For decades, Pittsburgh residents took all the jokes about our sooty skies, our polluted rivers, our grimy, dirty-faced, working-man history of mining and milling.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the state, was Philadelphia, the bright, shining City of Big Brotherly Love, where residents puffed out their chests and gave guided tours of the cradle of freedom.
Well, pretty much everybody knows how we've cleaned up our act. Nowadays Pittsburgh sparkles. Especially in the glow of fireworks on Light-Up Night.
Philadelphia folks can stop turning up their noses. Especially when they're busy holding them.
Yesterday afternoon a mysterious invisible cloud of foul-smelling ... something ... wafted across the city, screwing faces up in a mix of disgust and confusion.
According to reporter David B. Caruso of The Associated Press, the strong odor was first detected around the southern tip of South Philadelphia shortly after 2 p.m., when emergency dispatchers began receiving the first of hundreds of 911 calls.
Some said it smelled like propane. Others said it was more like sulfur. But no one knew what it was.
Transit officials, fearful of a gas leak, evacuated the city's Broad Street subway line in South Philly for about 45 minutes, just to be sure. Two schools were evacuated and after-school programs were canceled.
Television news crews jumped into action, zipping around the city in their news vans, chasing a stink that no one could see but everyone could smell.
"Slightly gas, maybe a sewer," resident Judith Forte told KYW-TV Channel 3. "Whatever, it was a bad smell."
While commuters scrambled to get to the sweet fresh air of their suburban homes, authorities suspecting an industrial mishap collected air samples, phoned nearby refineries and checked the pressure on natural gas lines. Naturally.
"We don't know what it is. But we've gathered enough samples to know that it's not toxic. Its just offensive," mayoral spokeswoman Barbara Grant said at about 4 p.m.
The calls were still coming in well into the late afternoon, with complaints coming from Independence Mall, Center City and neighborhoods several miles up the Delaware River. It was even bad enough to bother the people in Camden, N.J.
By early evening, however, the smell had pretty much dissipated.
That's when officials said that they had the answer. Evidently, according to television station WCAU-Channel 10, the odor started at the Navy Yard in southeast Philadelphia when a large amount of limestone was being transported from one train to another and the limestone released a cloud that was spread across the city by strong winds.
"We don't have any reports that it made anyone sick," said city Fire Department Battalion Chief Willie Williams. "I'm just glad it's moving north out of the city."
You'd hate to have to tell people that Philadelphia stinks.
They just wanted to clear the air
School board members who went to Harrisburg to discuss the district's budget problems received a warning. If they want to keep their money, they're going to have to agree to someone overseeing their spending.
Speaking of a situation that stinks
There's a cloud hanging over the Hill District. And it's making it difficult for the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority to lure a developer into building a grocery store there. Only one firm submitted a proposal by yesterday's 4 p.m. deadline.