Welcome to studio A. It's the largest of the three studios here at WQED, and the on with the most stories to tell.

If these walls could talk, they tell you about former first lady Nancy Reagan, gospel choirs, and the great TV auction.

It's been the backdrop for actors, politicians, musicians, dancers, journalists, and enough talk show hos to, well, fill a giant studio.

And for more than 29 years, it was the home of Mr.

Rogers and his wonderful neighborhood of Make-Believe.

But studio A i only a part of a bigger story, one that continues to this day.

It's the story of an idea that became an institution both nationally and here in our own city, an idea that began nearly 60 years ago with a small group of people who believed that television could change lives.

I'm Chris Fennimore, and this is the best of WQED.

PNC celebrating Pittsburgh's past, present and future at the PNC Legacy Project exhibit located on Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh.

The WQED story begins here at the corner of Fifth and Belfield at the Universit of Pittsburgh's Music Building.

The former church manse wa owned by Pittsburgh Plate Glass, and in 1953, PPG donated the building to Pitt to serve as the home for the city's first educational television station.

Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting.

This is WQED channel 13, serving metropolitan Pittsburgh and the surrounding ten county area.

WQED Pittsburgh began in 1953 as the first community owned educational television station in the nation.

In that sense, we were the first public television station.

A report was made to the Ford Foundation commenting on the progress of WQEDs first year on the air.

That report said, in short, quote, a high proportion of how to programs, but production standards are high and quite consistent.

Two children's programs are charming shows sensitive to educational values.

High school of the air i receiving good public approval.

The announcement of a new painting class, with a registration fee of $3.25, has already brought in 500 letters.

Thus, the report.

This period in WQED history was to be one of constant change and experimentation.

With one goal in mind to establish a standard of excellence which would set the pace in educational television programing.

In those days, broadcast licenses were hard to come by and a community owne educational television station would have stiff competition from the local for profits.

But WQED had its champions, among them beloved station executive Dorothy Daniel and the man behind Pittsburgh's first Renaissance mayor David Lawrence.

However, fe people believed in the station, like PGE executive Leland Hazard, the ma who would eventually become WQED first president on the station's first anniversary.

He commemorated the event with these remarks.

Although tonight marks our first anniversary on the air, the movement started over three years ago.

A.W.

Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, our Buckel Jamieson Foundation, and the fund for Adult Education gave us the money for the transmission and studio equipment on faith, months before we had the equipment or the staff for broadcasting.

Thousands of people gave us $2 on faith.

The Pittsburgh Board of Education and many of the school boards, the ten counties subscribed for $0.30 a year.

A child on faith tonight marks the end of the first year.

Truly, according to the Chinese proverb, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

In this year, we have taken the first step.

Many more to follow.

Schoolchildren actually did go door to door, raising money to put programs on the air.

Meanwhile, inside the station two extraordinary young people were about to change everything.

When Fred arrived at the ol man's on the corner of Fifth and Bellefield in Oakland, a young woman named Josie Carey was working there.

I was at WQED already.

I had been discovered by Dorothy Daniel.

She had seen me at the Playhouse doing a song, and I was Teeter totter.

Tessie and I, stole the hearts of the boys.

And I stole the seats from the Seesaws.

It was October 12th that I got hired at WQED.

October 12th, 1953.

I'll never forget it.

Of course, it was Columbus Day.

How could you forget that?

Anyhow, I got to WQED and she said, we're not on the air yet, so you'll have to do something else until we get on the air.

We moved back in November of 53.

I think that was just maybe a month after Josie had come.

She come in October?

Well then then we came in November, and this fella had just, come to the station from New York, and everybody els seemed very excited about him, and he brought his own office furniture, and I thought that was unusual.

Just a half dozen people trying to get this, educational television station on the air.

We did everything.

Everything that had to be done.

We answered mail and we ran around, and Mrs.

Daniel was always doing reports, and we'd walk around.

We'd collate.

Oh, boy.

The things that you do when you have to so for at night, anyhow, started to talk about the children's program, and he had a stuffed horse and a ventriloquist's dummy.

We had a budget for that of $150 a week, and Josie made 75, and I made 75, and so anything that we that we bought, we ha to buy out of our own pockets.

So then anyhow, somebody drew a set for us, and we were hard pressed to figure out what was going to be on it.

It was just a, a screen wit it was gray with black and white characters on it.

So we went on the air 5:00 and, we had this song, which is you and I had written called why Hi.

Why don't I know you're in the.

Why hi don't I know you?

Why hi?

I'm sure I do.

Why hi?

You know, me too.

Why hi.

How do you do?

Why hi, I'm Josie.

Why hi.

How do you do?

Oh, what do you mean?

Did really, really do something like the Children's Corner became so popular that children and their families were literally lining up around the block for a chance to meet the cast on Daniel's birthday.

The year 1955 saw the formulation of in-school programing, which led to the developmen of still another new technique in television production, and there were many dangers living in the wilderness.

And so for protection, thes people tried to live together.

And we call the kinds of places in which they live for such as this.

This was the first time anywhere high that fifth graders received daily instruction over television.

The more programing WQED produced, the more viewers wanted.

In 1955, viewers were treated to an inside look at the thrilling world behind the scenes, with host Stella Nardozza.

Take the music to the background, open the announce mic and announce.

You are listening to Joanne Harris, The honored residents at Chatham College.

Next Monday, Mrs.

Harris will present another program of 18th and 20th century music.

Music up.

Music hour.

Open the announce mic.

Give an idea.

Announcer.

This is WQED channel 13, Pittsburgh, the nation's first community television station.

During this is WQED, viewers learned all about the inner workings of a television studio, from how the cameras worked to exactly what a director did for the 1950s.

It was a rare glimpse at state of the art broadcasting.

This cameraman is Art Roslyn.

This is an important position, for he must focus his camera and keep it steady.

It's quite a large one, isn't it?

But it has a lot of maneuverability because it's mounted on a dolly.

This means that the camera has legs with wheels.

Thus permitting the cameraman to move the camera forward.

And backward.

A kitchen's here.

Heres Stella shows off the kitchen set.

Yes, and it's quite a functional kitchen set at that.

It really works.

While the young man directing the studio crew is Sam Silberman, who would later become WQED longtime director of programing.

Next to him is producer Rhea Sykes and Miss Nardozza.

While she pretty much says it all, station WQED is located in the Oakland district in the heart of the Civic Center of Pittsburgh.

There's a sign on our front door which reads, please come in.

We want you to do this, for this is your television station.

This has been a presentation of the nation's first community television station.

This is WQED, channel 13, Pittsburgh.

Part of WQED educational mission was to offer audiences the chance to experience the thoughts and words of some of the country's most distinguished citizens through the Heritage Series, which ran until 1961.

Very few of the nationall broadcast episodes exist today.

Who opened th doors to witness in our lives?

We each may choose the best of what has gone before, the best of that which lives today, who fashioned us, and from the minds of those who have a reason, is a gift, is given us.

Always built to give.

And yet to be heritage.

Guests include the jurist judge Learned Hand.

What was the object that nerved us or those who went before us to this choice?

Doctor Everett Clancy, president of the National Council of Christians and Jews Elm Roper brought out the fact that, in a study of this cas of prejudice that America spends more than $30 billion a year because of its prejudices.

And this rare footage of the great American poet Robert Frost.

And then they thought they had it.

But he climbed down on the other side and so they couldn't find him.

He ran 14 miles in 15 days and never looked behind him.

You see, if you can if you can accept that, you can accept anything any poet says.

Sam Silberman, who directed the episodes, shared these photos of Mr.

Frost, first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the man who put Jackie Robinson on the field.

And Doctor Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine who ducked into the studio to watch a production.

Broadcast production wasn't the only area i which WQED was making progress.

In 1957, we acquire an integral piece of hardware.

I'll be very honest saying to yo gentlemen that I was a skeptic about an educational station in Pittsburgh now known as WQED.

I think maybe I even spoke against it.

Then the inner councils of the Allegheny Conference, and I remained a skeptic for a year or so after the station got underway.

A little confession is good for the soul, and I've been wrong before, and I was wrong then.

So, as, valid.

We feel the way we do.

Jack.

I'm very, very happy to present to you a deed from the Westinghouse Broadcasting Incorporated, formerly Westinghouse radio station.

to the metropolitan Pittsburgh educational television station, for your for your transmitting facilities which you've been using.

But what you will now own officially.

Then as now, WQED devoted a large portion of its production resources to cultural programing.

The great modern dance pioneer, Martha Graham was profiled in A Dancer's World in 1957.

You make up your face a you think she might have looked.

You dress your hair as you think she might have just gestures.

I'm wearin my hair tonight as Joe Custer, at least as I hope she wore it.

As the 60s progressed, audiences would turn to public television for a reflection of the changing times.

Station management, but looking for producers with new ideas.

And former senior vice president Jay Rayvid fit the bill.

My very first job as a producer was doing a series here in Pittsburgh.

It was a series that actually wasn' started as a television series.

It was started as a playwriting contest with Carnegie Tech University before Carnegie Mellon existed, and their drama department.

And so they went into any NET Playhouse.

We won an Emmy for that season.

That was my first Stanley.

I came from the the educational television station in Jacksonville, which was being picketed and having, all sorts of problems with the then John Birch Society and all the rest, because we were around Eleanor Roosevelt, a communist former president's wife, on the air.

I had a pregnant wife, an they were doing terrible things.

So, all around us, and, we were a little active and sit ins that were going on then, and I thought, I better get out of there.

And I got a job offer from QED, and I thought, I'll stop there on my way to New York, and then at least we'll have food to eat.

And my wife can deliver her baby.

Jay Rayvid has been making television for more than half a century.

Among the many programs he directed and or produced were WonderWorks, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego And in the early 60s, a hip, sty drawing on Pittsburgh' deep bench of gifted musicians.

It was like spending an evening in a club without leaving your living room.

We presented one of the first programs in what would become a decades long relationship with the renowned Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

William Steinberg conducts.

He is one of the few established conductors of our time who knows intimately the glamor of the very large concert halls, as well as the small town gymnasiums, field houses, and high school auditoriums.

He knows places like Tanglewood, Salzburg, Zurich, Uniontown, Elkins and McKeesport.

His approach to his music and his audience, whether in New York or New Brighton, is always the same.

He gives the best performance of his career up to that precise moment.

His beat is unmistakable, his discipline superb, his work meticulous.

But most important, Steinberg has the abilit to communicate to his musicians, to his singers, to whomever is working with him.

The sheer joy of making music as he sees it, hears it, and feels it.

There was a lot going on at the tiny WQED studios in those days.

One of the brightest moments was the production and first national broadcas of Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood.

A beautiful day for a neighborwo Would you be mine.

Would you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood.

Would a neighborly day for a beautywood.

Would you be mine.

Could you be mine.

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.

I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day.

Since we're together, we might as well say.

Would you be mine?

Could you be mine?

Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please.

Won't you please, please.

Won't you be my neighbor?

Hi.

Glad to see you today.

Fred was on The Tonight Show, his first appearance.

And this is the sign they had on his door.

And so when we left, I just took it that I, I, I framed it.

There's a lot of cool stuff over over the years I've collected so much.

And David Newell has held many jobs during his 40 years with the neighborhood.

But the one he's best known for is his role as Mr.

McFeely, the speedy delivery man.

For these past 43 years, I've worked for the Mister Rogers Neighborhoo as social producer, as property manager, as public relations manager and Mr.

McFeely, Speedy Delivery.

Excuse me.

Edgar, somebody knocking at my door.

I'll call you back, okay?

Be right there and I'll call you right back.

Somebody at the door?

I'm a long, busy day, isn't it?

Good day, Mister Rogers.

Speedy Deliveries How are you doing?

How are you, Mister McFleey?

Sppedy delivery for you.

Oh.

Here you go.

Thank you very much.

And please sign here, Mister Rogers, if yo will, please sign right there.

And he said, oh, yes, I want you to do, props and help me behind the scenes with the puppets, etc.

But I also want you to do a delivery man.

I know you've had some background in theater, and there'll be the script of the first two weeks, I guess, which he wrote and said, here's our props and here's what we need, Cetera, etc.

and the delivery man's name is Mr.

McCurdy as well.

That's fine.

And so everything was well we went to tape the first day, and before the first taping, the phone rang from Sears Roebuck, who gave us the money and said, everything's fine.

We love the script.

I love the concept.

That sort of.

But don't call the delivery man Mr.

McCurdy, because that's the name of our president who gave the money.

But Fred knew that and it was saying thank you by calling the delivery man, Mr.

McCurdy.

So obviously, we've got to get you a name.

We're taping in 20 minutes.

McFeely.

He came u because that's his middle name.

So that's, the name of McFeely was born.

What is it?

it's a people make bread, you know, they make bread in many different ways.

Mister Rogers Neighborhood was so different from other television programs here.

It is, the Edison talking machine.

There you go, Edison.

Thomas Edison.

That's right.

It's hard to explain the camaraderi that was going on in those days.

At least I felt it.

And and you saw everybody every day.

And it was let's oh, let's put this show on.

And we did.

Have you seen the King today, Charlie?

Well, Edgar says he isn't too pleased with what's going on.

Well, the first year of Mister Rogers Neighborhood, we did 130 programs of black and white.

We were around the clock.

Fred would write Yeah, Write 130 programs.

And he would catch up, and then we'd tape the and he'd have to do some more.

Hi, Mister.

McFeely, Speedy delivery.

You ready to go recycling?

Yes, sir.

You know, I enjoyed coming to work.

I look forward, come to work all my 40 some years work in the neighborhood.

At least with Mister Rogers Neighborhood, I felt I was working on something that was helping people somewhere.

Some somehow.

Well, I have more deliveries to mak in speaking of deliveries.

Yes.

If there's anything you want, if there's anything you need.

McFeely.

The delivery brings it to you.

Here with speed.

Yes.

Our speed delivery is a speedy delivery.

Speedy delivery?

Do use the delivery.

Thank you again, Mr.

McFeely.

Oh, you're quite welcome.

Mister Rogers Neighborhood was produced in the WQED Studios until December of 2000.

Fred Rogers passed away in 2003, leaving behind a loving example of all the good things television can do.

The respect we won when our pulse was right is rapidly being lost, as even our closest allies, like the rest of the country, public television was playing catch up with an evolving national identity.

1968 Who Speaks for the Negr was a bold attempt to broadcast the many voices of Pittsburgh's African-American community.

Everyone has an identity.

The Negro has had his identity taken away, and only in recognizing his blackness and his unity can he become born again.

No more marches, no more marches.

No more.

We didn't come to show an affection of our muscles.

So no, we didn't come to try t present a threat to the people.

Speak about things we want the people to well, understand that we won't understand and that we are demanding that we be Americans, free America.

Yey!

And I'm always fascinated when a white person asks, well, what do you want?

My heavens, a black person wants the same thing that he wants.

And I think it' this kind of short clip answer every time one of these nonsensical questions is ask is the best rout to getting the message across.

While 1968 would go down in history as a year like no other, it also marked the beginnin of the country's longest running minority affairs program, Black Horizons.

Chris Moore is an award winning writer, producer and the longest serving hos of that groundbreaking series.

Black horizons was created in 1968, about a month after Doctor King was killed.

I think with the protests that they saw nationwide here and in Pittsburgh here, they decided that they needed to have a program on, that addressed black issues.

And they looked around and they didn't have anyone on staff who was black to produce it.

In fact, the first producer was a whit woman named Virginia Bartlett.

But, to WQED management's vision concept, they had the foresight to start a program that would train people.

I'm Delphine Sessae, introducing Black Horizon, a weekly series by, with and for the black community.

Now, this is going to be your thing.

It's going to be when they brough a number of black people in here who were trained as writers, producers, host directors, all the rest, and they establishe a huge staff for Black Horizons.

And a lot of those people went on to do great things, and we were with August 4th, 198 was my first day here at WQED.

I think that adds up to about 32 years, I think because they were concerned more about, content than how, blond or blue eye you were or how young you were.

I mean, look at me and how I've been allowed to flourish from from when I looked like that.

They actually let me on the air looking like that.

My daddies tell you, you'll never get no job.

Boy, with that hair like that, and, to to how I look today.

And so I think PBS has always allowed people to come into their own and they hire people based on, their intelligence the content of their character, and what they're able to present and not necessarily image that modern TV is often looking for the meanwhile, WQED was experiencing its own sort of growing pains.

The little churc manse could no longer adequately meet the demands of the station's staff, equipment and productions.

Once again, Leland Hazard led a band of business and community leaders to raise the funds to buil a new WQED from the ground up.

We are not really here to build a building.

We are here really to build a philosophy, an education, an experience.

And in saying this, I would like to pay the most intimate tribute I can muster to a group of people whose compensation, more often than not, had been satisfaction rather than money.

And that's the staff for WQED.

In April of 1970, WQED dedicated its new home at 4802 Fifth Avenue.

And I was meant for you together on life support impetuously, program focusing on local and community issues were given high priority and WQED weekly schedule.

Herbert Stein was the experienced voice of journalism behind the series newsroom.

WQED was one of the ver first public television stations in the country to develop a new concept of reporting on what was going on in our community.

Newsroom was a program in which working reporters told us about big and little events, not just the superficial facts but the story behind the story and what was likely to happen next.

Then there were the man locally produced public affairs documentaries, a peace mobilization in New York City in the Frontline by senior Charles Owen Rice, one of Pittsburgh's most controversial figures.

Once known as the labor priest, in recent years, Monsignor Rice has turned his attention to other causes, foremos among them the cause of peace, active and national peace groups.

Outspoken against the war in Vietnam, he was asked to join Marti Luther King and Doctor Benjamin Spock in a massive peac demonstration in New York City.

The protest drew thousands of men, women and children from across the nation.

Martin Luther King called it possibly the largest peace demonstration in United States history.

Gathering in Central Park, protesters marched to the United Nations Plaza, where the first speaker was Martin senior.

Charles Owen Rice, to tell you where I am and what sort of person I am, I am apposed and not a New Yorker, Adam Clayton Powell said of himself.

And I have said of myself, I'm just I'm the parish priest.

There was a series called WQEDs weekly, which regularly took us behind the scenes of local events and showed views of peopl that we had never seen before.

And I, I said to him, God bless you.

So he didn't get what I meant.

He said, what's that?

I said, God bless you.

I said, you're the first perso that I you're the first person that I've talked to since last January that never heard of the super Bowl.

Arthur J. Rooney has live in the same city for 74 years.

He's been marrie to the same woman for 46 years.

He has owned the same football team for 42 years.

He's lived in the same house for 38 years.

He has money, fame and power, and he's a living legend to Pittsburghers and sports fans across the nation.

Not because he's a member o the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not because of the widely circulated story of how he won over $200,000 in two days playing the horses, not because the Steelers won the Super Bow after 40 years as a losing team, and not even because he has wo more awards for his charitable and humane deeds than most of us have ever heard of.

Arthur Rooney is a legend because he's living proof that sometimes nice guys do finish first.

And while WQED celebrated Pittsburgh's man neighborhoods and ethnic groups, our view of the world was about to get much, much bigger and.

In 1975, WQED began co-producing the National Geographic Specials.

The National Geographic specials took viewers on incredible adventure to worlds both great and small, working with the world's foremost explorers, photographers, naturalists and adventurers.

By the 1970s, WQED had become a national powerhouse, producing or co-producing award winning series and specials like Once Upon a Classic eac and every week for four years, WQED supplied PBS with its only dramatic series for children, the Emmy and Peabody Award winning Once Upon a Classic.

Great stories like Robin Hood, The Prince and the pauper, The Secret Garden, A Tale of Two Cities, King Arthur.

WonderWorks.

Booker.

The inspiring story of young Booker T Washington, whose greatest dream was to learn how to read as a blue back speller.

A Little Princess a classic story of Sara Crewe and how tragedy takes her from riches to rags.

The Miracle at Moreaux, where a nun and the students struggle to save three Jewis children from the Nazi terror.

Do you know where the Jews are?

Yes.

When you join with us now, become a member or renew your membership in your public television station.

As everyone who watches public television knows, fundraising is a major par of how programs get on the air.

In 1971, WQED began what would become a beloved community tradition the Great TV auction.

Ceci Somers served as the vice presiden and station manager for WQED FM.

She was originally brought to the station to produce the first auction.

I heard that they were looking for an auction manager, and I was in Chicago an I was working at WTTW in Chicago and I was coming to Pittsburgh to marry Jack Somers, who had come here to produce a national television series.

And he told me they were having their first auction.

He said, you'll never believe us.

So I came without saying anything to them about why I was coming, and they hired me.

So it worked out really well.

The great TV auction was a week long day to night sale of items and services donated by area merchants, businesses and artists.

An elaborate set was built that took over most of the station's three studios.

Viewers would call in bids on the items they wanted, while volunteers and staff handled phones, tables, and general mayhem.

Many of the items defied description.

Many, many mix up and very funny things happened.

I remember that one time we ha we had a urologist on our board and he said that.

He said, we have to help you however I can.

He said, I could give the donation of a vasectomy.

And so we talked about it to a couple of other people and they thought, well, maybe that wasn't proper to have a vasectomy.

So he said, okay, I'll just give a complete urological exam.

So fine.

So that sales and the poor woman who came to pick it up got very confused because she thought she was having her horoscope read.

The first year that I was part of the great TV auction, I wasn't in the.

I wasn't in the Union.

So I was an AD and that was like two hour shifts on, two hours off, two hours on two hours.

And it was like insanity.

I just got out of college and it's like, you know, my first auction.

And it was like this place was a madhouse.

And it's because there are many, many problems with that.

It was absolutely nuts.

And we had to do it all within seven days, because if we didn't, then we'd have to be charged sales tax.

That was one of the greatest community involvement things that has ever been invented, because not only did we have hundreds and hundreds of volunteers going out and getting merchandise, we had thousands of volunteer coming in to label merchandise to be on the air and answer telephones, to be in the back and sell this stuff to the people who bid on it.

One of the auctions biggest fans and greatest supporters was philanthropist and forme WQED board chair Elsie Hillman.

Elsie and the auction were just a perfect match.

We were talking about who we would get to be the first chairman.

Somebody told me about Elsie Hillman and they said that she was a wonderful philanthropist and that she was a Republican national chairwoman, and that she did so many good things.

And if Elsie was behind something, it usually was a success.

Before we go to the next table, several phone calls have people have asked why you're standing here with a monkey in your hand?

I mean, as the chairma of the QED Communications Board, that's a really big question.

Why do you have this monkey here for this one?

Because this monkey is the most enthusiastic gu that ever was about the auction.

And you sit around 20 years.

Well, yeah, we have got.

Yes, we have.

Oh yes.

Malcolm.

Yeah.

He's been around for 20 years.

The guy at the great tired.

He's tired.

We'll forget about him, but think he'll be back to clap.

Oh.

There he goes.

What?

Wow.

Robert.

Anyway, we're not making much money on this particular segment.

This is table B that we're going to open.

Hold it, hold it, hold it.

I can't get them off here.

Okay Well, there's a floor crew at the station, as you know.

And they do everything from set light to carrying big pieces of sets.

And they got a little bit goofy at 11:00 one night.

So they started to dress as old time circus performers with baggy tights on and really bizarre, wonderful outfits.

If you think of an 1890s circus acrobat, that's what they dressed as.

And here they are, the educational and entertainment equivalent of a week and a half in Philadelphia.

Those Flying Zucchini brothers for their double circus, all American, all star, one man band with peaches and coffee and soccer.

The great TV auction faded away by the early 90s, but it'll always be a hometown favorite.

From the late 1970s through the 1980s, station programing turned to a myriad of social issue that were affecting the country.

First Lady Nancy Reagan visited the station in 1983 for the nationally broadcast special, The Chemical People.

Good evening and welcome to the Chemical People.

I'm joining you tonight because I'm concerned about the widespread use of alcohol and drugs by our nation's young people.

This problem is far greater than we had reason to believe a few years ago.

Today it's destroying dreams and tearing families apart and the numbers are terrifying.

And behind the numbers are real children and real parents.

I'm not an authority on drugs, but I do care about young people, and I don't think we can afford to lose a generation of our young people to chemicals.

As we'll learn tonight, kids are becoming acquainted with drugs at a younger and younger age, and that's not a good prescription for growing up.

The Chemical People featured a new concept called outreach that focused on direct community involvement, parties and such on the weekends, or just just for drinking.

And if you don't want to even drink, the pressure is put on you because you're the you'r the one that's out of the norm.

Outreach proved to be both popular and effective, and became a staple of public television and nothing but the latest features.

A raw oven remember Stella and her fabulou yet functional studio kitchen?

Well, she's not the only one who appreciates a good stove.

I have a banana and Travis salami.

Tommy, give it the gravy.

David.

Everybody eats when to Come to my house.

Believe it or not, cookin isn't my only job here at WQED.

Though I have to admit it has been one of my favorites.

I always tell people that I'm the program director here at the station, which means that I get to fulfill a childhood dream.

I watch television for a living.

Here's the fun part.

We've got a tile lays dow on the bottom of the of the pan.

Zucchini cheesecake and other ways to prepare.

Summer's most abundan vegetable was the original local cooking show, based on people sending their recipes in, and us sending those recipes and stories back out to the community.

It's gone.

There' no record of this program now.

Guess who gave me that title?

Who could that be?

Whom could be Rick back.

Well, welcome to the brand new WQED Cook's Kitchen.

My name is Chris Fennimore, and that was in 1993.

So now it's coming up on 20 years of getting and turning recipe around and creating cookbooks.

We've done over 100 of those cooking marathons with every topic.

You know, we started just doing ingredients like B is for berries.

Let's C is for carrots, P is for peppers.

I said, you know, this is so much more than cooking directions and food and and all of that.

I said, this is about family history.

It's about cultural history, ethnic history.

I said, this really resonates in a way that I hadn't thought it would.

Light and delicate and delicious.

Let me just make sure that it came out right.

I just want to give it one little taste test.

When it comes to public television staples, it's hard to beat Rick Seebach, whose imaginative documentaries have been charming local and national audiences for 25 years.

I've always liked the strip show poster a lot.

And actually, great old amusement park so that some people hate it.

I like it a lot.

I first came to WQED when I was a teenager.

I used to go to the old building, a girl I knew in Bethel Park.

Dietrich knew Dennis Benson, who was the host of a program called The Place, and I used to come and sit on the floor and be part of the audience at the place, which was a coffee shop type show that was done at the old building in the late 60s or early 70s.

So that's how I first got to WQED.

Rick left his hometow for college, then landed a job at South Carolina's PBS station in 1987.

Opportunity knocked.

When it came time to actually, like, apply for a job here, I answered an ad in broadcasting magazine when I was working for public television in South Carolina, and the ad said that WQE was looking for local producers.

When I came to WQED, there were two assignments that were given to me.

One was to finish a show abou the three rivers of Pittsburgh that someone had not shot anything for, but had done some preliminary research, and they were calling it the Three Rivers Show.

And I would eventually star to shoot and edit that program, which became The Mon, the Al & the O. A lot of history has flowe through rivers in Pennsylvania, a lot of water, too.

We're going to take a slightly cockeyed look at three of western Pennsylvania's most important rivers the Allegheny, the Monongahela and the Ohio.

We're going to see how people use the rivers for play, as well as work.

And we'll check out some history, too.

We abbreviated the names of the rivers in order to title this sometimes silly show The Mon, the Al & the O Actually the very first of the Pittsburgh history series was Holy Pittsburgh, and we put that little opening that we have this program is part of WQED Pittsburgh History serie that appeared when we were doing Holy Pittsburgh, because we heard that Los Angeles was doing a series of six programs called the Los Angele History Series, and Nancy Lavin was head of local programing thought that sounds really good.

You always put history in your shows.

Why don't we call your show the Pittsburgh History Series.

In one corner of Pennsylvania, there are holy places filled with treasures, tons of magnificent stained glass, maybe the world's largest collection of holy relics, some of the most unusual frescoes since Michelangelo, and a passion play proudly produced for over 70 seasons.

Come on a tour of a city with many surprising houses of worship.

Holy Pittsburgh.

I also was given the assignment of doing a show, about organ transplants, because in 1987, Pittsburgh was still the organ transplant capital of the world.

More organ transplants were done in Pittsburgh at that time than in the rest of the world combined.

In the 19th century and for most of the 20th, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was famous around the world as a city of iron and steel manufacturing and heavy industry.

In the 1980s, however, the steel industry faltered and failed.

At the same time, the city was developing new reasons for pride and prominence, and although some work continued at a few steel mills, New medical researc and breakthroughs in health care helped transform the Steel City into what you might call the transplant town.

When you look up Presbyterian University Hospital in the Pittsburgh phonebook under transplant surgery, there are listings for fou different kinds of transplants heart, heart, lung, kidney and liver.

Doctors do more transplants here than at any other hospital in the world.

Starzl Doctor Thomas E. Starzl.

In 1981 became directo of transplant services at Presby and professor of surgery at Pitt's Medical School.

He came from Denver, where in 1967 he performed the world's first successful liver transplant.

His arrival is often considered the start of what some call the Pittsburgh era.

Well, I think the Pittsburgh era had been, in place for a long time.

It's a great medical community, and we just added another ingredient to it.

All right, let's do a quick tour of my office.

Rick was also asked to produce the television tributes to some pretty famous Pittsburghers, in conjunction with Pittsburgh Magazine.

We used to do Pittsburghers of the year, and I did, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the year they were the Pittsburgh o the year.

I did George Romero.

I did a show with August Wilson, the first time he was Pittsburgh or of the year for Pittsburgh Magazine.

And I loved those shows, and I loved all of them.

After 25 year of sharing Pittsburgh's charms with the world, Rick still loves his work.

Well, I think I say WQED for so many years because it's never not been interesting.

I mean, I love what I get to do.

60 years is a long time to do just about anything.

From the beginning, the people who founded WQED had a simple mission commissioner, those over to the regular settlers to produce the best possible programing for their audience.

It didn't happen quickly or easily, but they always believed they were building something special.

It was validation for so many people that had worked so hard.

To make a little thing in a church man's.

Into something more than that.

Here's the deal.

In the next hour, I'm going to show you 25 things I like about Pittsburgh.

I think when I came here, I was so impressed by WQEDs, commitment to qualit that they wanted it to be right and they wanted it t not just be a surface program.

And so really early on I learned that it's really nice to let people talk and to really try to listen to them and then allow their voices to be heard.

And I think that's somethin that you don't hear that much on commercial television.

Public television lets people have a say, and if I can stay out of the way, I'm happiest.

I think one of the luxuries I have had as an individual producer here is that I've been allowe to tell a lot of my own stories.

Me too.

Journey is a story about my father, my elder brother, but it's also a story about America and how far we've come in a generation.

It's about two guys that I'v followed around all of my life.

My dad, who was a Chief Petty officer during World War two, and my older brother, who was a rear admiral in the United States Navy.

They were personal stories, but I think that there were stories that were also American and that they mattered.

60 years later, the building may look a little different and the equipment's had an upgrade or two.

Some of our old friends are no longer with us.

But we'll always have a small part of them captured on film or videotape.

If you didn't see your favorite, remember, there' a lot more of the best of WQED from award winning local programs.

To tasty breakfast specials.

The sky's the limit.

There were shows waiting in the tape vault.

And some that have yet to be produced.

So we hope you'll stick around because we plan to.

PNC celebrating Pittsburgh's past, present and future at the PNC Legacy Project exhibit, located on Liberty Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh.

Toward The home video versio of The Best of WQED for $19.95.

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