Q&A: Rick Sebak of WQED

Rick Sebak, the king of Pittsburgh neighborhoods, bought a little house in Regent Square to call home in 1988.

While he has been living in Bethel Park to care for his mother for last seven years until she recently passed away, Sebak never stopped his mail at his own house and plans on moving back to live here full-time in the future. We took a moment to sit down and talk about what makes Regent Square special—and why he decided to put his roots down here.

How did you discover and decide to move to Regent Square?

I grew up in Bethel Park and went to the University of North Carolina. My first job was with the network of public television stations in South Carolina, and I was in Columbia. I got my job at WQED by answering an ad in Broadcasting Magazine—people find that amazing but it’s true—and when I moved back here, I moved in with my parents in 1987. They said I could take my time trying to find a place to live, and a VP at QED who was in charge of pledge, said “If I were moving to Pittsburgh right now, I’d move to Regent Square.” I said, “Where’s that?”

He told me, I came over and I loved it. I love the brick streets, I love the trees, and some friends of mine from high school had just sold their house in Point Breeze and they told me to use their real estate agent. He said, 'Well, we will go look but I don’t think you can afford to live in Regent Square.' So, we started looking all over the Swissvale, Edgewood, Regent Square area and he called me one day and said, 'There is a little house I think you can afford.' I came over and thought it looks kind of cute and I kind of like it and he said, 'You better think fast.'

I just really love it. It’s a great little house. It’s the smallest house on the street, which people always say is the best one to own. Regent Square was everything I thought it would be. I remember that I actually bought the house and did all of that while editing Kennywood Memories in the summer of 1988.

What makes Regent Square special?

I think it is that walkability factor of all else. Everyone loves that and maybe that is what allows us to know our neighbors a little better—we see them but the thing is after not living here for seven years since my mom had a stroke and I have been taking care of her, I loved it so much I never stopped my mail. When my mom would go to my sister’s, I would come back and live here. I have gone through phases. When I first lived here we went to Dunning McNair’s and it’s called now. 

It’s the characters— and . There’s always a little scene over and it’s so obvious when Jackie’s not there. It’s amazing how a person can fill that space with her energy. For years, I took my car to the service station up here that is going away and everyone is afraid about that.

It’s walkability and the great people. I love the way that Legume and

All of those things just make it a great place to live. When I came in ‘87, I loved the fact that I knew the people who lived on both sides of me really well. I look forward to coming back.

It always seems to be lively and I think there is more nightlife here than there was ever before, and that has to do with the restaurants and people putting tables out. There have always been bars, but a couple times I have driven through at night and it’s just wow, look how busy this.

Is there anything that has changed that you miss?

There was a giant mural of King Kong’s head on the garage near , and next to that there was a night time ocean scene of a woman in a bikini walking out of the water. It was one little piece of Myrtle Beach here.

The bar part of D’s used to be a gun shop and the other side used to be a dry cleaner. I love that. I love that our neighborhood replaced the gun store with a hot dog shop—a good hot dog shop.