Things to Do in McKeesport

Wednesday-Night Wine Flights merge science and education, two ideas that have been divided since a series of high-school chemistry teachers was arrested for dancing on laboratory tables in 1987. Sample three wines that have been hand-selected to complement three Cassis appetizers. Small-plate possibilities from the menu of French-influenced American fare include dumplings, baked brie on toasted baguette slices, and black-olive tapenade with sliced radish dippers. The owner and head chef selects wine and food pairings a week prior to each flight, so if you'd like to know what comestibles are coming, check the Cassis Facebook page on Tuesday evening, or simply call ahead.

Cut & Sew Studio is a fully equipped studio space that offers beginning students and advanced stitchers an inviting environment to sharpen needle skills. All tools are provided on site, eliminating the need to find a suitable wagon to tote a sewing machine to class. Button buffs and daring darners can choose from a variety of interesting classes taught by fashionably educated Cut & Sew owner Catherine Batcho. Thread greenhorns can enlist in the two-session Intro to Sewing class ($50, four hours total), which instructs newcomers in the art of bobbin winding, machine threading, and stitch adjusting while crafting a simple patchwork pillow stuffed with soft, downy phoenix feathers. One hour of open studio time is also included in the intro class. Not-so-beginners can opt for the three-hour Zippers, Zippers, Zippers class ($45), in which participants learn to pull off a variety of zipper styles, including invisible, lapped, centered, fly, and the comical over-the-mouth. Anyone is welcome to sign up for open studio time ($10 per hour). Group classes and weeklong kid camps are also available; see the online calendar for upcoming classes.

Guests take their seats inside the grandiose Carnegie Music Hall, a space lauded for providing superb acoustics for chamber music and a challenging venue for games of Marco Polo. The venue is tucked inside the same building as the dinosaur bones and European masterworks of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Each year, hundreds of spirit connoisseurs gather around the ample sampling tables of the Pittsburgh Whiskey and Fine Spirits Festival. Seasoned tasters and curious beginners alike sip not only whiskies and scotches from the likes of Balvenie, Laphroaig, and Knob Creek, but also sample gin, vodka, tequila, and other spirits crafted by distilleries from throughout the globe. Attendees can make a beeline for their favorite firewater or take an opportunity to try a pour of pricier brands reserved only for movie stars who need it to support their barley-based DNA structure as gourmet appetizers and live music add to the cocktail-party atmosphere. Meanwhile, guests can browse and bid on a silent auction that benefits the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s western-Pennsylvania chapter.

Museums typically showcase art in carefully curated rooms. At Mattress Factory, however, the room itself is the art. Since 1977, the museum's two buildings have housed a permanent collection of contemporary installation art—room-sized works that engulf the entire space. In Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Dots Mirrored Room, mirrored ceilings and walls infinitely reflect a trio of fluorescent dots painted on a white formica floor. In Greer Lankton's It's all about ME, Not You, astroturf lines a floor covered in artful arrangements of grotesque dolls that form shrines to artists such as Patti Smith and Candy Darling.

To further immerse guests, Mattress Factory's exhibitions are paired with educational programs that range from lectures to hands-on art projects. Along with stimulating the public, the museum stimulates the growth of artists through its residency program, which invites participants to create installations while living near the museum, a much more practical alternative to hiding a secret cot in the coatroom.

Rising six floors above the historic Strip District, the Senator John Heinz History Center's handsome, redbrick exterior houses 275,000 square feet of exhibits and materials devoted to Western Pennsylvania. Long-term exhibits include From Slavery to Freedom, which traces the quest for equality from the antislavery movement to the modern struggles for Civil Rights, using indenture, manumission, and freedom papers from the Allegheny County recorder of deeds as starting points. Pittsburgh: A History of Innovation highlights the land's original inhabitants, the journey of Lewis and Clark, and the modern superhighways, whereas the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum delves into the history and lore of local athletics, from the Steelers’ Immaculate Reception to Bill Mazeroski's title-clinching home run in game seven of the 1960 World Series. The museum also hosts nationally renowned traveling exhibits; its current offering is 1968: The Year That Rocked America which explores this decade-defining year using evocative objects, multimedia displays, and more than 100 artifacts related to 1968’s seminal moments.