Wilmerding is a part of Pittsburgh that… is there. I won’t lie and pretend I know a whole bunch of things about Wilmerding. I do know that it was established in 1890, and that you have to take Electric Avenue to get there from our house:
What I also know about Wilmerding is that they have a fake Hollywood sign. I know this because it is on the Yellow Belt, and we saw it last year when we were doing our beltway drives, and I instantly had the thought, “OMG WHAT A GREAT IDEA FOR NEXT YEAR!”
What I didn’t think through about all of this is that there is no convenient way to stand in front of this sign for a picture. Since it is, after all, Wilmerding, and not Hollywood, it’s a bit smaller scale, and it’s basically at a busy highway intersection, so, we had a bit of a struggle to get the picture. But we pulled it off!
This is the town of Wilmerding. I don’t know who that guy is on the sign. For the purposes of this blog, we will call him, “Mr. Wilmerding.”
There is the sign, off in the distance. And there I am, looking like I just popped out of an issue of Vanity Fair. At least, the Vanity Fair of Pittsburgh in winter.
Here is Michael’s Hollywood picture, although he says his doesn’t count because I cut off the ‘g’ in Wilmerding. He said, “The Achievement says ‘Wilmerding’ sign, not ‘Wilmerdin’ sign.” I said, “Shush.”
And we couldn’t pass up the chance to take a picture of ‘MC Styles’ hair salon. Michael was just kind of upset, because that had always been his dream rapper name.
And, so that you believe me that there really was a sign there, here is the close-up shot. Fancy! It was put there for the 100 year anniversary, in 1990. And they light it up at night. Wilmerding is a magical place, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
Hi – thank you for the positive publicity on my home town – Wilmerding! The man in the picture is George Westinghouse. He founded our town in 1890 – we are celebrating our 125th next year. I hope you will stop by the first week in June (2-6) for our festival in the park. Wilmerding also has a castle the George built for his executive offices when he ran the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. We are small but mighty. Come and see us in the summer.
Sandy Smith
Thanks for the info, we didn’t know the history of the town. And thanks for letting us know about the park festival, we will definitely be checking it out! 🙂
Thanks for recognizing our little borough of Wilmerding! We’re kinda partial to that Wilmerding sign up on the hill. I wouldn’t call it a fake Hollywood sign, as it doesn’t say Hollywood. It’s just Wilmerding. The ‘Guy’ on the Wilmerding sign is none other than our founder, George Westinghouse.
Thanks again! We celebrate our 125th jubilee in 2015. Soon you will see 125 next to Wilmerding.
So awesome to know about the 125th jubilee! We are putting that on our 2015 list, so we will definitely check it out! 🙂
Live in NV. but sure is nice when I get to see wonderful things of the town I grew up in…Thanks
I also recall that in the 1980s, the town next door had a sign that read, “Pitcairn, Gateway to Monroeville”.