Category Archive: Historic Properties
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St. Nicholas is spared, but what about its windows?
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, March 27, 2007Elsie Yuratovich was a pest, and I mean that in the most admiring and respectful way. She pestered me, she pestered the bishop, she pestered PennDOT, she pestered anyone she thought could play a role in saving St. Nicholas Church.
Thanks to Elsie, I have a voluminous file on the church, thick with photographs, postcards, anniversary booklets and her own memories written in her beautiful script. She never went to college and never took a course in public speaking, but she was the most dedicated and knowledgeable advocate the church ever had. Elsie always believed that then-Bishop Donald Wuerl would do the right thing by the church. Her faith in God and man never wavered.
So it was Elsie, who died almost two years ago at age 83, I thought of when I heard that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh was removing religious objects from the church, demolishing its altars and painting over its murals. If Elsie were still alive, this would have broken her heart.
In the life of a city, there are sadder things than the closing of a landmark church, but not many. For life-long parishioners like Elsie, whose grandparents were among the church’s founders, there is the inevitable grieving: disbelief, anger and often a profound sense of loss. For the city at large, it signals a shifting population — usually to the suburbs — and perhaps even the demolition of a building that has played an important role in its neighborhood and sometimes beyond.
St. Nicholas Church on East Ohio Street is an especially prominent one, at the foot of Troy Hill, along the Allegheny River and with three onion domes and stained glass windows that reflect the Eastern European roots of the first Croatian church in America. The church’s namesake fraternal twin — St. Nicholas in Millvale — was completed the same year, 1901, by the same architect, Frederick Sauer, but was destroyed and rebuilt after a fire in 1921.
A few days after the diocese closed the church in December 2004, it announced that it was forming a committee to study turning the church into a national Croatian shrine.
This was something that a group of former parishioners and supporters had lobbied for; they had formed the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation in 2000 to save the church, even as its fate seemed to have been sealed that year with the Route 28 expansion plans. The diocese had agreed to sell the church to PennDOT, and it would be demolished to make way for the widening of the road.
But in 2001, City Council designated the church a city historic landmark. Because the diocese opposed the designation, approval required a supermajority of council, and got it.
When PennDOT was able to draft new plans that shifted the highway toward the river to save the church, everyone who had worked and hoped and prayed for its survival breathed a sigh of relief.
Even the diocese seemed to be getting on board. A tentative sales agreement was drawn up between it and the newly formed Croatian American Cultural and Economic Alliance, which would buy the building and its contents for $250,000. But the deal fell apart, with the diocese and the Croatian group each blaming the other for the collapse.
For the Croatians, the ultimate deal-buster was that the diocese required that it be able to buy back the building for $100,000, even after they had completed their million-dollar transformation of the church into a shrine.
Why would the diocese insist on a non-negotiable clause it knew would be unacceptable? Why didn’t it do what Elsie always believed it ultimately would do, which was everything in its power to help the Croatians save their church?
Perhaps because a new suitor had entered the picture: the Follieri Group, an Italian development firm with ties to the Vatican that is seeking to buy and renovate Catholic church properties around the country, with limited success. But in this case, Follieri came up with a better offer — neither party is saying how much better — and the diocese accepted it. Follieri plans to purchase St. Nicholas Church and nine other buildings from the diocese.
The Croatian group still hopes to buy the church — not from the diocese, but from Follieri.
It has been disheartening to watch this unfold after the Croatian-Americans, whose national headquarters are here, worked so hard to preserve the church their ancestors built. For the diocese, the bottom line seems to be just that, the bottom line.
St. Nicholas is the only church that is a city historic landmark. After it was designated, then-City Councilman Bob O’Connor sponsored legislation, lobbied for by the diocese, stipulating that only the owner of a religious structure could nominate it as a landmark, and it passed.
But a church is never only a religious building; it is also one that speaks to the cultural and architectural heritage of a place.
The St. Nicholas windows, for example, depict the Croatian patrons Cyril and Methodius and other saints, and are the glory of the church. Sponsored by Croatian lodges around the country, which are also remembered in the glass, and made by Films Art and Glass Co. of Columbus, Ohio, they are an essential part of the church and its cultural significance.
The diocese hasn’t decided whether it will seek Historic Review Commission approval to remove the windows, which is required by canon law when a church no longer has a religious use. But what happens when canon law butts up against preservation law?
If the diocese wants to remove the windows from the church, it will need the commission’s approval. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, and that the diocese finds a way to do the right thing, for Pittsburgh, for the Croatians and for Elsie.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590. )
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A fresh start for Wilkinsburg
By Marjorie Wertz
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 25, 2007It was Col. Dunning McNair who laid out the first lots in what now is Wilkinsburg in 1790. He named his plan McNairsville and built the first mansion, Dumpling Hill.
The mansion eventually became the home of James Kelly, a wealthy businessman. Kelly bought thousands of acres and donated the land for churches, schools and two homes for senior citizens. It was Kelly who eventually would fight to make the borough independent.“Col. McNair had purchased about 266 acres, and he and Kelly developed the village,” said Jim Richard, a former borough tax collector and member of the Wilkinsburg Historical Society. Richard also is a member of the Wilkinsburg School Board.
But it was from the well-connected Wilkins family that the 2.03-square-mile borough eventually would take its name.
John Wilkins owned a lot of property in the village, while his brother, William, was a county judge, founder and first president of the Bank of Pittsburgh, legislator, state senator, minister to Russia in Tyler’s administration and, eventually, Tyler’s secretary of war.
In the 1800s, the area that became Wilkinsburg was annexed to the city of Pittsburgh. Kelly fought to make the village independent again, and, in 1871, he prevailed. Fifteen years later, on Oct. 5, 1887, Wilkinsburg was incorporated as a borough, and the community quickly grew.
The Pennsylvania Railroad laid its first tracks through the community in the mid-1800s. The Lincoln Highway would come through the borough in the early 1900s.
“We also used to have an airport in the Blackridge area of Wilkinsburg from 1930-38,” Richard said.
“Wilkinsburg was the home of a transportation network, with the highway as the main street, the railroad, and it was an early streetcar hub,” said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
The borough’s access to Pittsburgh’s “amenities” made it appealing. Plus, it was known as the “city of churches.” And it was, and still is, a “dry” community — no taverns or bars are allowed in the borough.
Popular home-construction styles in the borough’s heyday included Queen Anne and Romanesque (1890s), as well as Colonial Revival, Federal and Vernacular (early 1900s). Many buildings remain, forming the foundation for the borough’s rich architectural heritage.
The historical society has written a book that will be published by Arcadia Publishing on April 30. The book features 220 photographs and will be available at local bookstores and through the Wilkinsburg Public Library.
Joel Minnigh has been head librarian for 31 years. The library was founded in 1899 as a branch of the first Carnegie Library in Braddock.
“In its heyday, it was the largest library in the state,” Minnigh said. “Our first librarian was Fred Evans, whose father designed the British House of Parliament.”
According to a report by the Wilkinsburg Neighborhood Transformation Initiative in December 2004, the borough, like many Allegheny County neighborhoods, began to experience declining and aging population in the late 1960s, which led to an eroding tax base, out-migration, loss of neighborhood schools, abandoned or underutilized buildings and decaying business districts.
After the borough began to decline in the ’70s and ’80s, criminal activity increased.
Mark Smith lived in Uniontown for 10 years before moving to Wilkinsburg in 1998. Smith was director of the Wilkinsburg Chamber of Commerce from 1998-2000 and now is involved in a real estate and community-development consulting firm.
Smith bought and renovated property along Jeanette Street. His book, “Boldly Live Where Others Won’t,” resulted from his interest in community development.
“My desire has been to convince people to become property owners and live in the community as resident landlords,” Smith said. “There’s this housing stock in Wilkinsburg of larger homes that lend themselves to duplexes and small, multi-unit apartments, in which the property owner can live in one unit and rent the others.”
Smith lists three advantages to buying property in Wilkinsburg: convenience, cost and conscience.
“You can get favorable appraisals and that leads to favorable financing plans. Plus, Wilkinsburg is 10 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh and 10 minutes from Monroeville,” he said. “Wilkinsburg has its issues, but for those who have vision and willing to stick it out and become a part of the solution, there’s opportunity.”
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation became interested in Wilkinsburg because of its history and the rich architecture of its buildings.
“Residents and local government officials asked us to try and assemble a program to create reinvestment in Wilkinsburg without relocating anyone,” Ziegler said. “We have developed a multi-pronged effort, which includes the use of our preservation loan fund to help some local nonprofits restore and renovate buildings.”
Kasey Connors, a Wilkinsburg resident and owner of Vintage Reconstruction, a restoration contracting company, also is involved in the Wilkinsburg Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.
The initiative came about when a development proposal called for demolition in the Jeanette Street area.
“The community felt so strongly about the historic nature of that area, we asked Landmarks to come in and help,” Connors said. “Landmarks brought their resources to the table with consultants and held multiple community meetings focusing on the Jeanette Street corridor.”
History & Landmarks was drawn to the project because of the architectural integrity of the Jeanette Street buildings, which were built in the 1890s and early 1900s.
Three houses along Jeanette Street and one along Holland Avenue were targeted for restoration. Restoration began in summer 2006 on the three single-family homes and one owner-occupied duplex.
“The houses will have special financing that includes $10,000 in soft mortgage provided by the county government,” said Michael Sriprasert, Landmarks’ assistant for real estate programs. “The houses will cost $70,000, but the buyer will have a first mortgage of $60,000. The $10,000 soft mortgage will be deferred until the buyer sells the home. If they sell after 15 years, the soft mortgage will be forgiven.”
Funding for the restoration projects came from Allegheny County, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Hillman Foundation and others.
The homes will be available for sale in early fall. Sriprasert said buyers can customize fixtures, paint and flooring if Landmarks has an agreement of sale in April.
Ziegler said History & Landmarks also might get into a restoration project with the historic Pennsylvania Railroad Station, which was built in 1916 but has been abandoned since the 1970s.
“The county wants us to look at the train station, which we’ve looked at many times,” Ziegler added. “That’s a big commitment.”
Connors is quick to commend History & Landmarks for its efforts in the community.
“I see them as a rescuing agent,” she said. “They brought these homes up to the standards on which historic districts are based.”
Mindy Schwartz saw opportunity in the form of gardens on vacant lots.
Schwartz operates Garden Dreams Urban Farm and Nursery on two vacant lots across the street from the Holland Avenue home renovation project. The business markets specialty and heirloom seedlings, sustainable gardening supplies and vegetables. A greenhouse in her Center Street basement allows her to grow 10,000 plants, including 80 types of tomatoes.
“My garden is a green oasis in the middle of a distressed neighborhood; a patch of green where life is growing,” Schwartz said. “The farm is a fountain of regeneration, in a way. It creates good energy and is a bright spot in town. It seems to have a significant impact in the community.”
Schwartz and two friends, Barb Kline and Randa Shannon, created Grow Pittsburgh, which teaches and facilitates urban agriculture. Its two affiliates are Garden Dreams and Mildred’s Daughters Urban Farm in Stanton Heights.
“There have been a number of people redoing houses and investing in the neighborhood,” Schwartz said. “My farm has been a magnet that’s excited and engaged people and has been a contributing factor in helping people want to invest in this neighborhood.”
She is working on another project in the Hamnett Place area of Wilkinsburg. The Hamnett Homestead Sustainable Living Center will be in a building Schwartz owns. The building will be transformed into a community center and greenhouse, where she will teach people how to grow food and achieve sustainability.
For Mayor John Thompson, the changes to the community in which he’s lived for 42 years are invigorating.
“I’m excited about the positive things I see happening in Wilkinsburg,” said Thompson, who took office on Jan. 2, 2006. “We have committees working together and focusing on seven areas — economic development, municipal services, human services, communications, education, beautification and housing.”
A much-needed grocery store, Save-A-Lot, opened Feb. 20 in the borough, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Generations Building, on the corner of Wood and Franklin, took place March 14. The newly renovated structure will have offices and housing. The Sperling Building, on the corner of Penn Avenue and Coal Street, was transformed into a six- to eight-unit apartment building.
“We’re also looking at doing single-family housing projects on McNair Boulevard,” Thompson said.
In December 2006, the police department hired a new chief, Ophelia Coleman, who served as a Pittsburgh Police detective for 20 years.
“She is very community-oriented. She knows what needs to happen here in Wilkinsburg,” Thompson said. “There’s truly a lot going on in Wilkinsburg. If you can’t get excited about what’s happening now, I don’t know what it will take.”
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The history:
Wilkinsburg, which was first home to settlers in the 1700s and broke away from Pittsburgh’s eastern flank in 1871, has made its share of contributions to the region’s history.
* It was home to President John Tyler’s secretary of war.
* It was a transportation mecca in the 1800s, with the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Lincoln Highway and a streetcar system running through it.
* It was where, in 1919, the first commercial radio station, 8XK, was broadcast from the garage of Westinghouse engineer Frank Conrad; the station was a forerunner to KDKA radio.
* It was birthplace, in 1920, of Scholastic Magazine, founded by Wilkinsburg native Maurice Robinson as a newsletter for high school students. Scholastic Magazine would become Scholastic Publishing, publisher of the wildly popular “Harry Potter” series.
For all the borough’s historic value, though, the past several decades have brought economic and social ills that have coincided with an eroding tax base. But within the past few years, a renaissance has begun, as residents and nonprofits work to revitalize the community.
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Old school deserves historic status
JILL HENKEL
Letter to the Editor
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Turtle Creek
Thursday, March 22, 2007On March 13, 2007, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Bureau for Historic Preservation in Harrisburg held a meeting to review the nomination of the former Turtle Creek High School to the National Register of Historic Places.
In order for a property to be considered for nomination, certain criteria need to be met. The property should be at least 50 years old, should be associated with events that have made a contribution to the broad patterns of our history, or be associated with the lives of persons significant to our past, or should embody a type, period, or method of construction.
The former Turtle Creek High School, now Woodland Hills’ East Junior High School, meets these criteria. I was fortunate to be able to speak on behalf of the nomination, which is the result of countless hours of research by dedicated volunteers. The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation offered its invaluable resources to help bring the nomination to fruition.
Also attending the nomination meeting were Woodland Hills school board President Cynthia Lowery and Superintendent Dr. Roslynne Wilson.
While I spoke in favor of the nomination, Mrs. Lowery asked the bureau to deny it! She spoke of a declining tax base in the Woodland Hills School District, and of not wanting to further burden the taxpayers therein by asking them to financially support two junior high schools.
Mrs. Lowery stated that she would like to close East. But if she truly has the taxpayers’ best interests at heart, she should be in favor of the nomination.
Owners of properties listed in the National Register may be eligible for a 20 percent investment tax credit for the certified rehabilitation of income-producing certified historic structures.
This [and available tax deductions and grants] would make the former high school very attractive to potential new owners.
If the school district wants to divest itself of this property, this building needs to be maintained accordingly. There are still costs associated with the day-to-day maintenance of a shuttered building. The school board speaks of an annual savings of more than $900,000 by closing East. Those costs will hardly drop to zero if that plan is carried through.
Mrs. Lowery spoke to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission of meeting opposition when plans for tearing down East and building a new multimillion-dollar school on the site were disclosed. Where was her concern for the fiscal burden on the taxpayer when that plan was formulated?
Mrs. Lowery stated to school board Vice President Marilyn Messina at the March 14 school board meeting that she attended the meeting in Harrisburg as a private citizen, which is untrue. She pointedly identified herself as the president of the Woodland Hills school board. One has to assume that she spoke as the president of the school board when she said, and I quote: “that the residents of Turtle Creek have been angry for 25 years because the merger forced them to desegregate.” She feels that that is the real motivation behind seeking the nomination to the National Register. I felt compelled to speak again in rebuttal. I stated in no uncertain terms the outrage that I felt at the suggestion that my fellow residents and I are racists carrying a 25-year grudge.
Despite Mrs. Lowery’s objections, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Bureau for Historic Preservation unanimously voted that the former Turtle Creek High School be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places.
I’m sure that I speak for many concerned parents and taxpayers when I ask what Mrs. Lowery’s real motivation is.
JILL HENKEL
Turtle Creek
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Religious objects removed from historic St. Nicholas Church
By Ann Rodgers,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, March 20, 2007A crew has removed religious objects from the interior of St. Nicholas Church, North Side, a landmark building on Route 28 caught in 15 years of wrangling between the parish that no longer uses it, former parishioners who want to save it, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
On Friday the altar, statues and other religious objects were removed, and religious murals were painted over in preparation for a pending sale to the New York-based redeveloper of church properties, The Follieri Group.
Although that deal has not yet closed, a decision was made to remove the objects now because there had been a break-in at the unused rectory, said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese.
“We feel that it is necessary to prepare the building for sale and to safeguard those items. We met with the new pastor down there recently and determined what should be removed,” he said.
The action was devastating to Susan Petrick, secretary of the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, which had unsuccessfully tried to arrange the building’s purchase as a shrine.
Although church authorities had told her that religious objects would be removed, “I didn’t think they were going to take it down to an empty shell,” she said.
The church sits on a death trap stretch of Route 28 that PennDOT has long wanted to widen. In 1994 the parish merged with another Croatian parish in nearby Millvale, also named St. Nicholas. While leaders of the merged parish and the diocese wanted to sell to PennDOT, people from the North Side church had it declared a historic landmark to protect its exterior. PennDOT developed a plan to widen Route 28 with the church intact. The parish continued to use the building until 2004, when a broken boiler led to its closure.
The Follieri Group is run by Catholics who specialize in renovating churches for purposes that are acceptable to the church, including affordable housing. Father Lengwin said the group has not indicated how it intends to use the St. Nicholas property.
However, canon law requires that all religious objects be removed from churches that are being put to secular use. The diocese has been aggressive about that since a church was sold intact in the 1990s for what is now The Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville.
“We’ve learned from that experience, and are very vigilant,” said the Rev. Lawrence DiNardo, director of the diocesan Department for Canon and Civil Law Services.
The altar must always be removed. If a non-Catholic group plans to use it as a church, many of the items can be left if the buyer plans to use them. But if the building will be used for secular purposes, every religious object must go, he said.
“We would take out the candlesticks and the tabernacle, statues, vestments, chalices, anything that would have been used for sacred purposes. If there are any murals that we can’t take down, they would be painted over. Basically we are selling them a building that has no religious things in it,” he said.
It will be up to St. Nicholas parish to decide what to do with the religious items, Father Lengwin said.
“We redistribute them to parishes that need them. The parish itself will determine which of those items they want to incorporate in their [Millvale] building,” he said.
Some ethnic parishes have sent items from closed churches overseas to parishes in their motherland that are still struggling to emerge from rebuilding after communism. “But that has not been decided yet. It will be up to the parish,” he said.
(Ann Rodgers can be reached at arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416. )
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Saving Brownsville: Is its history key to future?
By Robin Acton
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 18, 2007Hamburgers and hot dogs sizzle on the grill at Fiddle’s Confectionery, where 15 counter stools fill as the lunch crowd arrives on a brisk afternoon.
Waitresses serve steaming cups of coffee with the $3.79 pizza burger special. Dozens of customers, including Warren Galiffa, of Bethel Park, and his 100-year-old aunt, Rose Hughes, dine in booths where generations of Brownsville’s sweethearts carved their initials on the tabletops.“It’s a throwback in time,” Galiffa said. “It reminds you of the way things used to be.”
The “way things used to be” is a frequent topic in this bleak Monongahela River valley town that has bled population and businesses for decades.
Tara Hospital, the former Brownsville General Hospital, closed last year. Police and borough workers were laid off in December. In January, when a longtime lender, National City Bank, denied a $75,000 tax anticipation loan, council members begged the electric company not to shut off the town’s street lights.
“There ain’t nothing here,” said Levi Gnus, a lifelong resident. “We don’t even have a grocery store downtown.”
What’s happening in this Fayette County community is not unique. Experts say it is an example of a downward spiral common to small municipalities.
“It’s an unhappy situation, but it’s replicated all over the valley,” said Robert Strauss, a professor of economics and public policy in the Heinz School of Public Policy & Management at Carnegie Mellon University.
Like many southwestern Pennsylvania communities, Brownsville already was in decline when it suffered crippling job losses from the demise of the region’s steel mills and coal mines in the 1970s and 1980s. Families moved, college students never returned and failing businesses closed until the main thoroughfare, Market Street, became a desolate stretch of shuttered storefronts and empty lots.
In 1960, Brownsville had 6,055 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2005, death and migration cut the population to 2,690.
Between 1960 and 2005, the same thing happened all over the region. Pittsburgh’s population went from 604,332 to 316,718, while McKeesport’s dropped from 45,489 to 22,701 and New Castle’s fell from 44,790 to 25,030.
“We train people very well and then they leave,” said Albert Luloff, a professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology at Penn State University. “You can’t stop that unless we create jobs.”
Luloff and Strauss also blame Pennsylvania’s “fractured government system” for creating hundreds of municipalities with dwindling tax bases, no industry and limited means to provide services.
“It makes any effort by any community almost impossible as they’re trying to attract industries while competing with each other,” Luloff said. “They’re working at each other’s throats.”
Civil war
Brownsville’s leaders agree that something must be done, but they are at odds over a solution.
Mayor Lewis Hosler said there is a power struggle between preservationists who want to bank on Brownsville’s rich history and people who favor projects such as a proposed velodrome for Olympic-style bicycle races.
“There’s people who don’t want to see change,” Hosler said. “They want to preserve the old buildings, and a lot of them aren’t even historical.”
Leading the preservationists is former mayor Norma Ryan, a volunteer with the nonprofit Brownsville Area Revitalization Corp., who believes the town’s history is critical to its future.
Located off Route 40, the National Road, Brownsville was the first meeting site for the Whiskey Rebellion, boasts the nation’s first cast-iron bridge and is where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had a boat built for their westward exploration.
“I think people have faith that the town will come back,” Ryan said.
Records show the organization received several million dollars in state, federal and foundation grants and matching funds since 1989 that were spent on property acquisition and renovation, cultural ventures and educational purposes.
Restoration of Market Street’s Flatiron building, Frank L. Melega Art Museum and Flatiron Heritage Center is perhaps its main achievement. A store that sells clothing for historical re-enactments and a flower shop opened in its renovated buildings.
“We are slowly acquiring and renovating buildings to get the town back on track,” Executive Director Alison McConnell said. “If you have the ability to see beyond the blight, you can see the potential.”
Councilman John Hosler, the mayor’s brother, disagrees.
“Nobody’s coming here. Why should they? You can’t go downtown to buy a dress or a pair of shoes or food. You need a hub store, not a store that sells flowers or relics,” he said.
Critics contend the organization has little to show for its efforts and claim it undermines viable projects while advancing its agenda of property acquisition.
“BARC doesn’t belong in the real estate business,” said Ray Koffler, owner of Tru-Copy Printing Service.
Luloff doubts that selling history will revitalize Brownsville. He said dozens of small museums and groups are trying to do the same thing.
“These places barely survive,” he said.
Property disputes
Plans for the community have been a point of controversy for decades. Central to the dispute are Monroeville developers Ernest and Marilyn Liggett, owners of Manor Investments.
Since 1992, they’ve pumped millions into some 100 blighted properties purchased on the assumption that “mass creates opportunity,” Ernest Liggett said. Although Brownsville’s access to highways, the railroad and the river made it ideal for development, problems obtaining permits and opposition from some circles blocked their plans for riverboat gambling, an Indian casino or a retail strip mall.
Some blame the Liggetts — who fell behind on taxes and have been fined for code violations as their properties further deteriorated — for all that is wrong with Brownsville. Others say it was in trouble long before they arrived.
“It’s not these people,” said hardware store owner Pat Ballon. “All they bought was the empty buildings.”
Future plans
Ballon, Koffler, the Liggetts and others support the velodrome proposed by CB Richard Ellis, a real estate brokerage and management firm in Pittsburgh.
“I’d like to see Brownsville become to Olympic cycling what Williamsport is to Little League Baseball,” said Liggett, who envisions his properties filled with retail, hotel and office space.
Supporters are shocked that others in town question its chances for success.
“It doesn’t make sense to me why they’re not beating the cymbals, saying it’s Mardi Gras time,” Ballon said.
Frank Ricco, president of the Greater Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, said the Brownsville Free Public Library, the post office and American Legion Post 295 could be relocated from the Snowden Square area to a new civic complex to accommodate the velodrome, which would be owned by a public authority.
“There’s no question in my mind this could be the thing to save Brownsville,” he said.
Lead architect Jeff Slusarick, a principal of the Astorino firm in Pittsburgh, said CB Richard Ellis and Astorino consultants are developing plans for a project feasibility study.
Slusarick, whose firm designed Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, called the velodrome “a unique opportunity.” The 1980 Brownsville Area High School graduate has wanted to do something to help his hometown for years.
That’s the way it should be, according to Luloff at Penn State.
“When people care about each other and the place that they live, the community is alive and well. When they stop, it falls apart,” Luloff said. “If they really are interested in the best thing for the community, they’ll realize a community isn’t buildings and a community isn’t history. A community is people.”
Robin Acton can be reached at racton@tribweb.com or 724-830-6295.
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Moving pupils first step to closing school in Woodland Hills
By M. Ferguson Tinsley,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, March 15, 2007Last night, the Woodland Hills school board was to decide whether to start the controversial process of closing East Junior High School.
In conjunction with that, they were beginning to think about remodeling West Junior in Swissvale and transferring up to 350 seventh- and eighth-graders from East to West by the 2008-2009 school year.
At an agenda meeting on March 7, Superintendent Roslynne Wilson said the closing would consolidate staff and administration and would ensure educational consistency. Further, joining the schools would foster a healthier sense of competition, which heretofore the small population at East has not known.
She also said the district would save $986,151.
Under the plan, about 750 pupils would attend West in 2008-09, according to state enrollment projections. West, about 126,500 square feet in dimension, was built in 1978. In the past, the school has housed more than 900 pupils.
Still, the new setup would require extensive renovations, especially to the cafeteria and other classrooms, she said. “It’s going to cost at least $5 million.”
The new configuration would keep seventh-graders on lower floors and eighth-graders on the upper, Dr. Wilson said. The only time seventh-graders would go upstairs would be to visit the library, she added.
Board members William Driscoll and Robert J. Tomasic had concerns about the plan.
Dr. Driscoll said he did not want to see each classroom stuffed with up to 28 pupils.
“I would like to know how many sections we’ll need,” he emphasized. “I did divide by 25,” Dr. Wilson replied.
Mr. Tomasic said he would not vote for any move unless West is equipped with video cameras throughout.
A West pupil who attended the agenda meeting said the school is already bursting at the seams.
“Right now we are standing outside for 15 to 20 minutes … in the morning … to go through the metal detectors,” said Amanda Stumme, 13, of Wilkins. “The halls are packed. It’s really hard to get from class to class. People are bumping into each other and people are fighting because they’re mad at each other about it.”
At the end of the discussion, Bob Mock, a Turtle Creek resident who has vociferously opposed closing East, asked the board: “What are you going to do with the closed building?” Mr. Mock is an alumnus of the old Turtle Creek High School, which became East Junior High.
State law requires the district to hold a public hearing at least three months before deciding to close the school. A notice of the hearing must be advertised 15 days before the hearing is held. The vote last night was a small first step in the process.
In other business, the board:
heard David Johnston, the pupil services director, present information on the Student Assistance Program.
The SAP is administered by the state Department of Education’s Division of Student and Safe School Services to assist school staff in identifying drug use or emotional and mental health troubles affecting student performance, according to the state Web site, www.pde.state.pa.us.
Mr. Johnson said 177 high school students were referred to SAP this school year.
By March 2, unacceptable behavior sparked 60 percent of referrals; 31 percent resulted from poor academics. Drug and alcohol abuse spawned 17 referrals. Ninety percent of the referrals were staff-initiated, 1 percent parent-sought.
unanimously voted to adopt a resolution asking voters in the May primary if they favor the “district imposing an additional 0.7 percent earned income tax.”
The increase would take the tax from 0.5 percent to 1.2 percent, which would fund a minimum homestead/farmstead exclusion of $405 for those who qualify.
Board Member Randy Lott was absent.
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Turtle Creek may lose junior high
By Daveen Rae Kurutz
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, March 15, 2007Two months after rejecting a consolidation plan that would have closed three schools, the Woodland Hills School Board Wednesday night took steps to close East Junior High School in Turtle Creek.
The board cited declining enrollment and a deteriorating building for the move, which is expected to save the district about $748,000.“The process will result in establishing the Woodland Hills Middle School for all seventh- and eighth-grade students in the district for the 2008-2009 school year,” according to the motion that was approved by a 6-1 vote. Robert Tomasic cast the lone dissenting vote. Dr. Randy Lott and Fred Kuhn were absent.
Public hearings will be scheduled on the proposal. A final vote could come in August.
“It’s not a done deal when you begin a process. We want to get the facts. If I don’t like it, I am not going to vote for it,” said board vice president Marilyn Messina.
If the school is closed, the nearly 290 seventh- and eighth-graders at East Junior High School would attend West Junior High School in Swissvale. Based on the district’s enrollment this year, about 750 students would attend West Junior High School.An architect will do a comparison of the costs of renovating West Junior High School and the cost of constructing a new building.
“The decision made by this board tonight in this economically challenging time will not be particularly popular or happy or easy,” said Cindy Leone, of Edgewood, who has three children enrolled in the school district.
The proposal to close only East Junior High School arose after a comprehensive school consolidation plan designed by Superintendent Roslynne Wilson was rejected by a 6-3 vote at the Jan. 10 school board meeting because of significant opposition from parents.
The original plan would have closed Shaffer Primary School in Churchill, Rankin Intermediate School in Rankin and East Junior High School by the start of the 2009-10 school year. The closings would have begun with Shaffer Primary at the end of this school year.
Parents packed the January meeting, concerned that the closings were being rushed and that too many students would be in one school.
Daveen Rae Kurutz can be reached at dkurutz@tribweb.com or 412-380-5627.
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Brentwood landmark slated for demolition
Brad Pedersen
Staff Writer, South Hills Record
Trib-Total Media
Thursday, March 15, 2007British comedian Eddie Izzard once said that Americans “love to tear your history down,” and Brentwood Medical Group seems to be following suit as it prepares to tear down Brentwood’s Point View Hotel and Restaurant on Brownsville Road.
A three-story medical facility will be built at 3720 Brownsville Road, where the Point View stands, for now. The projected plan is to tear the Point View down to build the facility for Brentwood Medical Group, but demolition has not been scheduled, due to several zoning issues.
“It’s under agreement right now,” said Ralph Costa, Brentwood building inspector. “They came up for a hearing on a height variance on the building, and that was granted. It is contingent upon that. I don’t know where they actually stand at this point.”
According to Costa, without the variance, instead of a three-story building, Brentwood Medical Group would have had to build an expanded two-story building, in accordance with zoning restrictions. The main concern was how it would affect parking at the facility.
Dawn Synborski, zoning and ordinance chair, said the new building could be completed by early 2008.There are no specifics on when the Point View was built, although most estimate it was built during or before the 1820s along the Brownsville Road carriage route. When it was constructed, it was a part of Baldwin Township, which was broken into several villages, including Point View. Brentwood became a borough in 1915.
Early records show that the original owner was Lucast Dudt, who sold it to the Gartner family. The business was then purchased by Joseph Clendening, who sold it to the Andolina family in 1936.
The Andolina family controlled the Point View until 1976, when they sold it to the Vickless family.
The hotel boasted eight modest rooms and the most famous was referred to as the President’s Room. Prior to their presidencies, three presidents stayed in the room.
While on the campaign trail in the late 1820s, Andrew Jackson stayed at the hotel during a horseback trip from Fort Cumberland to Allegheny City, now known as Pittsburgh.
The hotel had its next presidential visit in the 1840s, approximately 20 years later, when Zachary Taylor stopped at the hotel with a large group of campaign supporters. Like Jackson, he was on his way into the city as a part of his presidential campaign.
President James Buchanan made several trips to the Point View prior to holding the office, according to a 1917 letter written by Birgitta Grad, who copied the information from two earlier newspapers dating back to 1865 and 1871.
Grad said that the picky Buchanan traveled in a “splendid traveling coach,” which he required to be meticulously cleaned at each stop, and always required clean linens.
Although the presidential stays are famous and well noted, the Point View is also famous for having undocumented stops as a part of the Underground Railroad during the 1860s.
The Point View is one of few structures standing that served as an Underground Railroad “station” in Allegheny County, along with the Bingham House in Chatham Village and the Morning Glory Inn, Southside.
In the basement underneath the sitting room was an extensive tunnel system leading from the hotel to the other side of Brownsville Road, which was referred to as Brentwood Farm. There is no documentation on how the system worked, though it is mentioned in Grad’s letter.
Grad wrote that the trapdoor leading into the Point View’s cellar was located under the sitting room in a “blind cellar.”
It is reported that the tunnel system collapsed when the borough widened and lowered Brownsville Road, which used to be level with the Point View.
In her letter, Grad wrote that there was a trapdoor and blind cellar under the sitting room, where slaves from Maryland and Virginia “were hidden for a short time.”
Since the time of the presidential stays and Underground Railroad, the building has gone through several updates, including the addition of the kitchen and bar area, aluminum siding and many other changes. These changes have helped deny the Point View a historical landmark designation. A high cost to restore the Point View to its original state has kept previous owners from earning the designation.
“It’s time consuming and a little bit expensive with all the research that needs to go into it if you are not doing it yourself and use a consultant,” said Frank Stroker, assistant archivist with the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “With all the research and multiple sources and cross reference and quality archival photographing, it can be quite time consuming.”
The historical value of the house kept people like Sarah Martin into Brentwood to visit the Point View.
“The Point View Hotel has been identified as one of the safe houses in this area, along with the Bingham house in Mount Washington, as well as a few others,” said Martin, who works with the Pittsburgh Board of Education. “For many years, the proprietor of the Point View allowed me to bring small groups of administrators and students to see the area in the basement where slaves were reportedly hidden.”
According to Martin, when she returned to schedule her yearly visit, there was a sign on the door with a number, indicating the hotel was for sale. To her dismay, when she called the number, Martin found that USA Housing was in talks with a possible buyer.
“I am sure that many people were involved in the decision to sell this establishment and that the decision to sell was in the best interest of all the parties,” said Martin. “I have nothing to say about that business decision, however knowing the history of the place, I would trust that someone would be willing to discuss how we might be able to document the historical significance of the Point View before it is torn down or renovated.”
Stroker said that he is unaware of any attempts to designate the Point View as a historical landmark.
Although the Point View is not designated as a landmark, it will always be a landmark to borough residents.
“It happened and they are going to expand,” said Lockhart. “There are plans for a medical building. I just heard a couple residents saying it’s a shame that it’s gone.”
But for others, the Point View being torn down is a chance for the borough to move ahead.
“It will be good for the community,” said Costa. “A lot of people hate to see that building being torn down, but it is shot. There’s no saving it.”