The Downtown stores were so grand!

[31st Street Bridge]

Kaufmann's windows and Gumbel's basement and Horne's classy wooden cases on the first floor. Add the streetcars, the lights, the small independent retailers and Pittsburgh was a holiday treasure chest, even into the 1980s. I miss it all so.

But as a kid, those wooden escalators at Kaufmann's upper floors scared the heck outta me!!