Asteroid 484, Pittsburghia, was discovered on April 29, 1902 by Maximilian Wolf at Heidelberg, Germany. It has a period of 4 years, 130 days and is about 23½ miles in diameter.
It was named for the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an old-time industrial city where telescopic lenses were made by the person who named the asteroid, John Brashear.
An aerial view of Pittsburgh, looking northeast toward downtown at the point where the Allegheny River (at upper left) and Monongahela River converge to form the Ohio River.
Astrologically, Pittsburghia seems to indicate seriousness, being businesslike, meaning business, deadly serious, inner depths, intensity of purpose or passion, capitalism, making money, smoke, blowing smoke, smoking..
Innovative steelmaker Andrew Carnegie (born November 25, 1835, in Dunfermline, Scotland), who worked mainly in Pittsburgh, had Pittsburghia square Chiron (ingenuity, the key, the door-opener) and quincunx Dioretsa (a brand name).
Financier Andrew Mellon (born March 24, 1855, in Pittsburgh), who also worked largely in Pittsburgh, advocated fair taxation but was accused of imposing a tax system favoring the rich and (in part) bringing on the Great Depression while serving as Treasury Secretary under Presidents Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Mellon had Pittsburghia decile Neptune (ideals, disillusionment), trine Saturn (work, career, consequences) and opposite Don Quixote (taking on entrenched realities).
Henry Clay Frick (born December 19, 1849, West Overton, Pennsylvania), another Pittsburgh-based capitalist who became notorious for his iron-fisted treatment of his workers and of unions, who exploded into violence at one point, had Pittsburghia conjunct Lilith (the marginalized, the scorned), semisextile Chaos, sextile Pholus (dictatorial behavior), quintile Ceres, square Damocles (experience of groupthink, danger, crisis), sesquiquadrate Saturn, quincunx Nessus (greed, possessiveness, predatory, boundary encroachment) and contraparallel Uranus (unions).
Ad executive Bill Free, who created the sexist but effective "I'm Cheryl—fly me" ads around 1970 for a now-defunct airline, had Pittsburghia sextile the Sun (to shine), square Pandora (unintended consequences, making a splash) and trine Chariklo (glamorization).
Former California governor Gray Davis, a buttoned-down, rather colorless personality who lost his job in a historic recall vote after choosing to fight the recall rather than resign, has Pittsburghia conjunct Vesta (dedication), Chiron (need to pay attention), Damocles (drastic change) and the South Node (past experiences, the path of least resistance).
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who replaced him as governor, has Pittsburghia in the tenth house of career and reputation, cusping the eleventh house of politics, semisextile the North Node (moving beyond past experiences, making connections), semisquare Pallas (politics), sextile Asbolus (listening to oneself), trine Elatus (eloquent expression) and quincunx the South Node.
Henry Kissinger, a Holocaust survivpr and an exemplar of the practice of Realpolitik who has outstanding arrest warrants against him in a number of countries as a result, has Pittsburghia in the fourth house, on the IC, sextile the Moon (the public), trine Chiron, Pholus (steadfast before power) and Dioretsa, quincunx Pallas and parallel the Sun as well as opposite the IC.
George W. Bush, whose policies tend to favor the very rich and large corporations and who cut taxes steeply despite the shock to the US economy caused by 9-11 and fighting two wars at once, has Pittsburghia in the fifth house of self-expression, trine Venus, Heracles (to struggle with), and the Midheaven (career, authority), square Chaos, and opposite Pandora.
Leading George W. Bush Administration neocon Paul Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943 in New York) has Pittsburghia conjunct Lilith (reluctantly dealt with) and quindecile Venus (values, money).
Nazi propagandist Josef Goebbels has Pittsburghia in the fourth house, on the IC, conjunct Mercury (the media), semisextile Elatus, square Chaos (activism) and the Nodes (past influences and moving beyond them, making connections or separating), and sesquiquadrate Pluto (mass action, criminal behavior).
Rush Limbaugh has Pittsburghia in the twelfth house, semisextile Chariklo (to glamorize) and Damocles (pushing it, politics), sextile Cruithne (a brand name), square Ixion and trine Pandora.
Ralph Nader has Pittsburghia in the second house of values and earned income, conjunct the Sun (to shine, to lead) and semisextile Varuna (grown big, judgmental).
Abraham Lincoln had Pittsburghia in the fourth house, sextile Venus and Vesta, trine the Ascendant (personal interests, the appearance, the body), quincunx Uranus (liberation) and opposite Neptune (ideals).
Spanish advocate of secular education Francesc Ferrer i Guardia (born January 10, 1849, in Allela, Barcelona, Spain) was executed in 1909 with the approval of the Catholic Church after a kangaroo-court trial following a period of civil unrest for which Ferrer i Guardia was blamed. He had Pittsburghia sextile Hylonome (the cry of the people), trine Asbolus (advice given but not necessarily taken, bad experiences), sesquiquadrate Uranus (liberation, radical, awakening), quincunx Vesta and opposite Phaethon (a phenomenon).
Gloria Steinem has Pittsburghia in the fourth house of early life, cusping the fifth house of self-expression and love given, semisextile the North Node, quintile Chiron (the maverick, door-opener), quincunx the South Node, parallel Mercury (speaking, writing, ideas) and contraparallel Uranus. Forced into early self-reliance by the absence of her father and the mental illness of her mother, Steinem didn't feel she needed a husband to support or "complete" her and managed to tap into deep dissatisfaction with the idea among women as a feminist leader, moving Western society toward a more equitable concept of male-female relations.
Sixties leftist activist Angela Davis has Pittsburghia in the first house, conjunct Ixion (generating karma, second chances), semisquare Pallas and square Damocles (drastic change, politics, experience of groupthink or danger).
Actor James Caviezel, who played the title role in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of The Christ, has Pittsburghia in the second house of earned income, sextile Juno (relating to others, sense of justice, talent in the performing arts), square Chaos, tredecile Uranus, trine Elatus, sesquiquadrate Mars (violence, aggression), and quincunx Phaethon.
Figure skater Tara Lipinski (born June 10, 1982, in Philadelphia), who won the gold medal in women's figure skating at the 1996 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan and ended up getting hip-replacement surgery at age 19, has Pittsburghia square Nessus (the lust to "get") and biquintile Pluto and Juno (talent in the performing arts) .
David McLean (real name Eugene Huth, born May 19, 1922 in Akron, Ohio), one of several actors who played the Marlboro Man and died of lung cancer from smoking, had Pittsburghia conjunct Mercury (the media, the lungs), semisextile Heracles (to struggle with, to be seen as rugged and strong), quintile Juno (talent in the performing arts, projection of image) and the South Node, tredecile the North Node, and opposite Pholus (foolishness, something foreign and corrupting, to contract something) and Don Quixote (taking on reality and losing).
Notorious killer and pedophile Richard Allen Davis had a very rough childhood with an allegedly mentally ill father and grew up to commit a string of violent attacks on women that ended when he kidnapped 12-year-old Polly Klaas from her own bedroom in Petaluma, California, raped and murdered her. Convicted and sent to death row, Davis slandered her father Marc Klaas on national television for bringing him to justice. Davis has Pittsburghia in the eleventh house of politics, conjunct Ceres (parental relationships), semisquare Don Quixote, square Jupiter (the law), tredecile the Sun, trine Phaethon (out of control), quincunx Pandora (stirring things up, making a splash), opposite Chaos and Cruithne (branded), and parallel Vesta (dedication, sexual problems).
The glyph for Pittsburghia, suggesting a smokestack, was the creation of Batya Stark.