A star-studded Pittsburgh Walk of Fame is headed to The Terminal in the Strip District.
Starting in January, people can nominate local legends with Southwestern Pennsylvania roots who’ve left their mark on American culture to be honored with bronze stars, Hollywood-style.
Each star will have the name of an honoree and a narrative plaque embedded in the sidewalk in front of The Terminal, which runs along Smallman Street.
The project’s founder, Nancy Polinsky Johnson, said The Terminal’s central location, legacy and length make it an ideal site for the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame.
“We have plenty of space to honor so many of the diverse people from the Pittsburgh region whose talents, skills and genius have contributed significantly to science and technology, the humanities and American arts and culture,” said Johnson, who serves as executive director of the nonprofit behind the project.
The Terminal was one of 35 sites the nonprofit considered for the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame, Johnson said.
“It’s amazing that we’re going to have a five-block stretch of sidewalk to utilize in a historically significant place in the heart of a neighborhood that is bustling already with visitors, both local people and out-of-towners,” she said.
Johnson said there are two requirements to be selected for a star in the walk: The person must have been born in or spent their formative or creative years in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and their contributions must have had an impact on U.S. culture as a whole.
A variety of honorees will be selected from the 10 counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland.
The public will be able to nominate people in January online at pittsburghwalkoffame.org. The website already contains images of people such as Fred Rogers, Andrew Carnegie, Rachel Carson and Billy Eckstine.
After the nominations arrive, they will be sent to a large selection committee made up of leaders from the 10-county area.
“They will be the heads of educational institutions, cultural institutions, tourism bureaus, historical societies, chambers of commerce — people who have their thumb on the pulse of this area,” Johnson said. “The committee votes on the nominations that come in from the public.”
More than 200 people will be invited to sit on the committee, Johnson said.
Afterward, the selections will go through a third process by the nonprofit’s board to ensure the honorees represent the diversity of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Johnson said.
Johnson is a longtime WQED on-air host and the former publisher of Shady Ave magazine, which was acquired by Trib Total Media in 2022. She was inspired to launch the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame after visiting similar installations across the country.
“There are so many talented people from our area — some well known and others with little name recognition — who have all made amazing contributions to our nation’s culture. I want visitors to our city to be blown away learning about them,” she said.
Johnson said she visited a walk of fame in St. Louis about 12 years ago.
“I was so taken with it. What they do that’s different than so many walks of fame, they include underneath it a plaque that explains who this person is, why they’re noteworthy and their ties to St. Louis,” she said. “As I was reading these plaques, I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, we need to do this in Pittsburgh — Pittsburgh deserves something like this.’ ”
The Pittsburgh Walk of Fame will be made in partnership with McCaffery Interests Inc., which completed the renovation of The Terminal in 2019 with the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the city of Pittsburgh.
“We are honored to serve as the backdrop for this tribute to Pittsburgh’s many remarkable individuals,” said Dan McCaffery, CEO of McCaffery Interests.
Organizers hope to induct the first 10 people next fall. The Pittsburgh Walk of Fame will then expand annually, with plans to incorporate technology to make it an interactive experience through a customized app.
For the next three years, 10 people will be added per year, and, after that, honorees will slow down to about three per year, Johnson said. There will be no cap on the number of honorees.
“We want this to go on and on and on,” she said, “and it will be a long time before space will run out at The Terminal. At that point, the nonprofit will do its best to expand and add more stars.”
Jim Rudolph, president of the nonprofit’s board, said he foresees the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame becoming a “major tourist attraction.”
“It’s about being able to help create something that impacts this community and being able to tell my grandchildren that I was a part of this,” he said.
Johnson sees the project as a love letter to Pittsburgh.
By recognizing notable people from the region “who have helped transform and shape and define America with their accomplishments, with their creativity, with their genius,” the Pittsburgh Walk of Fame will engage local residents and visitors alike, Johnson said. “When this walk is done … I think we will have greeted (them with) an incredible gift akin to a love letter.”
Megan Swift is a TribLive reporter covering trending news in Western Pennsylvania. A Murrysville native, she joined the Trib full time in 2023 after serving as editor-in-chief of The Daily Collegian at Penn State. She previously worked as a Jim Borden Scholarship intern at the Trib for three summers. She can be reached at mswift@triblive.com.
