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Category Archive: Education

  1. Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program: Building Pride/Building Character

    PHLF News
    March 3, 2008

    The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation welcomes corporate support of our “Building Pride/Building Character” program made possible by the PA Department of Community and Economic Development’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program.

    Last year, 7 businesses––Ellwood Group, Inc.; PNC Bank; Allegheny Technologies Incorporated; Equitable Energy, a division of Equitable Resources; Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Company; Bridges & Company, Inc.; and Hefren-Tillotson––graciously contributed a total of $54,111 to the “Building Pride/Building Character” program. These contributions are allowing elementary students from ten Pittsburgh Public Schools to participate in the “Building Pride/Building Character” program through May 2008.

    Through tours, art activities, exhibits, and in-school programs created for the “Building Pride/Building Character” program, students discover a lot about their school, neighborhood, and city––and a lot about themselves––and fulfill academic standards in the process. Your support after July 1, 2008 will allow Landmarks to continue this program in the fall of 2008 and through May 2009.

    To support the “Building Pride/Building Character” program, please visit the EITC Web site and complete the application (Appendix I EIO) found in the EITC Business Guidelines. Eligible businesses are those authorized to do business in Pennsylvania who are subject to one or more of the following taxes: Corporate Net Income Tax, Capital Stock Franchise Tax, Bank and Trust Company Shares Tax, Title Insurance Companies Shares Tax, Title Insurance Companies Shares Tax, Insurance Premiums Tax, or Mutual Thrift Institution Tax. Businesses may receive tax credits equal to 75% of their contribution if only one year or 90% of their contribution if the business agrees to provide the same amount for two consecutive tax years. The limit per business is $200,000 per taxable year.

    For more information about the “Building Pride/Building Character” program for Pittsburgh Public Schools, contact the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation: 412.471.5808, ext. 536; louise@phlf.org.

  2. Black leaders seek delay in Schenley decision

    By Bill Zlatos
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Wednesday, February 27, 2008

    A group of black community leaders is urging the city school board tonight to postpone or vote against a proposal to move students from Schenley High School in Oakland.

    In a letter dated today to board members, the Black Political Empowerment Project or B-PEP urged the board to reconsider Superintendent Mark Roosevelt’s proposed closing of Schenley. Roosevelt wants to close the school because of the estimated $64.3 million cost of removing asbestos and upgrading the building.

    Under Roosevelt’s plan, to be voted on today, the district would close Schenley and move students this fall while it decides whether to shut the school down permanently or renovate it. As a result, the board is considering the following actions:

    * Relocating Schenley students who would be in grades 10 through 12 to now-closed Reizenstein in East Liberty; * Shifting 174 students in the robotics technology program at Schenley to Peabody High School in East Liberty: and * Sending ninth graders who live in Schenley’s feeder pattern to a proposed University Prep School at Milliones in the Hill District.

    B-PEP Chairman Tim Stevens recommended hold off on moving the Schenley students until the district develops a comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of the nine high schools that did not meet federal academic standards.

    Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.

  3. Vote on closing Schenley High School delayed

    By Bill Zlatos
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Thursday, February 21, 2008

    City schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt said he delayed a vote on closing Schenley High School to give supporters time to raise money to fix it and to study if it would be cheaper in the long run to repair the structure.

    “We think it is indeed worth the time and exploration,” Roosevelt told members of the school board at Wednesday’s agenda review meeting. “It does not imply a decision has been made either way.”

    Roosevelt said the district is studying whether it would be more cost-effective to fix Schenley because of its sturdy construction compared to a more recent building that might not last as long.

    The Oakland school has 1,086 students and was built in 1916. Roosevelt last year recommended closing Schenley because of the $64.3 million cost of renovating it and removing its asbestos.

    The board yesterday discussed his proposal to make a couple of moves he believes necessary whether Schenley is permanently closed or temporarily shut down for repairs.

    Those actions, to be voted on Feb. 27, involve moving Schenley students in grades 10 through 12 to Reizenstein in East Liberty in the fall. At the same time, the 174 students in the robotics technology program at Schenley would be relocated to Peabody High School in East Liberty.

    Ninth-graders from Schenley’s feeder pattern would go to a University Prep School at Milliones in the Hill District. Eventually Milliones would expand to a grade 6-12 school.

    Ninth-graders in the International Baccalaureate and international studies programs, both of which are at Schenley, would go to Frick School in Oakland.

    Board member Sherry Hazuda questioned whether it would make more sense to keep Schenley open while fixing it as opposed to shutting it down.

    Richard Fellers, chief operations officer, warned that fixing Schenley while leaving part of the school open could endanger students from falling plaster.

    “We think it would be cost-effective, faster and removes the health risk” to close the building, he said.

    At one point, Roosevelt and board member Mark Brentley became involved in a heated exchange when Brentley criticized the move of black students from the Hill District to Milliones.

    “We take very seriously our obligation to better serve kids that the data tell us are not doing well off,” Roosevelt said.

    Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.

  4. After 50 years, bookstore closes chapter of history

    By Regis Behe
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Friday, February 15, 2008

    When Jay Dantry started selling books in September 1955, hardback novels were less than half their current price.

    But he wants to clear up one misperception:

    “I don’t go back so far as to have sold 35-cent copies of ‘Lost Horizon,'” says Dantry, the proprietor of Jay’s Book Stall in Oakland.

    After more than 50 years, Jay’s Book Stall will close in a few months. Books will be packed, shelves taken down. There will be no fanfare, no signs heralding the shop’s closure. Like the last page of a long, riveting novel, Jay’s Book Stall will simply end.

    “We came in quietly, we’ll go out quietly,” says Dantry, 79, who was unwilling to commit to an extended lease on his Fifth Avenue store.

    Situated between the hospitals that rise on Oakland’s infamous Cardiac Hill and the dormitories, fast-food restaurants and bars frequented by University of Pittsburgh students, Jay’s Book Stall has been a haven for bookworms of all stripes. Drama students from Carnegie Mellon University, budding writers from the University of Pittsburgh, and doctors and nurses and interns all found their way to the cozy shop unlike any other in the area.

    Dr. Thomas Starzl, the transplant pioneer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, walked into the store shortly after he came to Pittsburgh.

    “I realized right away it was an unusual bookstore, and better, in many respects, than anything I’d seen elsewhere,” Starzl says.

    Starzl and the late Fred Rogers were among those who slipped in by way of the back door on Sundays, when the store was closed but Dantry was working on ledgers and accounts. Starzl specifically sought Dantry’s advice when he was writing “The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon.”

    “I talked to Jay about it and asked if he could look at it,” Starzl says. “He took it upon himself to help get it published. …. That was how I got to know him. I have a great debt to him.”

    Others who came by the store were not quite as famous — at least when they first visited the store. Dantry recalls the drama students from Carnegie Mellon who browsed through the store’s selection of dramatic works. Patrick Wilson, nominated for Tony awards for his roles in “Oklahoma!” and “The Full Monty,” was one of them.

    “Jay’s Book Stall saved a lot of us ‘dramats’ when we needed a play in a pinch,” Wilson says.

    Another regular visitor was a Pitt student named Michael Chabon, who came in begging for a job. At first there were no openings, but Dantry eventually found work for Chabon, who went on to become a best-selling novelist.

    “The thing Jay did for me as a writer was to appear to take my literary aspirations entirely seriously,” Chabon says. “He used to tease me about a lot of things — my clothes, my hair, my friends, the circles under my eyes, but he never teased me about my crappy short stories and poems. He really seemed to think I was going to be a writer when I grew up.”

    Chabon, whose first novel, “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” is scheduled to be released as a movie later this year, won a Pulitzer Prize for literature in 2001 for “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.” He became part of a panoply of accomplished writers who are memorialized in snapshots displayed throughout the store:

    Here, a beaming Dantry with Stephen King. Over there, Dantry with a snowy-haired John Updike. Erica Jong, Richard Ford, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Mary Higgins Clark, James Lee Burke, David Sedaris, E.L. Doctorow, Garrison Keillor and Doris Lessing are among the writers who have visited the store.

    Writers would come by because “they’ve heard (Jay’s) is like a little club for Nobel laureates,” says Harry Schwalb, art critic and artist, who in 2005 put together “Book People,” an exhibit of the photographs for The Mattress Factory.

    Dantry calls that exhibit his crowning achievement as a bookseller, but there were many other cherished memories. He fondly speaks of meeting Vonnegut, who admired the tie the bookseller was wearing.

    “So I gave him the tie,” Dantry says, pointing to a picture of them together. “But he would not sign books because he said they’d turn up on the Internet.”

    “Edward Albee used to come here a lot,” Dantry says. “He was always going through the science books. People from the (Pittsburgh) Playhouse would find out and they would come down, and he’d always entertain them.”

    Dantry, courteous and discriminating, treated local writers with respect. Kathleen George, a writer who teaches theater at Pitt and is the author of a new novel, “Afterimage,” says rare is the bookstore where the staff knows literature from Jane Austen to Emile Zola.

    “Jay and his store were there when I arrived as a student many years ago,” George says. “He is as much a part of Pitt and Pittsburgh as anybody I can think of. And his shop — which is a reflection of him — is a joy.”

    Dantry is a bit unsure of his plans once he closes the store, saying only that he plans to do volunteer work. But for many, the closing of Jay’s Book Stall leaves a chasm in the heart of Oakland.

    Starzl wonders where he will go to buy books when Dantry closes shop.

    “It’s just a nice, comfortable place to browse,” Starzl says. “It’s Jay’s personality that made it a great place. And also the people he surrounded himself with were so exceptional. They would go out of their way to help you, searching for books, and it’s hard to find that kind of highly personal service.”

    “It is Pittsburgh,” Wilson says. “Rich in history, richer in knowledge, eclectic artistic, and accessible, a true Oakland haunt. … Thanks for a business run with heart, and one that always helped.”

    “I don’t know if there are three rivers of literary culture flowing through Pittsburgh — I wouldn’t be sure how to count them,” Chabon says. “But I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Jay is one of those rivers.

    “He has been a steady, strong, tireless force for good, championing books and authors he cared about, and because of his hospitality, his store has long served as a nexus for people in all the arts to come together and hang out and get to know each other. He has proved all kinds of points about the power and the value and the endurance of books and writing simply by virtue of staying open all these years in the face of brutal changes in the ways books are marketed and sold.”

    FAMOUS VISITORS

    Jay Dantry on writers who have visited Jay’s Book Stall.

    Richard Ford: “He’s been here a number of times, just a wonderful guy.”

    Stephen King: “Very nice, absolutely charming.”

    Garrison Keillor: “Onstage he’s wonderful, but dour in person.”

    Betty Friedan: “It was either too cold or too hot in here (for her). We gave her the wrong kind of water. When you picked her up at the airport, she would not ride in a green car. Or (if) somebody had been smoking in the car.”

    Mary Higgins Clark: “She asked me to accompany her to a dinner (at a book convention in Chicago). I said, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to do this?’ But I forced myself to go. She was the only one who stopped me in my tracks.”

    Doris Lessing: “She was fantastic. But when they took our picture, she put her hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze. Quite a surprise.”

    Michael Chabon: “When he spoke to you, you would swear there wasn’t another person in the world. It was just you. He had this instant rapport that wasn’t a put-on.”

    On the Pittsburgh writing community: “I think everybody takes it for granted, but there’s a wealth of talent here. They are bright people who stick together. Nobody goes New York on you.”

    Regis Behe can be reached at rbehe@tribweb.com or 412-320-7990.

  5. Decision on Schenley High School postponed

    Wednesday, January 30, 2008
    By Joe Smydo,
    Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

    The city school board’s vote on the closing of the Pittsburgh Schenley High School building will be put off until spring so officials can continue to study the feasibility of renovating the building.

    A vote on the building’s fate was widely expected at the board’s Feb. 27 legislative meeting.

    Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt last night said he didn’t want to give Schenley supporters false hope, but wants more time to study “every option” for saving the building.

    “We believe we should spend a couple of extra months doing that,” he told board members at a workshop on high school improvement.

    School board member Heather Arnet thanked Mr. Roosevelt for considering pleas to spare the historic Oakland building.

    Kathy Fine, a Schenley supporter, called the announcement a “very positive move” and a nod to community members who have been brainstorming for ways to raise money and reduce renovation costs.

    Mr. Roosevelt unleashed a firestorm last fall when he proposed closing the building at the end of the school year, saying the district couldn’t afford $64 million to address asbestos and other maintenance problems.

    He has proposed moving Schenley’s current 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders to the Reizenstein building in Shadyside next school year and allowing them to remain together until graduation. Students who would have entered Schenley as freshmen next school year would be absorbed by other schools.

    The district held a public hearing on the proposal Nov. 27 so the board could vote Feb. 27. State law requires that a hearing be held at least three months before the vote to close a school.

    Mr. Roosevelt said he never committed to a Feb. 27 vote on the building’s future, though people have had that impression. He said he will ask the board to vote next month on moving students out of the Schenley building for the next school year.

    Whether the building is closed or renovated, he said, students won’t be able to attend class there in 2008-09.

    He said the board must vote promptly on reassigning the students so Reizenstein or another building can be readied for them.

    Joe Smydo can be reached at jsmydo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.
    First published on January 30, 2008 at 12:00 am

  6. Signs of past life

    By Adam Brandolph
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Tuesday, January 15, 2008

    Look up.

    Faded advertisements flake off the sides of exposed brick buildings throughout the city. Remnants of a bygone era, these markers tell the story of our city’s rich history.

    From companies like Otto Milk, formerly in the Strip District, to the German National Bank on Liberty Avenue, Downtown, and leisure activities like Penn Bowling Lanes, these reminders preserve a piece of how Pittsburghers used to live.

    The ads often are pointed out to people on the public walking tours offered by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, executive director Louise Sturgess said. “These snapshots of history are wonderful,” Sturgess said.

    But why do these signs remain after so many years? Even the Cathedral of Learning was cleaned last year.

    “These signs remain because some building owners have no reason to remove them and are content to let them age along with the building,” Sturgess said. “The signs bring a layer of Pittsburgh history to life, and once you notice them, they are great conversation pieces, especially when you are with a Pittsburgher who remembers the business or product featured in the sign.”

    While some signs are beaten and battered, the ones that grace the sides of Joe Mama’s, Uncle Sam’s and Fuel & Fuddle restaurants on Oakland Avenue in Oakland are comparatively new and shiny.

    The sides of the stores feature three vintage-looking wall advertisements for Coca-Cola, despite none of them being more than 15 years-old, according to Michael Hanley, co-owner of all three stores.

    Hanley said the themes of the restaurants are kind of old-school, so the handpainted ads make sense. “Coke adds to the timelessness,” he said, “and an older aesthetic helps convey our message.”

    Adam Brandolph can be reached at abrandolph@tribweb.com or 412-320-7936

  7. District presses to close Schenley

    By Bill Zlatos
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Tuesday, November 20, 2007

    Sixty-eight percent of the materials tested at Schenley High School contained asbestos, according to a report released Monday by city schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt.
    AGX Inc., Wexford-based environmental consultants, collected 406 samples from the plaster, ceiling, tiles, carpet and other areas of the Oakland school and found that 277 contained asbestos.

    The firm collected the samples five years ago, but the Pittsburgh Public Schools released the data for the first time to quell concerns that the district was overreacting to the asbestos problem.

    “This is the only building I know (in the district) where every ceiling, every wall on every floor has asbestos in it,” said Richard Fellers, the district’s chief operating officer, during a tour of the building with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

    The danger of the asbestos and falling plaster, coupled with the cost of renovating the school, has prompted Roosevelt to recommend for a second time that the school board close Schenley after this school year.
    During the past four years, estimates for the cost of abating the asbestos and renovating the building’s mechanical systems have ranged from $42.4 million to $86.9 million. Roosevelt has touted $64.4 million as the best estimate.

    “You’re talking about a basic gut job where every system needs to be replaced,” Roosevelt said at a news conference yesterday.

    Fellers and a team of architects and other professionals noted some of the 10,000 patches made to repair falling plaster last summer. Asbestos was used in the 91-year-old building for binding plaster, insulation and as a fire retardant.

    Patches, bubbles or sites of fallen plaster sealed with bridging compound could be seen in some hallways. In some stairwells, hallways or classrooms, fallen plaster had caused holes or exposed the brick behind a radiator.

    Roosevelt assured that the school is safe. He said the district monitors the plaster three times a week and the air quality once a week.

    “Every decision I make is based on the question: ‘Would this be right for my child?’ ” Roosevelt said.

    He has suggested that Schenley’s ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders go to the former Reizenstein school in East Liberty and graduate with a Schenley diploma.

    Schenley’s asbestos problem is compounded by a lack of ventilation that causes the plaster to bubble and fall. Because of the school’s historic status, Fellers said, the district was required to choose a type of window that preserved the building’s architectural character but accelerated its deterioration through insufficient ventilation.

    The proposal to close Schenley has stirred student and parent protests. Schenley advocates went to Allegheny Common Pleas Court last week in an unsuccessful attempt to block the school board from hiring an architect and construction manager for the renovation of Reizenstein.

    The uncertainty over the school’s fate has caused a family feud.

    Vidya Patil, the district’s acting director of facilities, is in charge of maintaining the building and keeping it safe. His daughter, Oona, 16, is a junior at Schenley and unhappy with the proposal to close it.

    “I’m very concerned about the deteriorating condition in the building — particularly the asbestos,” Patil said. “The amount of monitoring and dollars it takes to keep it safe is almost unbearable.”

    Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.

  8. Grant will allow IUP to complete preservation project

    By Bill Zlatos
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    Wednesday, November 7, 2007

    Beverly Chiarulli and a team of students at Indiana University of Pennsylvania are preserving a slice of state history dug up during highway projects.

    Chiarulli, director of IUP’s archaeological services, will get as much as $850,000 during the next five years from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. A big part of the grant will pay for preparing and cataloging more than 250,000 artifacts for the State Museum in Harrisburg.

    “These (highway) projects represent the history of everyone in Pennsylvania,” Chiarulli said. “They represent people that aren’t the famous people in history books and aren’t the people who left written records.”

    The most common artifacts from the “Legacy Collection” project are pieces of glass and ceramics that tell scientists how people lived as far back as the late 17th century.

    “The more English ceramics you have, the wealthier you were,” Chiarulli said.
    The collection includes many bottles, especially medicine bottles from the 18th and 19th centuries. The bottles give clues to the health, diet and wealth of early Pennsylvanians.

    Some of the bottles, for example, contained worm medicine.

    “People were eating meat that wasn’t always cured that well,” Chiarulli explained.

    Other artifacts include pottery, arrowheads and other points from American Indians who lived as long as 10,000 years ago.

    IUP junior Carrie Glessner, 21, of Somerset is one of 12 students working on the project this semester. She admires pottery wrapped with cords or decorated with designs drawn by sticks.

    “It’s interesting what they were able to do with primitive technology,” she said.

    PennDOT began doing archaeological investigations on federally funded road projects in the 1970s. By 2003, when IUP became involved in the project, the state had amassed more than 500,000 items.

    The university is about half done with the project. The new agreement will pay for the two or three years of work to finish the job.

    Ira Beckerman, group leader of cultural resources for PennDOT, said IUP was chosen because it’s a state university with an archaeology program that has labs, faculty, a supervisor and a stream of students.

    “There are very few state institutions that can do this, and this is one of them,” he said.

    Susan Lukowski, 22, an IUP senior from Avis in Clinton County, has worked three years on the project. She wants to become an archaeologist specializing in animal bones.

    “Bones to me are a puzzle,” she said. “You have the pieces, and you can figure out what people were eating. It’s a way to connect to the past.”

    Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.

Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation

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Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Phone: 412-471-5808  |  Fax: 412-471-1633