South Side: No Parking Available Since 1941

Perhaps you were smitten, as I was, by LaMont Jones's story in our Magazine section Monday about novelty T-shirts that simultaneously celebrate and spoof Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

Point Breeze: Frickin Fabulous Since 1903

I learned a lot from that story, not least that you don't have to be drunk at a rock concert to pay $32 for a T-shirt. These "Neighbor Teaze'' are selling briskly at specialty shops in the city and at juliadinardo.com and neighborteaze.com. Twenty-five-year-old designer Julia DiNardo, a Highland Park native now in New York, has found that the right shade of high-grade gray fabric can get people reaching for their Visa cards. That is provided that fabric comes with silk-screened letters assembled with wit and a stylish knowledge of our big quirky town.

Squirrel Hill: Keepin' It Kosher Since 1927

To my mind, Ms. DiNardo, with only seven slogans in the lineup, has barely tapped the cotton field. Pittsburgh has 90 neighborhoods, Allegheny County has 130 municipalities, our metro area has more than 1,700 place names, and we are part of a nation where a Google search for "T-shirts'' turns up more than 89 million hits, most of them claiming to be funny, and most falling far short of Ms. DiNardo's fledgling enterprise.

Highland Park: A reservoir of java, jazz & joggers since 1903

"My approach isn't mean or snarky or offensive necessarily.''

You know Americans can never have enough Tees. This is a nation of wives asking their husbands to throw out their ratty old Tees, and those same husbands making stands at the bureau drawer. It's a nation of mothers asking their sons and daughters to "not leave the house in that thing,'' and that thing showing up at the mall that very afternoon. Ten thousand schlock shops, from sea to shining sea, cannot be wrong.

So there's no safer bet than a copycat T-shirt line.

Ms. DiNardo was buried in e-mail in the 24 hours after the story appeared, with dozens of individual orders plus requests from boutique owners in Crafton and Mt. Lebanon for custom work.

"I'm an East End gal and that's what I know best,'' Ms. DiNardo said, but she is willing to collaborate with others and expand her T-business. Her rent in Manhattan is nearly two grand a month, even if the neighborhood is called Hell's Kitchen.

She has been touched by the e-mails she has gotten from Pittsburghers sharing their neighborhood memories, and gotten a lot of "hey, why haven't you done my neighborhood?" The North Side, the South Hills in general and Mt. Lebanon in particular, Penn Hills and the neighborhoods of Bloomfield and Morningside all have suggested she take them on so they can put her work on. An Italian-American herself, she is in a bit of quandary as to what to do when Bloomfield and Morningside both think of themselves as the Italian neighborhood, but she's working on it.

Every now and again, I've asked readers for city slogans. During the height of our fiscal crisis three years ago, I threw out "My City Got Junk Bond Status and All I Got Was This Lousy Sweatshirt," but I've yet to see one single schlock jock in the Strip District hawking that one.

"Pittsburgh: You da Mon!,'' "Pittsburgh: We Take the Stress Out of Fiscal Distress'' and "Pittsburgh: Slogan Under Construction'' also went nowhere. Some readers, such as Tom Chakurda of Upper St. Clair, were even snarkier: "Pittsburgh: Our Only Point is Geographical.''

I think these didn't catch on because we didn't leaven sarcasm with affection in the manner of Ms. DiNardo. We also painted with too broad a brush, taking on all of Pittsburgh rather than dabbing at its unique corners.

What would you, gentle reader, write across your torso had you the time and the ink to celebrate your slice of the Burgh?

Dormont: Swimmin' and Bar Hoppin' since 1929

There Are Two Sides: The North Side and The Outside (an old North Catholic saying)

Zelienople: Sounds Funny. Looks Great.

Pittsburgh Cultural District: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Penn (a nod to the late great Don Brockett for that line from his "Forbidden Pittsburgh'' show)

That's off the top of my tiny head. Your ideas can be sent either to me or Ms. DiNardo at info@juliadinardo.com, though she says she doesn't want to make any direct lifts as that could make things sticky if the shirt becomes a big seller. She'd rather just field requests for new neighborhoods for her line and take it from there.

I have no such concerns. If you can't e-mail, don't phone. Mail your neighborhood slogan suggestions to me at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; 34 Boulevard of the Allies; Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222.

I expect big things from Pittsburgh: The Most Leaveable Livable City.