Category Archive: Education
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Board settles on renovating Turtle Creek school
By Peggy Conrad, Staff Writer
Gateway Newspapers
Wednesday, May 10, 2006Woodland Hills School Board last week decided not to follow the recommendation of the ad-hoc committee that was formed to study whether to rebuild or renovate East Junior High School in Turtle Creek.
At a special meeting on May 2, the committee recommended creating detailed and comparable design plans, one each for a renovated structure and a new building, and that the board commit to the least expensive option.At the next day’s agenda-setting meeting, the board voted 5-3 to no longer pursue a new building and to have renovation plans developed in further detail.
Members Linda Cole, Randy Lott and Colleen Filiak voted to follow the recommendation of the committee; member Fred Kuhn was absent. A public meeting of the board and architects will be scheduled to determine the extent of the renovation.
“The board needs to meet and define what that renovation might be,” said Cynthia Lowery, board president.
“We can create the most beautiful plans, but if we don’t have a plan that has the majority of support of the board, it’s wasted. It’s time to start looking at ‘What does the board and the Woodland Hills community support?’ I have to get five votes,” she said.
Lowery’s initial inclination was to follow the recommendation of the committee, but during discussion, it was apparent that other board members were hesitant or opposed to doing that.
“If I had voted the other way, the board would have been split,” she said. “I went with where I felt we could come to a consensus. I just don’t think we can continue arguing about it indefinitely.”
Lott agreed with the committee, saying the board needs to further define its options.
“We don’t have enough comparable information to make a rational decision …. We need to take a step back and do some specs and define for us some comparable plans,” he said prior to the vote.
The options now are a complete renovation that would update the building to meet current educational standards or a limited renovation including needed repairs.
One of the main issues is whether to include a swimming pool, as the ad-hoc committee strongly recommended, to offer equitable instruction to all junior high students.
The $500,000 cost cited by a committee member is much too low, said Lowery. The cost for a new pool would be closer to $1.5 to $2 million, according to the architect.
Board member William Driscoll asserted the district had not done enough long-range planning to determine if the population 15 years from now would support a junior high school in Turtle Creek designed to hold 400 students.
“I’m not convinced that we need to do much more than what needs to be done to maintain the existing East Junior High School,” Driscoll said.
Andreas Dometakis of HHSDR Architects said immediate needs in the next five years include handicapped-accessibility, improving ventilation, re-moving asbestos and addressing structural issues and water leakage.
The state has directed districts to upgrade buildings to current educational standards within a certain period or risk losing reimbursement, he said.
Previously, HHSDR said a new building would cost $20.3 million, renovating would cost $21.5 million and a combined junior high school for all seventh- and eighth-graders would cost about $30 million.
Board member Robert Tomasic continued to assert that a combined junior high at the site of the administration building would be more convenient, equitable and save on future operating costs.
Board member Robert Clanagan said he was willing to go with the recommendation of the committee since it was a community decision.
Cole said the board’s facilities committee basically came up with same solution as the ad-hoc committee.
Board member Marilyn Messina said the ad-hoc committee did admirable work, but the board should have had many more meetings on the issue because of the divided reaction from the community.
Filiak said she still leans toward renovation, but mechanical problems need to be addressed.
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Historic, asbestos-plagued Schenley deserves reprieve and makeover
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, February 22, 2006Close Schenley High School? He can’t be serious.
And move the Schenley students to Reizenstein? He must be joking.
He wasn’t. On Nov. 9, the shocking news was that Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt would close the storied school that looks like a Greek temple and move Schenley students and staff to the one that looks like a prison. He didn’t put it quite that way.
Shouldn’t this be a no-brainer? Isn’t Schenley the school with the fabled, historic neighborhood, the proud heritage, the great building? Isn’t Reizenstein the school that’s walled off from its neighbors and in a 1970s building that only its architects could love?
But such decisions aren’t made on looks and location alone. Schenley has asbestos issues. It’s embedded in the plaster walls and ceiling, the pipe coverings and the floor tiles, and estimates for removing it and upgrading the mechanical systems came in at $55.7 million and $86.9 million.
The good news is that Roosevelt kept an open mind and listened to Schenley supporters who want to keep the school where it is. He formed an independent task force to study the issue. That committee got a more detailed, room-by-room estimate from a third architectural firm, Astorino, which believes the job can be done for considerably less — about $32 million to address the major problems and $62 million for a full-scale renovation. For now, closing Schenley is off the table, until the task force comes up with a recommendation.
Here’s hoping the committee sees the school for what it is: a tremendous asset in which taxpayers have made a hefty economic investment, $1.48 million for the land, building and equipment, and another $9.4 million for the 1985 addition, which added a new pool and a gymnasium. That’s a total of more than $43 million in 2006 dollars, a fraction of what it would cost to assemble the land and erect such a building in that neighborhood today. But thanks to the foresight of an earlier Board of Education, it’s already there. All this one has to do is take care of it.
In fact, the board has been maintaining Schenley, commissioning and installing custom replacement windows approved by the Historic Review Commission, putting in a new science lab and new seats in the auditorium and making repairs as needed. But it’s clear from a tour of the building last week that Schenley still needs a lot of work.
Major upgrades to the heating and electrical systems have been delayed because they can’t be done piecemeal due to asbestos. The building’s natural ventilation system was shut down 10 years ago because the ducts that bring fresh air to each room are lined with asbestos. Every time even minor repairs or improvements are done, the asbestos abatement contractor must be called in along with the plumber or electrician, escalating the cost. That new $600,000 science lab cost twice what it should have because of asbestos abatement, said my school district tour guides, construction chief and architect Vidyadhar S. Patil and environmental specialist Robert J. Kennedy Jr. And while Schenley has a computer lab, asbestos has left the school unable to reach its goal of about a dozen computers in each classroom.
Although Kennedy’s monthly inspections make sure no asbestos has been exposed inside the building, Schenley looks tired and worn in places. But the structure of this steel and concrete school, which rests on 1,700 concrete pilings, is sound.
Moreover, Schenley has some important assets Reizenstein Middle School lacks: a landmark Classical Revival building with a monumental entrance, a culturally rich neighborhood of museums and universities and a strong visual connection to that neighborhood.
The triangle-shaped building was designed so that each of the classrooms that line the perimeter has an abundance of natural light. So do the corridors, which face interior courtyards flanking the central auditorium, but it’s the classrooms that get the views.
Some may argue that a view is a distraction. That seems to have been the opinion of Reizenstein’s designers, who placed a ribbon of clerestory windows around the first floor of the building that give minimal natural light and no view of anything but clouds and sky. The second-floor windows, hidden behind overhangs, are even worse.
I would argue that natural light is essential to well-being and that the view, especially the one from Schenley, is inspirational. It helps students understand and bond with their community. Almost 40 years ago, I was a student teacher at Schenley, in the art room located in one of the building’s elbows. From that hillside perch, we had a commanding, panoramic view of Oakland, which spread out below us like a 3-D map.
To understand what an important building Schenley was when it opened, you have to go back a little further.
Schenley was the first high school built after the state assembly reorganized the Pennsylvania school system, creating central boards of education that no longer had to share power with local ward school boards. That made bigger, better school buildings possible, with more amenities such as auditoriums, libraries, science labs, art and music rooms and swimming pools.
Schenley was the first high school in the country that cost more than $1 million to build, a distinction trumpeted in local newspapers along with its status as one of the top 10 high school buildings in the country.
Schenley’s architect was Edward Stotz, who, in answering the call for a building with minimal ornamentation, also provided one with maximum dignity, faced in Indiana limestone and with a projecting, columned entrance that communicates that the act of entering the school is of some significance. The spare treatment continues inside, along with the elegant materials: Corridor floors are terrazzo, and the stairs are white marble. When the building was new, reproductions of famous paintings and buildings lined the walls, turning the halls into galleries. Today the hall walls are too bare, and while one of alumnus Andy Warhol’s report cards is in a glass case (he got straight A’s), there are no reproductions of his work hanging about.
Stotz apprenticed with local architects before spending the year of 1889, when he was 21, studying and sketching in Europe. He was 48 when Schenley opened, and he seems to have regarded it as his best work. A 1922 biographical reference mentions his most prominent buildings, including Colfax School, Fifth Avenue and South Side high schools, “and the most beautiful of all, the Schenley high school.” The firm he founded, now known as MacLachlan, Cornelius & Filoni, designed Downtown’s new Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
If Schenley moves to Reizenstein, the district would spend about $15 million to upgrade science labs, build an auditorium where the defunct tennis courts are and improve the lighting.
A better option, and one also being considered, is moving Schenley students and staff to Reizenstein for a year while Schenley is upgraded. If the district applied that $15 million toward the $32 million cost of renovating Schenley, it would be almost halfway there.
Protected by city historic status, Schenley is in no danger of being torn down, and the building still would have an educational use if the district sells it to the University of Pittsburgh, one potential buyer. But Schenley’s highly successful magnet program, which provides a variety of educational opportunities in a racially diverse setting, deserves to keep blooming where it was planted. Even in these pragmatic days, that should count for something.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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The Getty Foundation Awards Landmarks, Major Grant for Historic College Study, Work Proceeds
PHLF News
January 2, 2006On June 22, the Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, approved a matching grant to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in the amount of $185,000 for the preparation of conservation plans for Allegheny College, Slippery Rock University, Geneva College, and Grove City College, with work to be completed by the end of 2006. The grant requires a $10,000 match from each college, and Landmarks is working with each college to discuss how the match can best be met.
“The approach we used in applying for this grant was unique,” said Landmarks President Arthur Ziegler, “and we look forward to working with the four colleges to study their historic buildings and landscapes, and develop conservation and stewardship plans incorporating these historic assets.”
Several years ago, The Getty initiated the Campus Grants Program for colleges and universities. The University of Pittsburgh was a recipient of one of these grants. Landmarks realized that there were a number of small colleges in Western Pennsylvania that have historic campuses with marvelous 19th- and early 20th-century buildings but which might lack the capacity to apply for grants under the program individually. Therefore, we approached several Western Pennsylvania colleges to see if they would like Landmarks to apply for such a grant on their behalf. Ultimately we were able to submit a proposal on behalf of Allegheny College, Slippery Rock University, Geneva College, and Grove City College. In order to meet the proposal deadline, Tom Keffer, superintendent of property maintenance for Landmarks, visited the four colleges in two days, driving 261 miles and taking 360 photographs.
Associate Director Joan Weinstein and Program Officer Antoine Wilmering at the Getty Foundation worked with us to develop our proposal. Joan was once a member of the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh Fine Arts Department. We thank both of them for their willingness to talk with us and for permitting us to use a novel approach. Here, architectural historian Walter Kidney introduces the colleges.
Allegheny College
Sited in Meadville, 80 miles from Pittsburgh, this is the northernmost campus in our study, and the oldest. It was founded in 1815, and its 14 historic structures date from over 120 years. Bentley Hall is a curious Federal-style building of 1820, with later additions in three phases. Charles Morse Stotz, in The Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania, treated Bentley Hall as the most significant educational structure in the area before 1860. Of the later buildings, those that stand out are those by two architectural offices, Charles W. Bolton & Sons (Philadelphia) and M. H. Church (Chicago). The Bolton office produced Reis Hall, a darkly-handsome Classical work in terra cotta to house the library; the Ford Memorial Chapel; and Alden Hall. The Church office produced a vigorous design for the Montgomery Gymnasium and the Newton Observatory, walled with stone so rugged as to suggest a mausoleum for the stars. We will study these and the other buildings, and the 20-acre historic campus area where they stand.
Slippery Rock University
When this institution began in 1892, it was the Slippery Rock Normal School; it became part of the State educational system in 1926. Our study includes three buildings from the Normal School days, notably the Richardsonesque Old Main of 1892; all were by a littleknown architect, Sidney Foulk. Five buildings from the 1920s and ’30s, by the W. G. Eckles Co., will follow, as will an unexpected work of Modernism, the Miller Auditorium of 1955; the President’s House of 1939, architect unknown; and the Hickory Schoolhouse, a wooden one-roomer of 1860 brought to the campus in 1988. The campus has no historic landscape as such, but we will make suggestions as regard planting.
Geneva College
This is our second-oldest college, founded in Northwood, Ohio in 1848 but located in Beaver Falls since 1879. We will study six buildings on a six-acre campus, as well as the old, now-deserted college railroad station. The oldest and most notable building is the Old Main of 1881, mid-Victorian Gothic. A little unexpected is a mansard-roofed wooden house, “Ferncliffe,” also built in 1881. The name of the New Castle architect William George Eckles appears three times in this modest building group: in the Johnstown Gymnasium, the McCartney Library, and McKee Hall, a women’s dormitory. Again, a campus study is part of the project, in this case involving a proposed highway realignment.
Grove City College
This is the newest college, founded in the late 1920s and established on a unified campus planned by Olmsted Brothers. Six of the eight buildings under study, dating from 1931 to 1941, are by William G. Eckles. The style is Gothic of one variety or another, usually of red brick with limestone trim. Two buildings predate the College: Cunningham Hall, built in 1845 as a private home, and Carnegie Hall, a music hall given to Grove City by Andrew Carnegie in 1900. The Olmsted campus is 20 acres in area, and we will study it with an eye toward furtherance of the original design principles.
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Group lobbying to save Turtle Creek school building junior high
By Mike Scheinberg
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Thursday, December 15, 2005Members of the Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School are continuing a campaign to block plans to replace the 88-year-old landmark with a new junior high.
They spoke passionately at last week’s school board meeting in favor of renovating the old school, which is now East Junior High School, rather than building a new one.
“The building is sound and in excellent condition,” said Bob Mock, a spokesman for the committee. “We believe renovation of the building would be much more cost-effective. This building is a landmark. It is a slam dunk for national historic preservation.”
Another committee member, Connie Morenzi, said the Woodland Hills School District should not change the outside appearance of the school in any way.
“Turtle Creek residents can’t afford any more taxes,” said Kip Quinlan, a Turtle Creek businessman. “I went to the old Turtle Creek High School, and so did my kids. The district does not need a new building for only about 300 students.”
District officials said earlier that both new construction and renovation would cost between $17 million and $20 million.
However, school district Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Christopher Baker said yesterday it would cost $400,000 more to renovate East than it would for a new construction.
“That’s because architects’ fees are higher for renovation and any change orders would also be higher,” Mr. Baker said.
Speaking in favor of razing the old school, Valerie Pearson, of Braddock, said a new building would have a better environment for the students.
HHSDR Architects of Pittsburgh stated in an August report that the current overall condition of East Junior High is poor. They pointed to problems with the windows, exterior doors, science rooms, auditorium, swimming pool, and many other areas.
Two school board members are still not sold on renovating or building a new school in Turtle Creek.
“We need to take a look at our enrollment and our boundary lines,” said board member Robert Tomasic. “One possibility is to move all of the junior high kids to West [Junior High] and have six elementary buildings for grades K-six.”
Board colleague Fred Kuhn added, “West has a beautiful field, track, tennis courts and outdoor basketball courts, but East has nothing.
“I think we should look at other options.”
The board had considered moving East to the old Eastmont School site or to a site adjacent to Woodland Hills High School on Greensburg Pike, but both of those proposals failed to get the five needed votes.
Board member Randy Lott has supported keeping the school in Turtle Creek all along, saying the community needs a school.
The old Turtle Creek High School was built in 1917 and was renovated in 1978 at a cost of $4 million. In 1981, it merged into the Woodland Hills School District and later became a junior high.
“This building is very important to the community,” said Ronald Yochum, of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “Sometimes new isn’t always better.”
“Would they tear down the Cathedral of Learning?” Mr. Mock asked of the landmark building on the University of Pittsburgh campus.
More discussion on the building plans is expected at the school board legislative meeting in January.
(Mike Scheinberg is a freelance writer.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Students take on architecture
By Bob Stiles
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, October 28, 2005Shannon Page likes ugly buildings.
“I love to make them look pretty,” she said.Page and about 150 other Southwestern Pennsylvania students will get the chance — at least on paper and in a model — to improve the looks of one building, the former Bugzy’s Bagel shop in Greensburg.
The students are participating in the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation’s 10th annual Architectural Design Challenge, which is being held in Westmoreland County for the first time.
“I like to put things together and make things better than they use to be,” Page, a Belle Vernon Area High School sophomore, said of why she takes part in the competition. “And I like to make them more appealing to the senses.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, middle and high school students from about a dozen school districts, most in Westmoreland County, examined the exterior of the former bagel shop on West Pittsburgh Street. They also toured nearby structures, including the Palace Theatre.
The competition requires the students to come up with a use for the building — one that they anticipate would please and attract the public. They then must redesign the building, depict that revamped structure in a model and present their ideas to a panel of judges.
Judging will be held in February for both the middle and high school students at the Greensburg Garden and Civic Center.
Among the criteria used in the evaluation are the project’s feasibility and the creativity of the students. Other factors are the accuracy of the model and the effectiveness of the oral presentation.
In the competition, the students must keep in mind how their new design would fit in with surrounding structures — the reason for touring the nearby buildings, officials said.
Foundation officials said they brought the competition from Allegheny County, where it previously was held, to Greensburg because of the strong interest shown in the past by Westmoreland County schools.
“These kids are incredible,” said Louise Sturgess, the foundation’s executive director. “What they’re able to do is amazing.”
To attract customers, Page and her six schoolmates are considering turning Bugzy’s into a restaurant with structural features from the 1930s and ’40s.
“And to attract more people, we want to put shops around it,” Page said.
Antique stores, which are proposed for a parking lot that adjoins Bugzy’s, are especially being considered by her group, Page said.
The team that Page was on last year finished third in the competition, with a museum it proposed for Point State Park in Pittsburgh.
“We were close, but we’ve never actually won. Hopefully, this is our year,” Page said.
Sara Yates, 17, a Yough senior who hopes one day to be involved in government, said she isn’t as interested in architecture as she is on the effects of construction on a community and its government.
The competition — her fourth — also is a blast, she said.
“I just think it’s fun,” Yates said. “I like building the model and presenting it. I like public speaking.”
The Franklin Regional team that Andrew Skoff, 14, was on last year finished second in the competition. The freshman is participating in the challenge — his third — because he is interested in architectural engineering.
“I like the planning, the thought process that goes into it,” Skoff said.
His team was considering turning the Greensburg building into a bookstore with a cafe and outside garden.
The students learned about zoning and other building-related regulations from representatives of the Westmoreland County Historical Society, the Westmoreland Cultural Trust, the Greensburg Planning Department and the Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture. The officials also shared their views on what Greensburg and its surrounding communities are like.
Linda Kubas, Palace Theatre manager, said the tour of Greensburg’s downtown was to help the students to design a building that conforms to the other structures in the community.
“It’s to blend into the use and the character of downtown Greensburg,” she said of the students’ building.
Greensburg planner Barbara Ciampini told the high school students that Bugzy’s closed several years ago, and the structure previously was used as a bar.
“It was a vibrant corner,” Ciampini said. “It would be great to see that once again.”
Bob Stiles can be reached at bstiles@tribweb.com or (724) 836-6622.
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Plan to build school divides district
By Daniel Casciato
Thursday, October 27, 2005Woodland Hills School District officials are proceeding with plans to build a new East Junior High School despite opposition from some in the community.
There has been disagreement among school board members and residents in the district about whether to build a new $18 million junior high school in Turtle Creek or remodel the current one, which is in the former Turtle Creek High School.“This is an illogical project,” said Bob Mock, a lifelong Turtle Creek resident. “Demolition of the current school is out of the question.”
Mock has organized a campaign, Save Turtle Creek High School, to preserve the building, which was constructed in 1917. The building is slated for demolition under the plan to build a new high school.
Earlier this month, the school board voted 5-3 to submit preliminary construction documents to the state Department of Education so the district will be partially reimbursed for building a new, 100,000-square-foot school.
School board members Robert Tomasic, Fred Kuhn and Marilyn Messina voted against the new school. Board President Cindy Lowery and four members — Linda Cole, Dr. William Driscoll, Colleen Filiak and Dr. Randy Lott — voted in favor. Board member Tanya Smith was absent.
The board also voted 5-3 to issue a $30.9 million bond issue to fund this project and make improvements to the Wolvarena football stadium and the Woodland Hills High School soccer field. Tomasic said the bond is expected to add about 1 mill to the current tax rate of 23.9 mills. The owner of a home assessed at $100,000 a year would pay an additional $100 a year in property taxes with the increase.
“Our taxpayers cannot afford this type of project,” Tomasic said. “It’s unbelievable that some of the board members want to go through with this.”
Filiak said that school officials might be able to cut other expenses to compensate for all or part of the increase in millage needed for the bond issue.
“We’ll have to take a close look at the budget,” she said.
Chris Baker, facilities coordinator for the school district, said school officials explored the option of remodeling the current building, which houses about 330 students.
“We were told by our architects that it would cost several million dollars more to renovate,” he said. “It would be more cost-effective to build a new school. People look at the building and see that it is safe, structurally. But what people do not see is the difficulty and the costs in maintaining it. This building is outdated.”
East Junior High was last renovated during the 1978-79 school year, when new windows were installed. However, since then, more energy-efficient windows have been created, Baker pointed out.
The valves on the air handlers in each room also are worn out, and the entire heating, ventilation and air conditioning system needs to be replaced, Baker said.
School officials also are opting for a new building because the current one is not accessible to people with disabilities and does not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, Baker said. The district would have to make the building ADA-compliant if it went ahead with any major remodeling.
“To make this facility ADA-compliant would require an extensive undertaking,” Baker said. “We’d have to add an elevator, accessible stalls would have to be installed in the bathrooms, and the classroom doors would all have to be widened.”
The current building originally was designed for high school students, Baker said.
“There is a mismatch of what is being taught at this level and what the rooms are set up for, such as the wood shops, science labs and consumer science home economics lab,” Baker said. “This was designed for a different curriculum, more than what is necessary for a junior high.”
Mock disagreed with the school officials’ reasons for going ahead with a new school..
“I have spoken to major Western Pennsylvania contractors and technology consultants about this building, and they said that renovation would be cheaper for this district,” he said.
“There is wide range community support against this project, and the school board knows that if this was put to a public vote, it would fail.”
Tomasic made a motion at the last school board meeting to put the plan before the voters, but the motion failed.
“Everyone says it’s a good idea, but they don’t want to put this up for a vote,” Tomasic said. “If it’s such a great idea, let’s see if the taxpayers will accept this project. If you’re so proud of this decision, go to the taxpayers.”
Baker said school officials hope to break ground next summer, begin construction of the new school next to the current building and then gradually move the students to the new building in the fall of 2007. Eventually, the existing school would be demolished.
Filiak said she supports the project based on the findings of the school board’s Building and Grounds Committee, which developed a long-range building plan after studying the district’s needs.
“We need to build a new junior high school,” she said.
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Replica of 1770s barn built at Oliver Miller Homestead
By Mary Niederberger,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, July 14, 2005Since 1973, when the Oliver Miller Homestead Associates took over the management and programming of the historic home site in South Park, the volunteer group has put on numerous displays and re-enactments of various aspects of pioneer life.
Now its members are excited about expanding their work to include more details about 18th-century farm life with the addition of a newly built wood barn, a replica of the original, which was built in the 1770s and razed by Allegheny County after it bought the Miller farm in 1927.
“We have great plans for some of the uses we can make of the barn. We are already deciding upon what sorts of displays and artifacts we can put there,” said Paula Bowman, publicity director for the associates.
A public barn-raising was held on a cold, snowy day in December when Amish Timber Framers, of Doylestown, Ohio, raised the frame with a crane. Construction was finished recently and the barn has been turned over to the Oliver Miller Homestead Associates to manage and program.
The first floor of the barn will be a large, open, unheated space, as in the original structure.
The associates group plans to move the trading post, a gift shop, from the log house on the property to the first floor of the barn.
The group also plans to move the original Miller family whiskey still from the log house to the barn. Along with the still, the group plans to set up a teaching display about the Whiskey Rebellion that would explain the conflict’s significance to the region and nation, Bowman said.
Plans call for the barn to hold a library/bookstore area and a place to sell items that are made at the homestead, such as metal items made at the forge and dolls that are made as part of craft demonstrations.
The basement of the barn will be heated and will serve as a meeting place for the associates group, which has about 40 members. Bowman said the group had met in recent years in the log house, but oftentimes, some members had to sit outside because there was not enough room.
Removing the still and trading post will free up more space in the log house, which will allow the volunteers to furnish and decorate it in a more authentic way.
“We want to turn the log house into a home that is representative of the period,” said Mary Olesky, president of the Oliver Miller Homestead Associates.
The group has items stored in the basement, including a rope bed and a child’s cradle, which it would like to display.
Bruder Construction Co., a North Side restoration company, built the barn using the construction mode of its era: mortise and tenon joints with wooden pegs.
The project was overseen by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and was financed with a $500,000 grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development which was procured more than four years ago by former state Sen. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, who is now in Congress.
Most of the funds were used to build the barn, but some were left over to make improvements and restorations to the stone house.
The homestead is open to the public and staffed by the volunteers from 1:30-4:30 p.m. every Sunday from April through December.
Olesky said the group hoped to get some of the new displays and activities operating during the current season, but that it was likely that some would have to wait until the off-season, when volunteers will have more time to devote to them.
“This is going to be a work in progress for a while,” Olesky said. “We have so much we want to share with the public, but it’s going to take awhile to get it the way we want it.”
(Mary Niederberger can be reached at mniederberger@post-gazette.com or 412-851-1866.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Central Catholic setting the stage
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, June 6, 2005A $1.8 million renovation of the Central Catholic High School auditorium is being paid for with a donation by alumnus John McGonigle, chief legal officer of Downtown-based Federated Investors.
Little has changed at Central Catholic High School since it opened in Oakland in 1927.
The Christian Brothers still provide the school’s educational and spiritual foundation. Dress shirts and ties remain the order of the day. And recreation after lunch periods consists of walking the quad.
A major change, however, is under way in the Flemish Gothic style building on Fifth Avenue, which the city has designated a historic landmark.
Workers are restoring the school’s 900-seat auditorium to its original appearance while adding modern features to enhance performances.
A Mass and performance to mark the completion of the work is scheduled for Aug. 21.
The $1.8 million project is being paid for with a donation from John McGonigle, who graduated from Central in 1956. McGonigle, 67, is chief legal officer of Downtown-based Federated Investors.
McGonigle’s father, Henry, graduated from Central in 1933. His sons also are graduates, Kevin in 1982 and Patrick in 1985.
“As I’m sure it did for other Central graduates, the auditorium played an important role in my life as a student,” McGonigle said. “I have many fond memories of celebrations of liturgies, musical productions, pep rallies and other activities.”
“In thinking about this project,” McGonigle said, “I realized that one of my own personal goals was to see the auditorium restored to its original condition, returning it to what it must have looked like on the first day of school in 1927.”
Brother Richard Grzeskiewicz, the school’s principal, believes the work being done at the school is “a good sign for the future of Catholic schools in the area.”
“I think it shows that we are building for the future,” Grzeskiewicz said. “We are truly indebted to the McGonigle family for their overwhelming generosity in funding this project.
Central’s enrollment is expected to be 843 students for the 2005-06 school year. The school’s capacity is 880.
Grzeskiewicz said the renovations to what will be called McGonigle Auditorium are particularly important because many of the programs conducted there, such as plays and concerts, involve students from nearby Oakland Catholic High School, which is an all-girls school.
“The performing arts programs are vital in creating a strong bond between the two schools,” Grzeskiewicz said.
Work on the auditorium includes cleaning the red brick, which is set in a herringbone pattern throughout much of the interior, and restoring painted surfaces to their original hues.
One of the most painstaking restoration processes has been cleaning the orange, green and blue-colored wood slats in the ceiling, which originally were finished with an animal fat-based paint that typically cannot be repainted.
“We learned that trying to paint the ceiling wouldn’t work, so workmen had to get up there and clean each of the sections with a vacuum,” said Richard Fosbrink, who heads the school’s performing arts program.
Among the biggest changes is the addition of air conditioning and the replacement of the tattered seats with thick-cushioned, theater-style seats that will be spread out to provide more leg room.
A good deal of the work being done in the auditorium is taking place behind the scenes but will be clear to those who attend performances there.
A modern sound system using linear array speakers set in clusters throughout the room will be installed along with computer-controlled lighting and rigging systems.
“It’s very exciting to see this wonderful room, with all its history, coming back to life,” Fosbrink said. “And the addition of state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems will allow us to improve the quality of our performances and teach the students much more about the operations of a theater, which is our primary focus.”
Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com.