@ghdprentice : first I've been able to respond re Pgh, for some reason, the @ call out didn't work and I was on the road on a driving event.
Yeah, the 'Burgh was pretty bleak. It wasn't so much the black soot (tales post-WWII were that a white shirt in town had to be changed by noon) but by the '60s, that got cleaned up. I do remember getting fierce headaches in the tunnels into and out of the city-- leaded gas? I dunno.
It vibed like The Deerhunter. Nonetheless, Opus One on Smithfield, the main drag where Kaufmann's was (he commissioned FallingWater and the Richard Neutra house in Palm Desert) was a serious high end refuge-- from double KLH 9s with Marantz tube stuff to ARC and Linn, early if not first demo of the Dahlquist, etc. Tasso Spanos, the owner had a good ear and marvelous taste. That's where I first encountered the "high end" that was not brute force.
I used to go back when my parents were alive, no more. I gather that these days it is one of those renewed cities with good housing prices, there are more food options and it isn't quite what it was. (I don't want to diss the 'Burgh, but also don't feel the need to defend it especially when I lived there-- I hadda get out-- moved to NYC and life was harder but better for me-- that was the beginning of my career).