September 13, 2025

After picking Pippa up from a babysitting job, Liddy and Pippa headed to Frank & Shirley’s Restaurant in Overbrook. Frank and Shirley purchased the land for the restaurant in 1981; it was previously the site of the first ever Eat ‘n’ Park. Today, Frank & Shirley’s is an old-fashioned classic diner serving breakfast all day. We were just there for the milkshakes: Pippa had strawberry and Liddy had vanilla.

Afterwards, we went driving through the neighborhood, with proved stressful after we discovered that the Google Maps outline of Overbrook does not match the official City of Pittsburgh boundaries. Pippa, born after the era of manual map-reading, did her best to guide Liddy through Overbrook to sights like the seemingly-numerous roads named Overbrook Boulevard; Carmalt Elementary School; and Saw Mill Run, the brook the neighborhood is named for. In the end, Overbrook seemed like a pleasant but not particularly notable neighborhood.

Fun Fact:
Carmalt Elementary School, named for pioneering Pittsburgh educator Alice Carmalt, was built on top of a seam of 15,000 tons of coal. The school district paid the Pittsburgh Coal Company 36 cents per ton to avoid having the coal mined and the school’s foundation disrupted.