Original subtitles

♪

♪ I took a walk through this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ Felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪

♪ Found something good in this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪

- ♪ La, la - ♪ Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la, la

- ♪ Sha la, la, la - Sha la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la

Pittsburgh is a city of neighborhoods,

each with its own rites and rituals,

a patchwork of cultures that took shape over a century ago.

Back then, the city was a beacon of hope and possibility

for people from all over the world,

offering the promise of work, prosperity, a new life.

Pittsburgh could have been another company town

gone to beautiful ruin,

but something happened.

The city started to pop up on lists

of the most livable places in America.

It became attractive to a new wave of people from elsewhere

looking to reinvent themselves and make a new world.

And so we find ourselves asking the same questions

we ask in other cities in transition.

Are the new arrivals, new, money, new ideas,

saving the city or cannibalizing it?

Who will live in the Pittsburgh of the future,

and will there be room for the people who stayed true,

stuck with it their whole lives?

♪

Ah.

Oh, man, I'm very happy about this.

Sausage and peppers, one of my favorite things.

All right.

Bocce, the ancient game of kings.

Throw the little ball, try and get the other balls close.

Closer than the other guy's.

Gene, Uncle Gene, this is Anthony Bourdain.

- How do you do? - 103 years old, 103 years old.

Looking good.

He was up in Donnie's bocce courts

faster than anybody else.

Wow, that's delicious. This is a weakness of mine.

You know, they have these street fairs in New York

where they do sausage and pepper stands.

I cannot walk past one of those things without getting them.

Ohh!

So how long have you lived in this community?

78 years.

- So your whole life. - Yes.

Now, the first wave of Italians who came here

from Italy, why did they come here?

Did they come here for steel jobs? Coal?

Actually, trade. I think they came here more for the trade.

Yeah.

Yeah, plumbers, bricklayers, any kind of trade like that.

Some Italians said that they were told to come over here

and they were gonna find the roads paved with gold.

They said, "They didn't tell us we had to build them first."

Yeah.

How's the neighborhood changed over the years?

Still predominantly Italian American, or...?

Yeah, not as much as it was,

but it's still more Italian than anything else.

For 35 years or so, it was a tough time for Pittsburgh.

Why did people stay?

Family. Familia.

I tell people, when you come to Bloomfield,

don't talk about anybody

because we're all connected somehow.

- All right. - Thank you.

- That's it! - Harder!

Okay, go ahead.

There it goes.

- Hey. - Don't hit nothing,

Don't hit nothing. Oh!

- Ah. - Bad break.

You gotta get ahead of that.

Here, Gene. Hey.

Uncle Eugene can take care of it.

Oh, no way.

Oh!

That was the... oh, man.

103 years old.

103-year-old Uncle Gene

ruins my dreams of bocce immortality...

Come on.

And the weather, as if on cue, turns bad.

An augur of doom, perhaps.

- Ohh! - Oh, shit.

Oh.

♪

That's a shame.

And God himself appears to align himself against me,

hurling all that beautiful salsiccia and meatballs

onto the cold, wet ground.

- They're still good. - That's still good.

- Yeah. - No.

These things are gonna fly away.

♪

Oh!

- Well, I'm glad I got to eat. - Right.

♪

"'Oh, ' Arlene said, as they passed the old Nabisco plant,

"cleaned up and advertising condominiums.

"'Have you heard how much they're asking

"for a one bedroom?'

"'How much?' 'A million two.'

"'That is highway robbery.

"Who would honestly pay that to live in East Liberty?'

"'They're calling it Eastside now.'

"'Who's calling it that? No one I know.

"It's a boondoggle if I ever saw one.'

"Beside the greed factor,

"she didn't actually mind the condos.

Better than leaving the building empty."

Stewart O'Nan is a local author

who's written 15 novels, many set in Pittsburgh.

We're the city that made the steel

that beat the Confederacy,

beat the Kaiser, built the skyscrapers,

built the bridges, and beat the Nazis.

♪

Who came in the very beginning,

lured by jobs in steel and...

Most of the people that came here,

once the steel industry was in place,

were people from Central Europe.

♪

They were blue collar, they worked long hours,

they worked hard, dangerous jobs,

and made the money to send their kids to schools

to become white collar.

♪

At one point, I believe we were

the sixth largest city in America.

We're now 63rd.

Now, wait a minute.

Sixth largest in America, now 63rd.

- 63rd, yeah. - So what happened?

Well, the steel industry began to falter in the 1960s,

and by the 1980s it was essentially dead.

In the 1980s, this place was a ghost town.

We lost half of our population.

It went away. Right.

And half of your population means at least half,

if not more, of your tax base.

- So what went right? - What went right?

What went right, weirdly enough is what went wrong.

It became attractive to people outside of Pittsburgh

because it's super affordable.

Bow down to your new masters, your techie future,

the robot overlords of a shiny, new Pittsburgh.

The computer science program at Carnegie Mellon

is one of the best in the country,

inspiring an arms race between companies

looking to recruit braniacs

for new fields of artificial intelligence,

cutting-edge medical research,

possibly cyborg super nerds who will no doubt

revenge themselves on all of us

for their painful high school experiences

by crushing us between their synthetic mandibles.

They're also good for business.

- Here you go, guys. - Thank you.

Thank you.

The Googlers that are coming in

are coming in at the very top of the food chain,

and they're walking into brand-new housing.

They're making six figures. They're 23 years old.

- Right. - And, you know, I think

the old-school, the people that have been here forever,

are not happy about that.

I mean, you know, it's gonna be all pencil necks,

like in 20 years.

Bad breeding stock.

It's the problem of inclusion and exclusion, right?

It's the American problem, right?

It's what Fitzgerald writes about in "Gatsby."

Who is included, who's excluded?

Who's allowed in, who isn't? Right.

And that's the worry, that we're gonna forget

the people that have lived through it,

and that have stayed here,

and had no choice but to stay here.

Pittsburgh's Deutschtown is home

to one of the oldest German clubs in the U.S.

Immigrants founded it in 1854

to preserve a link to their motherland.

Today, a new generation

is leaving their mark on the city.

♪ That's because every day

♪ Feeling the same way

♪ Getting lost in the daily grind ♪

♪ Feel like I lose my mind

Justin Severino opened his restaurant, Cure,

as an ode to flesh, smoke and animal fat,

Maggie Merskey designs and creates bar programs

at bars and restaurants across the city,

and Sonja Finn was here from the beginning,

planting the flag for farm-to-table cooking

back in the early days with her restaurant, Dinette.

♪ For our future

♪ How many years will we wait, the devil controls our fate ♪

♪ Our minds and lives at stake ♪

♪ They're using us for bait

The countryside around Pittsburgh is beautiful.

Another world.

I joined a group of foodie all-stars

about 20 miles outside of town for a meal.

Are there typical, iconic Pittsburgher qualities?

You probably worked here and brag about working here.

You complain about Millennials.

You complain about the people on the street harassing you.

You don't like anything new at all.

- Right. - You're describing me.

The menu is flipping good.

Right in my happy zone.

Racks of pork rib,

grilled hearts of escarole and turnips,

a sauce made from the pork drippings,

and four types of sausage.

- What now? - Look at this. Whoa.

- The food's amazing. - That's titanic.

I don't want to speak about Pittsburgh in a dismissive way,

but it was not known before being what it is today.

People are talking a lot about the food scene here.

'Twas not always so. What were people eating before?

You know, steak and potatoes.

You know, living in San Francisco

as a young person in your 20s, you were going out to eat.

That was really important,

and we all knew about the restaurants,

whether you were in the restaurant business or not.

- Right. - And that wasn't Pittsburgh.

When I opened Dinette in 2008, you know,

I'm expecting people like me to be coming in.

I'm 29. That's who I'm building this restaurant for,

and everyone was... 56.

Yeah, my parents' age or older.

You know, I thought to myself,

I'm going to this neighborhood

that's basically desolate.

I'm gonna take this building that's been...

It's a restaurant that's been closed for seven years,

and, you know, I'm gonna do something nice here.

You know, I didn't expect the reaction I got

from the actual people that lived around me.

Right.

You know, which was not positive.

They liked it the way it was, you know?

That was their life, and then, you know,

I move in and all of a sudden,

I open this restaurant and people with nice, fancy cars

are taking their parking spaces,

and now I'm a yuppie gentrifier.

- Well. - You know what I mean?

You know, own it.

Sometimes it kind of hurts, right,

as a restaurant owner or small business owner

because there are always haters out there, and you feel like,

okay, so somebody wants me to be a small business owner,

and take care of my employees, and then also on me,

they're gonna talk about gentrification, right?

Like, you're just trying to do your thing.

You're just trying to do something good.

Right.

And you're trying to do it for you, and you should.

Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, for me it's different.

Like, I definitely was thinking

about the neighborhood when I did it.

Like, I'm not some egomaniac who thinks that, like,

just putting out my food is a reason, like,

so everyone can enjoy the, like, artistry of my food.

That's why I'm opening a restaurant.

That's not the point. Well, I mean,

not to disagree with anything that you just said,

but, like, I didn't open Cure in Lawrenceville

because I wanted to change the neighborhood.

I honestly opened Cure for me 100%.

I was, like, struggling professionally,

struggling personally.

Cure was all about satisfying me, like, 100%.

If I'm running a high-end restaurant in Pittsburgh.

Who am I employing as porters, dishwashers?

- Honestly, like, our... - Students.

Our dishwashers are... They're white kids.

- No way. - Yeah.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

is a big, bright shining star of an example

of what blue collar America, I think, was 100 years ago,

When we're looking at, like, who's applying,

we also need to look at neighborhoods.

The topography of Pittsburgh is such that,

like, neighborhoods are separated by...

- Bridges. - By bridges and ravines,

and this sort of thing means that, like,

people stay within their neighborhood.

- Go. - One.

- Go. - Two.

- Go. - Three.

Up, two, good.

Everybody's talking now

about a Pittsburgh renaissance.

You've got artists coming.

There are new restaurants.

Somebody's making money. Yes.

Money's definitely coming in.

Is it lifting all boats?

No. It is not.

♪

The new Pittsburgh attracts new people,

but it doesn't change the life

for those workers

who were left behind and kind of spit out.

This is the Hill District,

traditionally African American.

The numbers here do not indicate a renaissance.

Black homes take in half the income

of their white neighbors, and African American youth

are six times as likely to be arrested,

go through the system,

from which many can never break free.

When activist Sala Udin was growing up here,

the neighborhood was thriving,

the Golden Age Harlem of Pittsburgh.

They used to call this city hell with the lid off.

The mills ran 24 hours a day.

I grew up at a time when

most adult men in the neighborhood,

in the morning,

I saw them getting up and going to work.

My dad, for example, dropped out of school,

but was still able to find work

that paid enough to raise a family.

My mother had 12 children.

And your dad was able to raise 12 kids on that.

- That's right. - Wow.

That was a very different America.

That was a very different America.

- How you doing, Sala? - Good, good.

This is where I live. This is where I grew up.

All of this area, this whole flat

parking lot area that you see,

this is where we lived.

Devastation.

They just completely devastated

our whole neighborhood.

In the 1950s, the city came up

with a plan to revitalize the Hill District

by leveling large swaths of it.

8,000 residents, including Sala, were displaced,

and instead of new housing,

the land was used to build a hockey arena.

Difficult, painful memories

of what used to be, and now,

we see suburbanites coming in

to have a good time,

visit the Penguins.

They don't live here.

They just play here,

and they don't know the pain

that this playground...

caused.

What's the missing component here?

What's missing is an economic plan

that includes everybody,

not just the techies and the computer geeks,

but regular people.

By day,

a mild-mannered dentist in training,

but at night she becomes, well, a superhero.

Brittany Baker is a star

of the International Wrestling Cartel.

Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt!

Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt!

Tonight, she defends her title

in a battle of the wrestling titans.

Boyfriend, Adam Cole, hopes to win a championship of his own.

Why do you think it's big here?

In Pittsburgh?

Yeah, what is it about Pittsburgh that...

Pittsburgh is a big sports city in general.

We have the Penguins, the Pirates, the Steelers.

They're so proud of their sports teams.

They're also very proud of their wrestling organization.

Everyone's independent. No one's, like, contracted.

You work where you want to work and how you want to work.

It's the big town, small city vibe.

So the fact that it's not WWE is a point of pride?

Yep. To me, wrestling fans are the most passionate fans

of any form of sport or entertainment.

This is awesome!

I will confess to you that I took a dim view

of professional wrestling. Oh, okay.

Like, ah, it's not real,

it's like there are these outrageous characters.

I don't get it at all, and my daughter started

to get really into it with her best friend,

so I got tickets to WWE in New York.

- Oh, right on. - And I'd go in, I'm like,

"I want to wear a bag on my head"

because I'm, like, really embarrassed

to go to this thing.

This is gonna be totally lame.

Well, five minutes into this thing,

I think, this is like the greatest show on earth.

Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt! Britt!

♪

It's physically very, very demanding,

and more to the point, it's super dangerous.

- Yeah, oh, yeah. - Yeah.

I mean, most wrestlers get really busted up.

Some of these pile drivers,

neck cranks,

body slams,

you got to be... Correct me if I'm wrong,

you can get that wrong, it's bad.

Everything can be gone in a second, yeah.

Wrestling is inches in many scenarios.

Like you said, with, like, a pile driver,

if you're off even by a little bit,

that could be a broken neck.

- A lot of trust. - Yeah.

Right before he's about to go out and wrestle,

I'll always grab him and be like give him a kiss

and like, "Be safe, be safe."

Every aspiring wrestler, since the great local hero

Bruno Sammartino, needs nourishment.

In this case, Kielbasa, sauerkraut, some pierogis,

and a side of molten mac and cheese.

Oh, I should ask, are you the heavy...

Is it the heavy or what's the bad guy called?

The heel.

- The heel. - Yes.

Are either of you the heel or are you the...

She's a big baby face. I'm the big heel.

So baby face is who everybody wants to win.

- Yes. - You're a heel?

I am.

So what qualities is one looking for in a heel?

It's just being someone that an audience member

either doesn't want to be

or wants to see get their ass kicked.

- So over-confident. - Yep.

- Narcissistic. - Yep.

- Sneaky. - Uh-huh.

- He's good. - Yeah, exactly.

You got it. You could be a great heel.

Yeah, you could be a heel tomorrow, yeah.

Comes naturally.

Is it a sport or is it more of a cathartic,

emotional experience because it goes beyond sport?

There's nuance there.

There are tortured souls who are struggling

with the good and evil in themselves.

- Wrestling is live theater. - Right.

It's sport. It's a rock concert.

It's all this stuff wrapped into one.

I think that when people realize

that pro wrestling has more in common

with "Game of Thrones" than it does UFC...

- Right. - They accept it more

and they appreciate it for what it is.

Come to the Jozsa Corner where the kolbasz is delicious.

Chunky too. Tasty too.

Make your belly feel so good.

Everybody!

Come to the Jozsa Corner. Come to the Jozsa corner.

Alexander Jozsa Bodner fled Hungary

during the Soviet Union's

crushing suppression of their revolution in 1956.

- One more time... - Come to the Jozsa Corner.

At Jozsa Corner he runs,

what's not really a restaurant in the classic sense,

but a house party with food.

Classics from the old country like chicken paprikas,

langos and kolbasz.

Cheers. Salut.

My dining companion is part

of a more recent wave of immigrants.

Jamilka Borges moved here from Puerto Rico in 2007

and began working in what was then a restaurant scene

that was just getting started.

You spent your whole life in Puerto Rico

before you came here? I did.

I moved here, what, when I was 21,

and, I don't know, Pittsburgh is, like, really unique,

like in the sense that everybody knows each other.

It's such a small town that, like, here you know everyone,

and it's really easy to make friends,

and that made it easier.

What about culturally? How different?

Oh, cucumber salad?

- Cucumber salad. - Beautiful.

It's very much like a really white town

that you go to every single restaurant

and, like, it's white males.

People not even understanding, like,

the relationship that we had as a country with Puerto Rico.

Like, "No, I don't need a green card to work here," right?

Ten years later, she was running Spoon

and getting national attention for her Latin-influenced take

on new American food.

Why did you decide to stay? I wanted to cook,

which I had no clue what that meant,

and I needed to prove something,

like for me, for my family, for, like, I don't know.

- Spite. - Yeah, it's spite.

It was like, "No, like, I'm gonna do this."

- That's a powerful motive. - It was kind of like...

My family had no clue what I was going into.

I still remember, like, my grandma being like,

"You're gonna be what?"

I'm Puerto Rican, like, my grandma's vision was like,

"Oh, you're gonna either cook for your husband or family

or you're, like, professional help."

Certainly, when I started in the business anyway,

it was pretty much a boys' club in the kitchen.

What was it like here when you started?

Was it different here?

It was, and I think, to a certain degree, it still is.

Like, this mushroom guy, he comes every year.

He knows who I am and I'm like the only person,

like, with a clipboard in white,

and he's still like, "Can I talk to the chef?"

Right.

That's me. I'm on the side of...

Let me smack you and write "chef"

backwards on your forehead.

So who's coming to town now?

I mean, who are your customers?

So, you know, last three or four years we have been having,

like, new move of, like, 30's, like young,

mid 20-something to 30-something, like,

engineers and, like techies moving into town.

- That's good for business. - Sure, but...

You seem wary about the future.

Do you think this is a bubble

or do you think it's gonna keep growing?

I think I'm actually like a really positive person

and I'm like, I want...

I want it to work, I just... Yes, I am definitely worried.

I think that the city is growing fast,

and, like, I don't know

if we're able to keep up with it.

This is not my town anymore.

When I was young and growing up,

I was shooting craps and chased by the cops.

Now I'm sitting around with a bunch of people

talking about hops.

This is not my town anymore.

The town of Braddock is where Andrew Carnegie

built his first steel mill in the 1870s.

By the turn of the century,

he bought another one up the river,

the Carrie Furnaces.

These smoke and fire belching behemoths

were the heart of a steel-producing industry

that spread throughout the Monongahela River Valley,

generating wealth and power to the few

and a decent living to many.

When tomorrow comes, you'll have a better so-called today.

So you're thinking of the day

will decide your destiny and your future.

And if you don't succeed, it's your own fault

because you didn't take control of what you think

because what you think is gonna decide what you do,

and what you do is gonna decide what you get.

Now, that's all for today, folks. Let's go to work.

For the last 40 years,

Tony Buba has been making documentaries

about the fate of the working class in Braddock.

He grew up here during the town's heyday,

the '40s and '50s,

before leaving to go to film school.

Why did you come back? Why did I come back?

I was gone from about '68 to about '75.

They I came home,

and I saw everything's decaying even worse,

and the people I hung out with,

like there's Sal Carulli and other guys,

they were these really characters.

Chico pushed the button me.

No one' gonna push the button on me.

Nobody. Nobody.

The only guy that can do that is that guy up there,

J.C. J. C., my man.

There's a lot of World War II people

that were starting to die off, and I was really like,

"This is gonna disappear, and the industry's going away."

So I didn't know what else to make films about,

so I just started documentaries and I just wanted to capture,

and get some of these characters on film,

and make them mythical.

But you stayed in Braddock

because Braddock was your subject.

It's my subject, and I thought,

"Okay, what if I move?"

If I move to Los Angeles, maybe I can get a job

in the industry, but what if I get stuck

working on "Love Boat" my whole life, you know?

Yeah, that would be the nightmare scenario.

Yeah, exactly.

In the mid-20th century,

the population of Braddock was 20,000.

Today it's down to 2,000,

more than 40% of whom live below the poverty line.

This is where I went to Junior High School.

- Closed? - Yeah, closed.

So who's moving in? Is anyone moving in now?

Nobody's moving into Pittsburgh, actually.

Well, I thought you had all these tech jobs

coming in, Google and Uber.

You know, all that stuff is coming in but they sort of do

this upbeat bullshit about people coming in.

If it wasn't for some 30,000 immigrants,

the population would have dropped even more.

- Now, this is the brewer. - Right.

Yeah, they've done really well with this place.

Well, who drinks there? I mean, are they locals?

No, no, it's too expensive, $7.00 a beer.

There's people coming in on bicycles, grabbing a beer.

Getting something from the taco truck,

and they want to sort have

like, a "The Wire" experience, you know.

"Yeah, I was in Braddock having a beer."

You know, sort of giving a little cred to their lives.

I don't know, and it's all sort of,

you know, white businesses.

In 1988, the state classified Braddock

as financially distressed,

their term for bankruptcy,

a status it still holds today.

This is still working. This is still working.

It's the only plant working in the whole Mon Valley.

This is where my dad worked for 46 years.

The last time I was there it looked like a spaceship,

it was all so modernized.

There's probably 500 people doing the work of, you know,

when my dad was there, 5,000.

So what do you think it's gonna take?

Or do you think it's just gonna die?

I think we're in the last stages of capitalism,

because this is... You're talking socialism?

Yeah, yeah, I'm talking socialism, yeah.

When the magical workers' paradise arrives,

will Braddock be here? Will Braddock be here?

I wish there was, like, a simple answer to all this.

I'll die before I actually see what happens.

I'm not gonna know the story, and it really bothers me.

It's the only thing I hate about the thought of dying

is that I don't know what the story's gonna be.

Braddock, Pennsylvania, sustained a real traumatic

unraveling that was common

in Rust Belt communities and towns,

but ours was a particularly severe example of that.

- Average income? - We're around $20,000, so...

- Which is... - Which is substantially below

the Pennsylvania average.

Yeah, I'll have mothers that will call me on a Monday,

and, you know, by Friday

they're gonna be out of food to feed their three kids,

and this happens quite regularly.

John Fetterman does not look like your typical mayor,

and he isn't.

He came to Braddock in 2001

to help at-risk youth get their GEDs,

and ran for office here in one of the most depressed towns

in the state four years later.

His wife, Gisele, is from Rio, and she runs a nonprofit

that provides food and essential supplies for more

than 1,500 families each month.

A lot of people in this country are angry.

They feel that their anger has not been

acknowledged in any way,

and frankly, I think they're right.

- Yep. - There is a sense,

particularly in rural, white America,

of aggrievement that nobody's listening,

nobody's caring about them.

I mean, Western PA played a pivotal role

in helping elect Donald Trump,

and he turned Pennsylvania red

for the first time since '88,

and did it so with a margin of about 44,000 people,

a lot of whom, as you referenced,

are disaffected Democrats.

Somebody phrased it to me where it's like,

"If the economy's not gonna work for me,

then I don't want it to work for anybody."

How does that manifest itself on a local basis for you?

It's an honor to be involved,

and I hope whoever it is that's next

realizes that you need

to go outside your community's borders to bring help in,

and that's what I've tried to do.

That means people like four-time Super Bowl champion,

Franco Harris,

and if you're wondering how he could help,

you might be surprised by the answer.

Franco and I hope to be growing medical marijuana

about a block from here. We put in an application

for a large grow facility here in our community,

which would be a real economic shot in the arm,

and it's been a real honor

to partner with someone like Franco.

Why is this a cause for you?

I'm a believer in medical marijuana

because of pain management,

and I run into many ex-players

who deal with pain management,

and, right now, the alternatives don't look good,

and we have a lot of problems

with the alternatives that they've had so.

There's no doubt about that.

Western PA's been ravaged by the opioid crisis,

and it positions us for the eventual legalization

of marijuana and...

It would also pull Braddock out of Act 47,

so we would no longer be fiscally bankrupt.

Braddock lost its initial bid

for a medical marijuana license,

but there are a few other

madcap entrepreneurial efforts in town,

lone dreamers with a plan.

One such dreamer is chef Kevin Sousa.

Kevin was the first of a new generation of chefs

to bring national attention to Pittsburgh

when he opened his restaurant,

Salt of the Earth, in 2010.

What are we looking at here, Chef?

- All right, so... - Beautiful.

We are landlocked, so seafood is tough.

This is Lake Erie Walleye Pike,

some new potatoes from the farm,

some of the crackling from the fish,

took the skin crisped it up, it's nice and crunchy,

and then just a lot of little farm herbs.

Now, after some bumps in the road,

he's improbably turning this building,

a former Chevy dealership, into his latest restaurant,

Superior Motors.

Opening night is less than a month away.

Do I have to eat this?

I mean, it's too pretty. It's too pretty to eat. Jeez.

The fish is amazing, by the way.

Oh, thank you very much.

Where were you born and raised?

McKees Rocks.

- You're close to your roots. - Yeah, yeah,

in locality and in spirit.

Is the restaurant business any... I mean,

'cause I know, you know, it's been bumpy for you.

It has.

You over-expanded or over-extended?

Over-expanded with no capital.

I just thought we were gonna open the doors

and everyone was gonna go apeshit

for whatever it is that I served, and I learned.

As serendipity would have it, I met John.

Asked if I'd be interested in going for a walk in Braddock.

Came out to Braddock. Fell in love.

- With Braddock, not me. - With Braddock.

You know, it reminded me of McKees Rocks, and McKees Rocks,

you know, has suffered much in the same way as Braddock has.

Kevin says he has ambitions

that go beyond turning a profit.

His restaurant hopes to provide tuition-free training,

and they're partnering with a local urban farm

that employs high school students to grow produce

in the shadows of the old steel mill.

And though we are talking a swank, high-end restaurant

designed to attract the monied classes from out of town,

locals will be offered steeply discounted meals.

So this is beautiful, grass-fed beef short ribs

sitting on a bed of lightly blanched milkweed buds.

On top, a bunch of over-wintered sun choke chips.

- Nice. - Awesome.

That's the compliment I was looking for.

I was trying to work that one out.

So what happens if everything works out

the way you want it to,

meaning people are driving from all over the state,

they're flying in to Pittsburgh from all over the country,

the parking lot is full,

the place is packed and fully booked every night?

Then what happens?

You're moving towards the "G" word, and...

No, not yet.

Braddock is gentrification proof, essentially.

Our biggest challenge has been abandonment,

not people being displaced.

To directly answer your question, Chef,

long after I've shuffled off this mortal coil,

the work will never be done here.

This is a decades' long process.

♪

If you head east 30 miles from Pittsburgh,

you'll find yourself here in New Alexandria.

It's a whole other world.

No tech incubators here, or fears of gentrification.

Just good, heartland fun on a Friday night.

Family, fried dough and demolition.

Brooke Davis grew up a few towns over from here.

Tonight, she's driving in the modified class,

which means these cars ain't exactly street legal.

The winner gets 900 bucks.

So how long you been doing this?

Like getting into it? Like, six years.

And how did it all begin?

Well, my dad, him and my uncle,

you know, ran back in like, the '80s and '90s,

and it's just been something I grew up with, so...

I mean, the only other thing we really do for fun

is, you know, four-wheelers, RZR Side by Sides, and hunt.

Chris Quenzler's a welder and considered

one of the best demo mechanics in the area.

What are the rules as far as the vehicle itself?

I mean, can you build... Theoretically you're allowed

to build some monster road warrior, you know, thing

with some guitar dude on the front and, you know,

special hidden reinforcement and spikes and shit?

No, it's not "Death Race." It's not "Death Race."

Brooke is one of the best girl drivers,

female drivers, that I've seen.

Wait a minute, what's the difference between male

and female drivers? Is there any?

There's not very many females

that actually compete with the guys.

Yeah, but wouldn't it be great

to see some big meathead falling to his knees

sobbing after you've just totally destroyed...

Maybe. Depends on who they are.

Some guy's been talking shit all week.

- Okay, yeah, yeah, definitely. - I mean, come on.

- Yeah. - That would have to be good.

So tonight, are you gonna be the only girl...

Probably I'm the only girl

that's running out there with the guys.

Let us hope that tonight is your night.

I'm gonna get another shot.

- Cheers. - Yes. Cheers. Thank you.

Countdown. Ten, nine, eight,

seven, six, five,

four, three, two, one.

♪

Ooh!

- The point of the game is? - To be the last car running.

Right. Now what's the sweet spot?

Where do you want to hit a car?

- Wheels and tires. - Wheels and tires.

Yes.

I like to look for the weakest car,

and get them out of the way first.

I'm running with guys that have been running

a really long time,

and sometimes they think I'm an easy target.

Maybe I might get scared, but definitely not like that.

I can battle it out to the end. I'm not gonna quit.

♪

What's the best part of the driving?

I mean, other than winning, obviously.

- I was gonna say winning. - My best moment of driving

is any time it comes down to me

and my brother or one of...

Me and my friends, when you get down to the end,

you know, and you beat everybody else...

So when you destroy a friend's hopes and dreams,

that's... Oh, that's the best.

♪

Oh!

♪

By the end, most cars are worse for wear.

Brooke comes in third place,

so she doesn't walk away empty-handed.

So I present her with a $50 bill.

You started off that good. Congrats.

Thank you.

All over Western Pennsylvania,

from small towns like this to the largest city, Pittsburgh,

people face the same struggles as beleaguered,

deindustrialized areas across the country.

How do you move into the future

and hold on to what you love about the past?

There are probably no easy answers.

Things will change.

They are changing,

but for now, let's just wreck some cars.

♪