Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette From left, Mike Green, Dave Larson, David Bodnar, Steve Delach, Jeff Kelly, Phil Krut and John Fehr have some laughs during their regular morning gathering at the Coffee Tree on Beverly Road in Mt. Lebanon. Click photo for larger image.

The building front is tiny and the sign on the brown brick facade is a puzzling red "a." Inside, though, the signs are unmistakable.

This is a "third place," a term the esteemed society-watcher Ray Oldenburg coined in his 1990 book, "The Great Good Place."

Affogato or "a" sits on Lincoln Avenue in Bellevue, a neighborhood that cafe owner Sam Di Battista calls "a tough town" to get a hit in. After a year and a half, people are still walking by, looking in, "afraid to open that door," said Andy Rubacky, the 29-year-old manager. Those who have ventured in have been richly rewarded. The coffee aroma, lamp light, round bar and relaxed energy are just the beginning.

"It's become a home away from home," said Jim Lewis, a semiretired regular. He pointed at a basket under the counter. "That's where we return stuff we borrow from each other."

Whether it's sharing stuff, finding out what's happening, networking or immersing in camaraderie, the third place is as essential as the first (home) and second (work). In fact, it can be more compelling. Jeff Kelly, a regular of the Mt. Lebanon Coffee Tree, was only halfway joking when he said work gets in the way of his hanging out with friends at the front table in the mornings. Glenn Woodard, a regular at the Monterey Pub on the North Side, said, "after 15 days on the road, no way I want to go home. I want to see who's here."

Home away from home

For years, society watchers have decried the loss of community in America. Long commutes take time we used to spend at the Elks and garden clubs. Computer chat rooms have replaced real chat rooms. And we're always running late, a bit impatient and a little inconsiderate.

This may be true, but it's also true that people still need to connect. Home and work, as pleasant and fulfilling as they can be, imply obligations. A third place is home to the part of us that needs merely to be. No pressure, nothing exacted but the tab and the chance to care for people with no strings attached. As casual as that may seem, third-placers exert a strong commitment to each other.

John Heller, Post-Gazette Terri Boyt, left, enjoying the company of her friend, Lee Hodsoll, at the Monterey Pub on Monterey Avenue, North Side. Boyt calls the pub "a second home." Click photo for larger image.

In his introduction to "Celebrating The Third Place," a 2001 follow-up to "The Great Good Place," Oldenburg cited a diner where a group would gather almost every day. One of the men had a daughter in a marching band en route to the Rose Bowl Parade, but one of her bandmates was too poor to drum up the money to go. The dad told his buddies and, within 45 minutes, $900 sat piled on the table.

This type of largesse played out at the Monterey Pub recently, after burglars broke into the home of one of the bartenders and took his tools. The regulars pooled their money to buy him a new set. When one of the regulars at La Prima in the Strip doesn't show up after a few days, "we worry about him," said Don Nolder, one of the 10 to 12 retired guys who hang out at the coffee shop every day. Sometimes, they dine together and play bocci.

"It's like a magnet," said Nolder. "You want this group to be part of your life, so you change your schedule if you have to so you can be here."

Many third-placers, such as the La Prima guys and the guys at Jeff Kelly's Coffee Tree table, have gender in common, or income and age. But they know and chat with almost everyone in the place.

When Jennifer Ohrman approached the table where Kelly sat with two friends one morning, John Fehr greeted her with a hug. As they chatted, Steve Delach reported, "Sometimes we move to a larger table."

In "Celebrating the Third Place," Oldenburg writes that Edward R. Murrow once asked the poet Robert Frost to choose the worst word in the English language. Frost replied, "exclusive."

In most settings, we hang with people just like us. But third places make it unremarkable that an elderly man on a pension and a youngish woman with an expensive briefcase would sit side by side and talk about cross-country travel or herb gardening, or that a young gay man and a straight middle-aged woman would talk about their yoga classes.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Andy Rubacky whips up a mocha at Affogato, on Lincoln Avenue in Bellevue. To the right are the YMCA's Lisa Christian and Eric Mann, talking business. Click photo for larger image.

"There's a guy who comes in here and when I first started coming in, he intimidated me," said Lewis, sitting one cold, drizzly morning at Affogato's circular bar. "He has a Harvard degree and is real demonstrative. I tend to be a little more shy. But one day I walked over and handed him a book I was reading about Buddhism. He was appreciative. Since then, we've become good buddies."

The concept of the third place is older than Oldenburg, a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of West Florida in Pensacola. But he put a name to it and emphasized its importance in a transient culture.

The transience, most dramatic after World War II, led to suburbanization and, more recently, sprawl. The depredations of urban renewal projects in the '60s largely destroyed the best aspects of city living that remained.

"After World War II," said Oldenburg in a phone interview, "if you think about it, the combination of building codes and zoning ordinances pretty much made community illegal. But community is getting more attention now. You notice it in the real estate market." Gated communities continue to sell, but the newer concept is "the promise of community" in the likes of condominiums with shared courtyards and walkways. "Whether this promise is delivered is another matter."

Pittsburgh is rich in third places, probably because of the fortitude of its neighborhoods. This article would be three times longer if it included just the known third-place cafes within the city limits.

Cafes and bars are the most commonly cited third places. Barber shops have for decades attracted gatherings of old men. Sidewalk benches, even the fast-food booth, can be amenable.

Some people create a third place where they go to do something, not primarily to hang out. A house of worship can be a luminous example of a third place, especially when it brings people together more than weekly. Retirees with walking regimens find third-place qualities in shopping malls.

Exercise clubs are notable third places these days. At the Three Rivers Rowing Centers on Herr's Island and in Millvale, hundreds of rowers gather in late afternoons and early mornings. Sometimes, groups expand third-place time with breakfast together, said Ben Ledewitz, the director of paddling programs.

"People come to do something, so nobody just hangs out in the lounge," he said. "But this is definitely" a community beyond its affinity for boating. After the most recent flooding, he said, members filled volunteer sign-up sheets for cleanup duty.

The members of the Hill District Carnegie Chess Club meet to play chess three days a week and have for 10 years. Over time, this group, many of them old friends to begin with, has grown closer and brought new members in, said Charles Washington.

"It fills a social void," said Nate Mallory, who benefitted further when one of the members helped install his new furnace -- "and he cleaned my carpet and didn't charge me."

Sometimes, the group moves its games from the library to each others' homes. Last summer, they threw a party to honor the club's founder, Charlie Smith, for his service as a buffalo soldier in World War II.

Similarly, members of the Jewish Community Center's health club go there to do something, but several linger.

Bonnie Cohen has become good friends with a group of women, some of whom take a water aerobics class together at the Squirrel Hill center. Afterward, they sit around a table and each lunches they bring from home. One day, it was Cohen, Roz Sherman and Eleanor Wedner, but the group is fluid.

"I get all my information here," said Cohen.

"We talk about everything," said Sherman.

Attitude and ambience

As potential third places, many hot spots fail because being crowded and noisy isn't good enough. Many places don't give regulars the chance to shift conversation easily to the strangers they may recognize. People often sit alone with their laptops. Some proprietors have been quick to seize on the idea of playing host to a hangout, but calculating for a third place does not make it so.

The great third place has that serendipitous combination of good product, likable, capable staff and management, and a je ne sais quoi. An attitude, an ambience, the thing you can't teach. It might be the colors, the lamp light, the way the space moves people around in it, or it might just be the coincidence of people who need a place to meet.

Sam Di Battista, who owned the Vivo restaurant in Bellevue, was adamant about having a circular bar when he opened Affogato in September 2003. You can sit at any seat and talk with anyone at the bar without straining your neck.

"I knew I wanted to provide ambience and allow people to sit around and be social," he said.

Joe Mansfield had no designs in mind when he moved from Chicago at the urging of a college friend here and opened the Monterey Pub, on Monterey Street, in June 2003. Although it had been closed for more than a year it was a quintessential third place from day one. The neighborhood pours in every night, and very few regulars stay where they initially sit.

Frank Kownacki and Bob Riefle call the pub "the neighborhood's living room."

Mansfield, who lives upstairs and whose staff almost all walk to work, said, "I knew it would be a neighborhood bar, but the neighbors bring a lot of outside people here. That's how a circle of friends grows."

"This is almost a place to go home to," said Susie Metzger. "When you could kiss everyone in the place on New Year's Eve, that's pretty special."

"I've been on the road a lot," said Woodard, sitting one evening with friends in a booth. "Whenever I walk through the door, I feel a quiet elation. Here tonight, I feel my well of enthusiasm being refilled."