towers behind the building was appropriately enough the common location for between-class cigarette breaks.

This next postcard displays part of the route I took when traveling from the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Lincoln Place to Taylor Allderdice. The Homestead High Level Bridge crossed the Monongahela River, connecting Squirrel Hill to the steel town of Homestead.