You’ll also find numerous theaters, including the gay-popular Cabaret at Theater Square. Nearby, Liberty and Penn avenues form the spines of a 14-block Cultural District of theaters and performance halls housing the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Ballet and the Pittsburgh Opera. It’s architecturally notable, too: You can’t miss the city’s most remarked-upon skyscraper, PPG Place, a neo-Gothic monolith designed by the late gay architect Philip Johnson.
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The city also hosts the Pittsburgh International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival each October, and the fast-growing Pride Theater Festival took place over two weekends just this month. The city has numerous theaters with artsy and gay-themed films and a high appreciation of alternative culture (consider that two of its top attractions are the Mattress Factory contemporary art museum and the Andy Warhol Museum). The gay community is well-integrated within the mainstream population. Having received a bump in gay visibility during the years it served as the setting of TV’s Queer as Folk (which was actually filmed in Toronto), Pittsburgh has also steadily developed into a very popular weekend destination among LGBT travelers.
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Although now less than half its size compared to its heyday, this hilly and historic metropolis in the Ohio Valley is enjoying a dramatic renaissance, with a number of formerly downcast neighborhoods now abuzz with hip restaurants, indie shops and rehabbed factory buildings, apartments and row houses. Once one of the country’s pre-eminent industrial powerhouses, with a population of nearly 700,000, Pittsburgh () has, like many similar American cities, changed considerably over the past few decades.