I have always had a soft spot for alpine plants. Cold winds keep them short and tough. Thin soil forces their roots to reach deep into crevices to find water and nutrients. Short growing seasons mean that they must do their existential tasks—sprouting, flowering and setting seed—in a compressed time frame. All of that is … Read more
In his play Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare gives the following lines to Marc Antony: “The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones…” This may sometimes be the case, but it was not so with Lewis Ginter—1824-1897—a New York native who migrated to Richmond, Virginia and made successive … Read more
Pittsburgh is a city built partly on a foundation of steel—or at least the money derived from its manufacture. Nineteenth century industrialists like Andrew Carnegie amassed fortunes from steel made in the corner of Pennsylvania defined by three rivers: the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the offspring of their union, the Ohio. Today the philanthropy of … Read more
