The pictures of smoke billowing from tall, brick smokestacks are as familiar to Pittsburghers as Steelers Sundays. We have long been trying to move beyond our smoky reputation, and few people miss the dark, thick air. But there was one smokestack, the plumes from which Pittsburghers inhaled and anticipated, rather than held their noses. Today they even yearn for it.

For decades, anyone who lived, worked or went to school in the East Liberty area knew that if there was smoke coming from that stack, they were going to open their doors to the sweet smell of freshly baked cookies and crackers.

It's been nearly a decade since the Nabisco plant closed its doors. The building then housed the Atlantic Bakery, which became Bake-Line and closed for good in 2004. Now the Pittsburgh icon is being converted into Bakery Square, a project providing office, retail, hotel and residential space, slated to open in phases starting late next year.

But for those of us who grew up in the plant's heyday -- especially the many relatives and friends of the plant's former employees -- it will always be Nabisco.

That delectable, buttery air helped wake me up as I dragged myself into Peabody High School. To me, that aroma was like my Gram's perfume -- the slightest whiff evoked peaceful, homey feelings and memories.

How could the smoke from a behemoth corporation's plant feel like home? Because Nabisco actually was part of my family.

It Was a Family Affair

My grandfather started working there in 1925, just eight years after the plant opened, and from that point on there were always Vittis on the payroll. My dad worked there from the time he was 18 until he retired as manufacturing manager in 1997. My great uncle, aunt, cousin and brother also worked in the expansive, red brick building.

Last week I asked them what it was like.

"It was neat being the third generation," my brother Pete Vitti, a teacher at Schenley High School, told me. "I feel like I know where I came from better and know my dad and grandfather [who died when we were young] better. Unfortunately I'm the last generation that can pass that down."

I remember visiting the plant as a child. There were no Barbarians at the gate, just a friendly guard who would smile and send us up the steep stairs. We'd take the long walk to the room that housed the ovens. Donning paper baker's hats, we'd open a door to see rows and rows of perfectly round cookies with more chips than you could count riding down the large rubber conveyor belt. We'd wait patiently, mouths watering, until those little tastes of heaven got to the end of their journey. Then an affable baker in his white apron would hand us a soft, warm Chips Ahoy warning us not to burn our tongues on the molten chocolate.

Back then you didn't have to be a Nabisco kid to have the experience. Before insurance worries and safety regulations, Nabisco used to give tours of the plant that included a freshly baked treat.

With a Large Extended Family

For just over 80 years, Nabisco, which technically until 1971 was National Biscuit Company, was an integral part of many families in Pittsburgh.

"If you talked to anyone in Pittsburgh in the '50s, '60s, '70s -- even now -- almost everyone knew someone who worked at Nabisco," my dad, Carl Vitti, told me.

At its peak, in the 1940s and '50s, Nabisco employed 900 people. But even during the Depression, Nabisco kept its staff employed. "During the '30s, they only worked three days a week because no one bought cookies, but people ate a lot of soup so they bought a lot of crackers," my father says. "Cracker sales always went up when the economy was bad."

Even when the economy was still struggling in the 1930s and all the way through the '50s, Nabisco treated its employees to socials (dances to those of us born in the last half of the century!) right in the plant. A report of the Social Fund for the Nov. 23, 1935 event shows that the company spent $15 for an orchestra and $1.71 on wax for the dance floor. The entire affair cost $41.85.

Perhaps it was the socials that set the tone for the many love affairs that occurred. A lot of employees met their spouses at the plant. Getting married in the early part of the century usually resulted in the wife losing her job. That changed in 1935 when the forward-thinking company decided that a woman who got married could continue working as long as she had a medical exam every two months!

Nabisco didn't leave the children out of the fun. My dad's earliest memories are of the annual Christmas parties. "There was a Santa there and of course they would give out cookies and crackers."

The festivities continued through the years -- some sanctioned and some not -- with parties on the roof, movies, Bingo games and spaghetti dinners.

Nabisco's reach extended beyond its immediate family. It was part of the fabric of the community. The company held bake-offs at Vintage senior center where the seniors had to use Nabisco products in a recipe and would be judged by a panel that included noteworthy Pittsburghers. They donated trailers of products to the food bank, sat on non-profit boards and were a union shop.

And Like Every Family, a Few Oddballs

Management may not have known it, but the fun and games weren't restricted to after hours. My father-in-law's best friend, Jim Keenan, worked in distribution for decades loading the product onto trailers.

"In the early days, they gave us four hours to load," Keenan says. "It would only take us two hours, so we'd go across the street to the Olex Hotel and have a few drinks. Then automation came and the honeymoon was over!"

But automation didn't change everything. The huge bins of oil and sacks of flour were still delivered by a train that ran right into the building on the side where the bus station sits today. The 100-pound sacks of flour needed to be manually unloaded, cut open and poured into a flour silo. One day a worker was dumping flour into the bin and forgot to let go of the bag. The weight of it caused him to topple into the bin.

"He looked like a ghost when he got out. His nickname from that day on was Dusty," my dad remembers.

Dusty was hardly the only employee who had a run-in with one of the plant's vats. One worker thought it would be funny to dance on the top of a kettle of liquid cheese. The kettle shifted and into the cheese he fell. Another woman, attempting to unload a barrel of sleeves of Ritz crackers into a bin, ended up buried in them with her feet sticking straight up.

What Tickled Your Tastebuds

The Pittsburgh plant produced many varieties of baked goods, some you've heard of and some maybe not. Of course there were the Premium Saltines, as the huge sign on top of the building proudly boasted, as well as Ritz Crackers and Chips Ahoy. Some lesser know varieties have interesting stories.

If you've driven down Penn Avenue recently, you might have noticed "Uneeda Biscuits" painted in white on the wall facing Fifth Avenue. Uneeda Biscuits were NBC's first cracker, unique because they were packaged in the first inner-seal wrap, famous, because of their advertisements. There was a little boy in a hat and raincoat with the slogan, "Lest you forget, we say it yet, Uneeda Biscuit."

Another product famous as much for its advertising campaign as for its quality was Millbrook Bread. Its signature character was "Maestro Millbrook." Its tagline was, "This is Millbrook bread baked to music." As in all the Nabisco bakeries, the Pittsburgh branch piped music into the room where the bread was baked. That is until the mixer had had it with the constant lilt of the elevator music and threw a shovel at the speaker destroying it. That was the end of the Maestro in East Liberty.

Mixing It Up for the Next Generation

The sprawling plant was built in several steps -- the original seven-story building in 1917, a five-story addition in 1939, and a three-story addition that opened in 1950. There was also a garage across Penn Avenue on Aurelia Street.

"Three contractors went broke trying to knock that garage down," Keenan laughs. "It was so well built the wrecking ball just bounced back."

The original building is just as sturdy and Page Thomas, a designer in the design studio of Astorino, the architectural firm working on Bakery Square, says that they are keeping the two older sections intact. They are also keeping many of the memories intact.

"We are trying to restore the character of the building," Thomas says. "The old employee entrance in the middle of the building [with the Nabisco archway] will be the main entrance. We are trying to save and reuse the Nabisco mosaic tiles, saving the billboard sign, and [restoring] the windows and the bricks and mortar. We're also saving the two big mixers. Maybe we'll erect a 'mixer monument'!" They're even trying to find a bakery to move in so they can bring back the much loved and missed scents.

The many families and friends of Nabisco will be able to bring their children to Bakery Square and share with them what the plant used to mean to the area. I'm excited to bring mine, but in the meantime they already have some idea of what Nabisco means to me.

If they ever try to pick up a different brand of cookie, I put it back and, modifying my father's dictum, say: "Those elves didn't pay mommy's way through college."