Wilmerding, The Hollywood Of Forest Hills (Wait, What?)

Wilmerding is a part of Pittsburgh that… is there. I won’t lie and pretend I know a whole bunch of things about Wilmerding. I do know that it was established in 1890, and that you have to take Electric Avenue to get there from our house:

What I also know about Wilmerding is that they have a fake Hollywood sign. I know this because it is on the Yellow Belt, and we saw it last year when we were doing our beltway drives, and I instantly had the thought, “OMG WHAT A GREAT IDEA FOR NEXT YEAR!”

What I didn’t think through about all of this is that there is no convenient way to stand in front of this sign for a picture. Since it is, after all, Wilmerding, and not Hollywood, it’s a bit smaller scale, and it’s basically at a busy highway intersection, so, we had a bit of a struggle to get the picture. But we pulled it off!

This is the town of Wilmerding. I don’t know who that guy is on the sign. For the purposes of this blog, we will call him, “Mr. Wilmerding.”

There is the sign, off in the distance. And there I am, looking like I just popped out of an issue of Vanity Fair. At least, the Vanity Fair of Pittsburgh in winter.

Here is Michael’s Hollywood picture, although he says his doesn’t count because I cut off the ‘g’ in Wilmerding. He said, “The Achievement says ‘Wilmerding’ sign, not ‘Wilmerdin’ sign.” I said, “Shush.”

And we couldn’t pass up the chance to take a picture of ‘MC Styles’ hair salon. Michael was just kind of upset, because that had always been his dream rapper name.

And, so that you believe me that there really was a sign there, here is the close-up shot. Fancy! It was put there for the 100 year anniversary, in 1990. And they light it up at night. Wilmerding is a magical place, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!