Old Homes

[dancerjodi]

From the latest Angie's List, an article titled "Pittsburgh Proud of Potties". We have the plumbing remains of a toilet in the center of our basement. We also (ironically) have a pencil sharpener in our basement stairway.

"In polite company, it's called a "Pittsburgh
Potty". Down at the local pub they may use
a more colorful term. But a Pittsburgh potty by
any other name refers to the same thing. A
lone toilet in the basement-no walls, no vanity.
just a toilet.

Highly rated real estate agent Eric Nichols gets
the question all the time from clients relocating to
the Steel City. If the house is more than eighty
years old, chances are it will have a Pittsburgh
Potty. " Oftentimes, it is sitting out in the middle
of everthing" Nichols says. "That comes from the
days when Pittsburgh was a steel town and a mining
town. Workers would come home totally filthy.
They would clean up downstairs and not bring the
filth upstairs."

Rick Sebak, award winning producer for Pittsburgh
PBS affiliate WQED, devoted one segmentof his
"Underground Pittsburgh"series to the potties. He
has heard reports of them in other cities, such as
Baltimore. "But they just do not have the
alliteration of Pittsburgh Potty," he says."You
have to be in a place where everybody has
has a basement. Everybody here has a basement."

Old Pittsburgh basements(and we have one sighting
as far east as Johnstown, PA) have one other quirk.
"You almost always find a hand-cranked pencil
sharpener attached to the basement steps." Nichols
says. It is like an unwritten rule. It is just the place
they put a pencil sharpener."

Comments

[grovegoddess.livejournal.com]

So they showered in the potty and then sharpened their wits on the way up the stairs?