We used to just walk into the buildings at Pitt, CMU, Carlow, and Point Park. Into the Carnegie, Frick Arts, Soldiers and Sailors, the PAA. We’d use the gym, read in their libraries, lounge in the student centers, wander through their offices, and labs, and galleries. This was high school. Now this might seem like a problem. What if we were thieves, what if we were vandals, what if we were out to hurt someone? But we weren’t. Most people aren’t. So who do you design your world for? The vandals or the masses? Pittsburgh, I feel, chose the latter. Might not have been a conscious decision, probably no committee sat down and said, “Keep the doors open!” but they were and to some extent still are. Granted you need an ID and a key to get in to a dorm, but everything else is accessible. Be polite, act like you belong, know the dress codes, study the floorplan, and you’re in. If the American University town is socialism’s last stand and if the idea of the University as a public service remains, Oakland’s the standard bearer. Oakland is the place to go if you don’t have a cent. There isn’t a gallery, museum, play, library, rehearsal or gym that with a little ingenuity you can’t walk into for nothing down. Probably the reason why, when the Pirates won the National League East in ‘91, and the Pitt kids flew out of their dorms and closed down the streets with pure joy. I felt like, at 25, I was one of them.