09/04/2026
12 YEARS OF ODD PITTSBURGH
Twelve years ago today, I created Odd Pittsburgh.
I didn't have a degree in history. I hadn't studied to become a historian. I didn't really have a plan for what it was supposed to become. I was just curious.
I wanted to know what had happened here - the photographs nobody had seen, the stories people had forgotten, the strange little details hiding between the lines. And whenever I found something incredible, my first instinct was always the same: I have to show somebody this.
That simple impulse somehow turned into twelve years of Odd Pittsburgh. It brought hundreds of thousands of people along for the ride, introduced me to extraordinary people, and led me into archives, museums, forgotten buildings, and family collections. Somewhere along the way, people started calling me a Pittsburgh historian. I suppose I became one.
But twelve years later, I've realized something else: Odd Pittsburgh was never really the whole thing. It was just one expression of the thing that's driven me my entire life - curiosity.
The same curiosity that makes me disappear into Pittsburgh history also sends me into genealogy, music, filmmaking, writing, philosophy, old photographs, forgotten people, AI, strange coincidences, and many ideas that don't always fit neatly into a category.
And after everything I've been through these last few years, I'm increasingly uninterested in putting myself back into one box.
So maybe this next chapter is my Factory era - and I mean that more like Warhol's original idea than a literal one: a place where different people, disciplines, and ideas collide and something unexpected comes out the other side.
I want to make things — films, music, books, websites, historical projects, shows, events, experiments, weird ideas, serious ideas, things I haven't thought of yet. And I want to make them with other people.
So consider this an open invitation. If you've followed Odd Pittsburgh for twelve years or twelve minutes and you've ever thought, I'd love to make something with that guy, reach out. Writer, musician, filmmaker, historian, artist, photographer, researcher, podcaster, programmer, collector, business owner, or someone sitting on a completely ridiculous idea you've always wanted to try — I'm interested! Nothing has to fit inside Odd Pittsburgh anymore.
Odd Pittsburgh isn't disappearing, far from it. I still love this history, and I care enormously about preserving all the work, photographs, documents, artifacts, and stories behind it — perhaps even more now, as our feeds fill up with synthetic versions of the past. But I don't want to compete by simply producing more content. I'd rather keep doing what started this whole thing 12 years ago: get curious, find something extraordinary, make something from it, and share it with people.
To everyone who has followed, shared, contributed photographs, corrected me, encouraged me, argued with me, told me stories, opened their family albums, invited me somewhere, or simply enjoyed one of the thousands of things I've posted over these years — thank you. You helped turn a curiosity into something real.
Now I'm curious to see what the next twelve years become.
And if you have an idea... let's make something!!
