Belt Publishing

Name: Pittsburgh in 50 Maps
Brand: Stentor Danielson
SKU: 9781953368850
Price: 30.0 USD
Availability: InStock

Founded in 2013, Belt promotes voices from the Rust Belt, smart narrative and serious nonfiction on any topic, as well as commercial fiction with a regional foothold.

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Pittsburgh in 50 Maps

Hardcover

$30.00

Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook

Paperback

$20.00

Currents in the Electric City

Paperback

$24.00

The Pittsburgh Anthology

Pittsburgh in 50 Maps

9781953368850

$30.00

Pittsburgh in 50 Maps offers unique new views of a city at a crossroads—culturally, economically, and demographically.

There are countless ways to map a city. Roads, bridges, and waterways help you navigate the twists and turns; topography gives you the lay of the land; population trends show you a region’s changing fortunes. But the best maps let you feel what a city’s really like. Whether you call it the Steel City, the City of Bridges, City of Champions, Hell with the Lid Off, or even the Paris of Appalachia, Pittsburgh’s distinctive character is undeniable. Pittsburgh in 50 Maps considers the boundaries of the city’s 90 distinct neighborhoods (plus Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood), the legacy of the steel industry, and how immigration continues to shape the city. You’ll also find the areas with the highest concentrations of bike lanes, supermarkets, tree cover, and fiberglass dinosaurs. Each colorful map offers a new perspective on one of America’s most consistently surprising cities and the people who live here.

Sure to be a conversation starter for Pittsburgh locals, transplants, and expats, Pittsburgh in 50 Maps is for anyone keen to understand the city in new and unexpected ways.

Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook

9781948742719

$20.00

Explore Pittsburgh through poetry and essays with this probing guide to the Steel City’s diverse locales.

Pittsburgh is made up of more than ninety different neighborhoods. And while The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook can’t detail every last one of them, it does its best, exploring the contrasts and contradictions that define the city’s neighborhoods and how they play out through the personal narratives of those who live there. Edited by Ben Gwin, in these pages you’ll find stories about:

· Old Lawrenceville, Garfield, and Squirrel Hill

· Swisshelm Park and Oakland in East Pittsburgh

· Crafton-Ingram, Thorn Street, and the bars of Dormont

· And much more

In over thirty poems and essays by lifetime residents, transplants, and transients, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook offers a portrait of a city that’s constantly being hailed for its renaissance but that is still marked by the old remnants of wealth inequality, gentrification, and racism.

The newest installment in Belt’s Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook is a book for anyone who thinks they know Pittsburgh, or just wishes they did.

Currents in the Electric City

9781953368775

$24.00

In Currents in the Electric City, an installment of Belt’s City Anthologies series, the story of Scranton gets told by the people who know it best.

Scranton, PA, is more than just the setting for The Office. It's a living city, one with a rich industrial and labor history, that also has a small-town feel. Who is considered “from Scranton” is fiercely guarded even as the city sees immigration from around the world. Neighborhood talk can reveal your family secrets before you even know them yourself, as Barbara J. Taylor writes. Pieces in this anthology talk about desires to leave, ties that bind, and decisions to stay, as well as impressions from newcomers to the Northeastern Pennsylvania hub. As coeditor Joe Kraus notes in his foreword, Scranton was once a prominent stop on the vaudeville circuit—vaudeville translating literally into “the voice of the city.” The chorus of voices that fill the poems and essays in this anthology tell a complicated story of the Electric city that many have heard of, but few know.

The Pittsburgh Anthology

9780985944193

$20.00

“Characterizing a place can be an elusive project, but The Pittsburgh Anthology is . . . diverse, surprising, eloquent, playful, scrappy, and tenacious.” —Ploughshares

Pittsburgh is ever-changing—once dusted with soot from the mills, parts of the city now gleam with the polish of new technologies and little remains of what had been there before. The essays and artwork in this anthology aim for the surprising, elusive stories that capture a Pittsburgh that is in transition. Contributors run the gamut from MacArthur-award winning photographer, LaToya Ruby Frazier to 15-year-old Nico Chiodi, the book’s youngest contributor who chronicles the doings of the North Side Banjo Club. “Everyone in this book,” writes editor, Eric Boyd, “is talking about the city, the things surrounding it; all of the pieces have been created with experience, intimacy, and personality. This book, I hope, will speak to you, not at you. Because we all know this city is changing. We’re just not exactly sure what that means.”

Included are contributions by Amy Jo Burns, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ben Gwin, Cody McDevitt, David Newman, and many more.

“These voices are varied and quirky, some polished and professional sounding, some a little rough around the edges. But they are uniformly interesting and genuine.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“What editor Eric Boyd has chosen to do is temper all of the Most Livable City rah rah with essays, stories and poems of a grittier, more complex nature.” —Pittsburgh Magazine

“This collection is stimulating for insiders and outsiders alike, a portrait Boyd has designed to be from-the-streets, warts-and-all.” —Bill O’Driscoll, PGH City Paper

Team Building

9781953368331

$17.95

An “engaging” firsthand account of the organizing effort inside one of the world’s largest tech companies—and its impact on one Pittsburgh family (Booklist).

In 2019, Ben Gwin played an integral role in organizing the contract workers at Google’s Pittsburgh offices. In Team Building, he takes us inside the employees’ fight for better benefits and more flexible scheduling, offering us a candid account of today’s labor movement and the forces in America that aim to divide workers and maintain the status quo.

But this is also a personal story of struggle and triumph. As Ben works with the union, he’s suddenly faced with the prospect of raising his teenage daughter alone after her mother dies of a drug overdose. As he juggles work and the challenges of single fatherhood, he offers us a frank portrait of daily American life, where it sometimes feels like every moment is an uphill battle.

Expertly crafted and tightly structured, Team Building artfully explores the ways our working conditions reach deeply into our lives outside the office. It’s an honest and ultimately hopeful look at the importance of building solid foundations with the teams that matter most.

“Depict[s] the many ways unfair work policies can impact employee lives.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This engaging memoir goes beyond detailing a period in Gwin’s life, also offering a forthright take on the frustrations of the contract worker. It’s an essential piece for understanding the fight for labor rights. Gwin’s resolve shines through in this moving tale.” —Booklist