H. J. Heinz, founder

(1844-1919)

 

Henry John Heinz was born in Birmingham, PA son of German immigrants.  Originally known as Anchor Pickle and Vinegar Works, it became the H. J. Heinz Company in 1888.

Key Lineage and History

Founder (1869-1919):  Henry John Heinz found the company in Sharpsburg, PA.

The Second Generation (1919-1941): Howard Heinz, son of H.J. took over as president, guiding the comany through the Great Depression and significantly growing the company.

The Third Generation (1941-1987):  Jack Heinz led the company into the 1980, serving as CEO. 

Henry John "Jack" Heinz II 

(1908-1987)

Henry John "Jack" Heinz II (1908-1987) was an American business executive and CEO of the H.J. Heinz Company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He represented the third generation (1941-1987).

The family's direct leadership ended with the death of Jack Heinz II in 1987.  

His grandfather, Henry J. Heinz founded the company in the 19th century and he worked in a variety of positions within the company before becoming CEO.  When taking over in 1941, he was 33 and one of the youngest men in the United States to head a major company.  He  took advantage of the postwar boom and expanded the company into a multi-billion dollar international food empire.  He helped drive significant international growth and modernizing the food firm.  As grandson of the founder, he led acquisitions like Star-Kist and Ore-Ida before passing the reins to Anthony O'Reilly as Jack was the last Heinz family member to run the company. While his son, Senator H. John Heinz III was  involved in the company he did not run it as CEO before his untimely passing in 1991 at age 52.  His wife, Teresa Heinz later married John Kerry.  

The family-related ownership ended in 2013 when the company was acquired by 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway for $23 billion. On March 25, 2015, Kraft announced its merger with Heinz, arrange by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital.  The resulting Kraft heinz Company is the fifth largest food company in the world.  The merger to form Kraft Heinz was completed on July 2, 2015.

After leaving active involvement with the company, Jack Heinz became chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment which disbursed more than $300 million in grants to Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania organizations in the arts, social services, health, education, urban and international affairs.  

.. an interesting bit of trivia .. 

Since 1896, the company used its "57 Varieties" slogan.  It was inspired by a sign advertising 21 styles of shoes and Henry Heinz chose the number 57, even though the company then manufactured more than 60 products, because "5" was his lucky number and "7" was his wife's lucky number.  

The Heinz 57 Center is located at the corner of Sixth and Smithfield Avenues .. the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. The address is an historic downtown office building, originally the Kaufmann & Baer Co. department store.  The building was built in 1914 and has approximately 790,000 square feet, standing 13 stories (190 feet tall).  

Gimbels entered the Pittsburgh market in 1925 by purchasing the established Kaufmann & Baer, founded in 1914 by a member of the Kaufmann family. 

The large Scrabble board seen in this famous 1953 photo with creator, Alfred Mosher Butts and promoter, James Brunot was an oversized custom-made promotional version of the game created to showcase it during a surge in popularity.  The photo was taken in November by photographer, Arthur Rothstein for a Look magazine assignment and was frequently credited as a 1953 snapshot of the pair celebrating the success of the game. 

By 1953, the game was in the grip of a craze after the president of Macy's discovered it on vacation and placed a large order. 

Alfred Mosher Butts (1899-1993), an American architect from Poughkeepsie, New York who designed including the Stanford Free Library in New York and was also an amateur artist.  Six of his drawings were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

He invented the board game called Scrabble in 1931.  Seeking to create a word game combining chance and skill during the Great Depression, he originally named it "Lexico" and later "Criss-Cross Words" before it was eventually trademarked as Scrabble in 1948 by entrepreneur James Brunot.

Butts designed the game without a board!   He focused on letter frequency analysis to determine the distribution.  Butts studied existing games and found that games fell into three categories:  number games, such as dice and bingo, word games and move/strategy games such as chess or checkers.  

Butts was a resident of Jackson Heights, New York in Queens and the game of Scrabble was invented there.  To memorialize his importance to the invention of the game, a street sign at 35th Avenue and 81st Street in Jackson Heights is stylized using letters with their values in Scrabble.

Alfred Mosher Butts

Alfred Butts cleverly spelled out his name with the Scrabble tiles.

James Brunot

(1902-1984)

Brunot was a friend of Butt's who loved the game.  Brunot "believed that all the game needed was some slick marketing and a few refinements".  That was when Burnot and Butts teamed up, simplified the rules and board design renaming the game Scrabble.  Brunot is credited with the name change and creating both the premium squares on the board and premium points for some letters.  Butts retained patent rights on the game and earned royalties on the sales.  Brunot received the copyright for Scrabble on December 1, 1948 and trademarked Scrabble Brand Crossword Game on December 16, 1948.  Game sets were first put together in the basement of the Brunot home.  Up to 18 games were initially manufactured there each day.  

 Approximately 1.5 million to 2 million Scrabble games are sold globally each year with over 165 million sets being sold worldwide since 1948.  In North America alone, between 1 and 2 million sets are sold annually.  The game is a staple in households with one in three American homes owning a set. Scrabble is now manufactured by Hasbro in the United States and Canada.  By Mattel in other international markets.  It is produced in 30 plus different languages.

If all the Scrabble tiles ever produced were lined up, they would stretch for more than 50,000 miles! Scrabble is ranked as the second-best board game in U.S. history, second only to Monopoly. 

April 13 is National Scrabble Day celebrated annually for it is the date chosen to honor the birthday of the game's inventor.  Scrabble was created during the Great Depression.  Butts decided to develop a word game that incorporated elements of chance and skill.

Whether you're a word wizard, a tile tactician or just in it for fun, today's the perfect day to break out the board and let the letters fly.  May your words be long, your points be high and may your Q's always find their U's.  If that doesn't happen, QI can be played in Scrabble.

The Johnstown Incline

206 Johns Street (lower station) Johnstown, PA

711 Edgehill Drive 

Upper Station (Westmont, PA)

Residents of Westmont can reach downtown Johnstown without the Johnstown Incline Plane.  The incline was built primarily to provide a fast, direct toure, but it is not the only way to access the Westmont borough.  The incline transports automobiles, trucks and motorcycles in addition to pedestrians.  

On May 31, 1889 a devastating flood ripped through Johnstown in Cambria County.  After 50 to 60 foot waves claimed over 2200 innocent lives, Johnstown was left in ruins and in fear of another tragic event.  One year later a solution came to answer the city's biggest problem.  The Cambria Iron Company began building what would become the World's Steepest Vehicular Inclined Plane. 

Samuel Diescher designed the Inclined Plane in 1890.  The Incline stands 896 feet long and 503 feet tall.  The structure is considered a funicular (two cars attached by cables on railroad tracks simultaneously move in opposite directions to counterbalance each other's weight).  In other words, when one car is traveling down the slope the other car is moving up at the same speed and the cars pass each other exactly at the midpoint. 

 

Back in the early 1900s, the Inclined Plane was run by a steam engine. Today, with advances in technology, the cars are driven by a 400-horsepower electric motor. 

 It opened in June 1891, the Inclined Plane prove to be able to boost Johnstown's dreary economy.  After suffering $17 million in damages from the flood, the city needed an economic boom. The Inclined Plane allowed residents and workers to reach the top of Yoder Hill and to settle in one of the first suburban communities in America at the time, Westmont. Positiond at a mighty 70.9-degree slope, the Incline proved its worth many times throughout history.  

Today, the Incline is owned by the Cambria County Transit Authority which spent $3.5 million to rebuild the historic site in 1983.

The Johnstown Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places June 18, 1973.

 

 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Happy 412 Day is a Pittsburgh-centric celebration held annually on April 12th (4/12) matching the city's primary telephone area code.  Officially proclaimed in 2017, the day celebrates Pittsburgh pride, community and culture featuring local business promotions and city-wide events, notably embraced by the Pittsburgh Steelers. The day offers specials at local breweries and museums. Brand partners often release exclusive 412-branded gear, clothing and accessories.  General greetings of "Happy 412 Day to all of my Pittsburgh friends!" can be heard. 

The City of Pittsburgh is know as the "City of Bridges" with 446 bridges.  Famous for its steel history, the city was the birthplace of the Ferris Wheel designed by Pittsburgh resident and engineer, George Ferris for the 1893 World's Fair. It was over 264 feet high and was capable of carrying more than 2,000 passengers at a time. 

The first commercial radio station which began broadcasting in 1920 and the only station East of the Mississippi River with call letters beginning with the letter, K (KDKA), the first internet smiley emoticon created by Carnegie Mellon University researcher Scott Fahlman in 1982. 

Dr. Jonas E. Salk at 38 years of age developed the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh on March 26, 1953.  He was a researcher and professor.

In 1962, the pull-tab was developed by Alcoa and was the first used by Iron city Brewery. The first all-aluminum faced skyscraper was the Alcoa building, a 30-story, 410 foot structure with thin stamped aluminum panels forming the exterior walls.  This building is still being used today.

The first motion picture theatre in 1905 was a "Nickelodeon" opened by Harry Davis on Smithfield Street. 

The first gas station in 1913 was built by Gulf Refining Company on Baum Boulevard and designed by J. H Glesey.

Public Television Station, WQED on April 1, 1954 was the first community-sponsored educational television station in America and was also the first to telecast classes to elementary schools in 1955.

The Clark Bar was a staple in the region, formerly known for a red sign visible in Pittsburgh.

The first Mister Rogers' Neighborhood episode was broadcast from WQED studios on September 21, 1967. The national debut broadcast on February 19, 1968.

In the early 1920s, Hugh J. Ward first came up with the concept of Bingo and began running the game at carnivals taking it nation-wide in 1924.  He secured a copyright on the game and wrote a book of Bingo rules in 1933.

First newspaper west of the Alleghenies (1789) The Pittsburgh Gazette 

First Ice Capades (1940).

In 1967, the first Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti at his Uniontown, PA McDonald's.  It debuted and was test marketed in three other Pittsburgh-area McDonald's.  By 1968, it was a mainstay on McDonald's menus throughout the country and eventually, the world. 

Pittsburgh is also a major hub for robotics, healthcare and education with over 29 colleges and universities including top-tier research institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, Duquesne University and others. 

Historical Tidbits

"H" Missing:  From 1891 to 1911, the city was officially spelled "Pittsburg", before restoring the "h" to match the spelling of Pittsburgh. The Fort Pitt Blockhouse, built in 1764, is the oldest building in Western Pennsylvania.  

Geography & Culture

Three Rivers:  The city is located at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers.  The Allegheny and Monongahela rivers converge at Point State Park in downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River.  The clear, gravel-bedded Allegheny joins the warmer, muddy Monongahela to create a distinct confluence line with the resulting Ohio River flowing west towards the Mississippi.  The exact, V-shaped convergence is known as the "Point" marked by a large fountain in Point State Park.  The two rivers often have a visibly different color .. one darker, one lighter .. where they meet. Historically essential for industrial shipping, the confluence remains a major waterway and iconic landmark.  

Incline Culture

The city has 700+ sets of public stairways, more than any other city in the United States.  Pittsburgh features the iconic Duquesne and Monogahela inclines which are cable cars that go up and down Mount Washington, both offering stunning city skyline views. 

The Society Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline 

Pittsburgh residents of Duquesne Heights formed a non-profit organization to raise funds and save the 1877 funicular incline from permanent closure in 1963.  They maintain the original wooden-paneled cars, the original hoisting machinery and the unique 5-foot gauge track. The Incline opened May 17, 1877. The track length is 800 feet with a maximum incline of 30 degrees. 

The Duquesne Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places 

March 4, 1975.

The Duquesne Incline scales Mt. Washington near the South Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Together with the Monongahela Incline, it is one of two passenger inclines still in operation.  By 1977, the two inclines had become tourist attractions and together serve more than one million commuters and tourists annually.  The inclines are approximately a mile apart from each other.  

 In 1977, both inclines were designated as Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

The Monongahela Incline

This incline opened on May 28, 1870.  When it opened, the fare was six cents. 994 people paid for fares on the first day and 4,174 paid the fare on the second day of operation.  The operator/engineer of the incline who sat in a glass enclosure known as the 'pulpit' overlooking the incline tracks, used hand throttle levers and a foot brake to controlthe cars ascending and descending.  

The first engineer was George Naysmith with an assistant, Campbell K. Smith. The incline was immediately successful and precipitated the rapid development of Mount Washington which previously had been sparsely populated.  

The Mon (as locals refer to the incline) is the oldest continuously operating funicular* in the United States. It spans 635 feet in length, rising 369 feet at a 35-degree angle with cars traveling at 6 mph each holding 23 passengers.  It is operated by Pittsburgh Regional Transit.  It connects Grandview Avenue on Mt. Washington to West Carson Street /Station Square.  Over 1,500 commuters use the incline, daily. The Mon is distinct from the nearby Duquesne Incline which is longer and less steep.  The Mon was originally built by John and Caroine Endres. It was originally steam-powered, converted to electric in 1935.

*A funicular is a steep, cable-driven railway where two cars are connected by a cable, allowing the descending car to counterbalance and pull up the ascending car.

The Monongahla Incline was added to the National Register of Historic Places June 25,1974. 

 

The Sphere

255 Sands Avenue

Las Vegas, Nevada

The Sphere cost a galactic $2.3 billion making it the most expensive entertainment venue built in the Las Vegas Valley from 2019-2023.  The Sphere is an entertainment venue near the Las Vegas Strip known for its immersive audio-visual technology including a huge wrap-around LED screen and an advanced sound system.  The architect was Populous Holdings, Inc. It is a global firm specializing in the design of sports stadiums and entertainment arenas. 

 It has over 167,000 speaker drivers and beamforming technology which directs sound to specific seats.  The system is so precise it can deliver different audio to different sections such as different languages to specific seats simultaneously. 

The Sphere opened September 29, 2023 hosting concerts, films and special events featuring 4D effect like wind and scent.  Its exterior features a 580,000-square-foot LED display, while the interior features a 160,000-square-foot 16K resolution wrap-around screen making it a major architectural landmark. 

The Sphere stands 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide making it the world's largest spherical structure.  

The Sphere Experience is a two-part show that includes a pre-show with five AI-powered robots named "Aura" who interact with guests designed to represent creativity, innovation, connection, longevity and productivity.  The Sphere features a screening of the 4D film directed by Darren Aronofsky, Postcard from Earth  and a immersive 4D, 1939 film experience of The Wizard of Oz.

The Sphere's unique structural design required 3,000 tons of steel and 32 trusses to build the massive dome.  The seating capacity ranges from 17,600 to 20,000 standing with most seats having high-speed internet. The Sphere has 23 executive suites.

Despite its massive power usage, the venue has a 25-year solar energy deal aiming to offset up to 70% of its energy consumption. 

 And due to incredible fan demand, Backstreet Boys has announced their final summer 2026 dates as part of their highly successful Into the Millennium residency at the Sphere in 2025.  The group was the first pop act to hold a residency at the venue.  U2 opened the venue in 2023-2024 and was in residency from September 29, 2023 to March 2, 2024.  The shows featured a setlist centered on their 1991 album, Achtung Baby. The 40 concerts, which lasted over two hours each, featured notable visual technology. The overall attendance was 663,000 with the box office totaling $244.5 million.  The Sphere paid U2 $10 million to produce their show, on top of their guaranteed earnings of $4 million per show from Live Nation.

What was U2 biggest concert ever recorded?  It was recorded on October 25, 2009 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California during the band's U2360 tour.  The Rose Bowl concert featured a sold-out crowd of 97,014 breaing the US record for single concert attendance for one headline act. 

SPHERE .. now open.

Circa September 29, 2023

 

The Stratosphere Tower

2000 Las Vegas Blvd. S.

Las Vegas, Nevada 

The Stratosphere Tower (now known as The STRAT is 1,149 feet tall including the antenna spire.  It is the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States and the tallest building in Las Vegas.  It is the second-tallest observation tower in the Western Hemisphere, surpassed only by the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

Top of the World is a renowned fine-dining restaurant located 844 feet above the Las Vegas Strip.  It features a 360-degree rotating dining room that completes a full revolution every 80-90 minutes providing panoramic views.  The menu focuses on high-end American steakhouse fare, seafood and cocktails. Top of the World is consistently recognized by Wine Spectator for its wine list and lauded for its romantic ambiance. Arriving prior to sunset is highly recommended to witness the transition from daylight to the city's night lights. 

The Stratosphere groundbreaking was November 5, 1991 with construction beginning February 1992. It opened April 30, 1995 at a cost of $70 million.  The architect was Ned Baldwin who was also the supervising architect of the CN Tower.  

Fireworks from the STRAT

December 31, 2020

 

CN Tower

290 Bremner Blvd.

Toronto, Ontario Canada

The CN Tower is a 553.3 meter (1,815 feet) communications and observation tower. It is a major national icon, once the world's tallest freestanding structure from 1975 to 2007. It features observation decks with glass floors and the higher SkyPod, the high-altitude Edgewalk for thrill-seekers, the revolving 360 Restaurant serving Canadian cuisine and serves as a telecommunications hub.  Completed in 1976, it remains the tallest in the Western Hemisphere and offers panoramic views of the city and Lake Ontario. The tower's lights change color for holidays and special events.  The lights are dimmed during bird migration seasons. 

The CN Tower was built by Canadian National Railway, construction started in 1973 and opened in 1976.  In 1995, Canadian National sold the CN Tower to the Canada Lands Company, a federal Crown corporation specializing in attractions of national interest.  It was then that the tower truly became Canada's National Tower both in name and in deed. 

The CN Tower's antenna spire is a 315 foot steel structure extending from the top of the concrete tower bringing the total height to 1,815 feet.  It is essential for television and radio broadcasting in Toronto and was installed in sections using a Sikorsky helicopter.

The CN Tower Story

The 1960s ushered in an unprecedented construction boom in Toronto, a city quickly growing up from a regional hub to a thriving, cosmopolitan destination.  Existing transmission towers were simply not high enough to broadcast radio and television signals over the tall new buildings which bounced the signals away from the intended audience.  To solve this problem and to demonstrate the aspirations of Canadian innovation and industry .. Canadian National, the Crown corporation that operated the country's largest railway network, employed more than 1,500 workers for 40 months to build the CN Tower. Once completed, it would be the tallest tower in the world, capable of broadcasting signals far and wide across the region. 

Tower construction crews moved in on February 6, 1973 and started to removed over 56 metric tons of earh and shale for the foundation.  Once the foundatio was ready, work began on the CN Tower's (1,100-foot) concrete shaft, a hexagonal core with three curved support arms.  To produce the CN Tower's tapered contour, construction crews poured concrete into a massive mold known as a slipform. As the concrete hardened, the slipform, supported by a ring of climbing jacks powered by hydraulic pressure, moved upwards, gradually decreasing in size to impart the curve in the Tower.  

By February 1974, the Tower was already the tallest structure in Canada.  In August 1974, work began on the seven-story sphere that would eventually house the observation decks and the revolving 360 Restaurant.  

TOPPING IT OFF

The CN Tower approached completion in March 1975, when Olga, the giant Sikorsky helicopter, flew into the city to lift the 39 pieces of the antenna into place.  The CN Tower was finished on April 2, 1975 and opened to the public on June 2, 1976.  

The CN Tower would remain the tallest freestanding structure in the world until surpassed by Dubai's mixed-use skyscraper titled Burj Khalifa in 2009 standing at 828 meters (2,717 feet) with 163 floors.  It opened January 4, 2010.

Today, the CN Tower is the centre of telecommunications for Toronto, serving more than 17 Canadian television and FM radio stations.  The tower is also the workplace of more than 500 people throughout the year.  And, of course, the CN Tower is an internationally renowned tourism destination, welcoming more than two million visitors each year.