Category Archive: Landscapes
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Disrespecting a park & Pittsburgh’s history
By Richard M. Voelker
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Pittsburgh Tribune ReviewBurying the remnants of old Fort Pitt is pretty much a done deal. Unfortunately, we never seem to learn. Well, there you have it. Despite commonwealth promises to “walk the site again,” it’s now too late to save the Fort Pitt wall remnants at Point State Park.
The “stay out” fencing is all in place, the “no trespassing” signs have all been hung, the half-century-old trees have been felled and the threatening piles of concrete rubble are poised at graveside, awaiting the final death knell to begin filling.
So just in a few months shy of the fort’s 250th anniversary, its remains will be buried under a newly leveled carnival site.
But did this site have to sit so flagrantly astride what little is left of our city’s rapidly shrinking, international heritage — our unique historic location that “transformed the world”? Talk about irreverence.
Shame on those who aided and abetted this process. And most particularly, shame on the following:
Gov. Ed Rendell (“Ed,” our friend in Harrisburg): He could have stopped this senseless process with just one phone call. But he didn’t.
Michael DiBerardinis, secretary of the state Department of Conservation & Natural Resources: It’s always easier to say “yes” than “no” to a longtime political buddy like the governor, particularly when he’s your boss. Therefore, for his sake in future situations, I suggest he try to remember that the hard choice is frequently the right one. So try to commit this phrase to memory: “Speak truth to power.”
Barbara Franco, director of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission: When Point State Park was turned over to the commission for safekeeping, its adopted master plan stipulated that it be managed for passive use and historic interpretation. But at the behest of the Riverlife Task Force, Ms. Franco knowingly ignored these policy guidelines, a decision that was not only arrogant, but potentially illegal, given recent court findings involving similar disrespectful impacts of the Gettysburg Tower on the adjacent Gettysburg National Military Park.
Christine Davis, archaeological consultant to the Riverlife Task Force: It was a career-enhancing “no-brainer” to write a report that condoned the Department of National Resources’ plan to “cover over” the exposed fort wall sections to create a more level day-use recreation site. However, since the region’s sole claim to fame is currently linked to these same, now-visible artifacts, isn’t it counterproductive to bury them just to provide a safer noshing environment for chubby festival-goers?
Marion Pressley, the Boston-area landscape design consultant: It takes more than a modicum of chutzpah for an out-of-town design consultant to come to Pittsburgh and ignore an existing historical park’s 50-year-old management policies. Particularly since they were developed by Ralph Griswold, a Pittsburgh landscape architect, who’s also world-renowned for his site restoration work at Williamsburg, Va. After this audacious beginning, Ms. Pressley then wrote a report sanctioning DNR’s plan to rebury the previously excavated fort remains.
And that’s about it. Despite numerous stories in local papers and on television, local preservation organizations (like the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, the History & Landmarks Foundation and The Heinz History Center) were conspicuously absent from public discussion. Their combined silence was indeed deafening, almost as loud as that coming from the young mayor’s office. So, it’s pretty much a done deal. Unfortunately, we never seem to learn. But if we’re real, real lucky, maybe after another 30 years or so of Point State Park’s jarring fireworks, screaming jet skis and disruptive rock “concerts,” some fed-up Pittsburgher might finally exclaim, “Hey, enough with the noise! I can’t think! Let’s go back to something quieter.
“How about digging up some history?”
Richard M. Voelker, a semi-retired open space planner and advocate, lives on the North Side.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. Keynote Address at the 2006 National Preservation Conference
PHLF News
October 31, 2006“Preservation In Pittsburgh” Keynote address of Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. at the 2006 National Preservation Conference held in Pittsburgh, PA, October 31, 2006
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Places: Standing up for the trees so they will stand for us
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, February 19, 2005In a city where budget cuts have closed swimming pools and laid off police, planners and other workers, City Council is looking for revenue under every rock, or in the case of Councilman Luke Ravenstahl, behind every tree.
Ravenstahl wants council to repeal the 1998 law that directs proceeds from outdoor advertising on bus shelters into the Shade Tree Trust Fund, which is administered by the Pittsburgh Shade Tree Commission.
What, you didn’t know we had one? There’s a good reason: Although the commission was established in 1911 under the influence of the City Beautiful movement, it was replaced in 1914 by the Street Tree Division in the Bureau of Parks. Revived in 1998 by then-City Councilman Jim Ferlo, the volunteer commission has since gone about its good work largely unsung, funding the planting of 444 trees in Lawrenceville, Uptown, Friendship, Carrick and South Side and training 120 volunteer stewards to care for them.
In the three years that the bus shelter ads have been generating revenue, the trust fund has accumulated about $40,000 annually from the ads. Which is, as Councilman Bill Peduto pointed out at Wednesday’s hearing on the resolution, about 1/100th of 1 percent of the city’s annual budget, give or take a penny or two. If the shade tree money were lumped into the general fund, the city’s budget wouldn’t budge.
But with this little stash and matching state grants, the commission has launched the city’s first tree inventory, which is expected to cost about $200,000. On Monday, arborists from Davey Resource Group began to assess the location, species and condition of the city’s street trees, estimated to number between 40,000 and 60,000 in a 1995 Carnegie Mellon University study.
The inventory, in the planning for three years and part of the commission’s mandate, was the dream of the late city forester Dale Vezzetti, who estimated that Pittsburgh lost 1,500 street trees annually due to lack of maintenance. Nibbled away at over the years, the forestry division he presided over employs 10 people to maintain trees, about a third of the staff it had 40 years ago.
With the lack of manpower, “sometimes it seemed like 600,000 trees” needed tending, former forestry division employee Mark Remcheck told council. Remcheck, a member of the Shade Tree Commission and an extension community forester in Washington County, said Pittsburgh’s forestry division always had a difficult time advocating for a budget because it didn’t know how many trees it had to care for.
The inventory, which will include a Geographic Information System mapping component showing the exact locations of the trees, is the necessary first step in creating a management plan, said commission chair Diana Ames of Friendship. It will identify problem trees, allowing the forestry division to move from crisis mode to proactive management and stay one step ahead of diseases, pest infestations and lawsuits.
And while the inventory is fully funded and will proceed regardless of council’s decision, it will be useless without the funding stream that will allow the city to purchase hardware, software and training for forestry staff to utilize it, Ames said.
She also hopes to use some of the income from the bus shelter ad revenue to hire an arborist who can recruit and train more volunteer stewards to help maintain trees, and to educate the community, including businesses, about the right and wrong way to prune a tree.
“Look at these trees that have been made into hat racks,” Ames said as we drove past a car dealership on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield last weekend. “They’re been topped, which is a horrible way to treat a tree. The new growth that sprouts back is very weak.”
Not only that, they look stunted and ungainly, an aesthetic loss made all the more inexplicable by the absence of power lines running above them.
On 42nd Street in Lawrenceville, Ames points out a young tree that wears a deep, dark scar from not having its support collar removed sooner. In front of a commercial building at the corner of Penn Avenue and 16th Street in the Strip, sweet gum trees have had their tops chopped, a long row of them, again with nary a power line in sight.
On Smallman Street under the Veterans Memorial Bridge, trees were planted a few years back in a place where they were guaranteed to get neither sunlight nor rain. Now the trees are dead and gone, and their expensive metal grates lie empty and unused.
It was a relief to get to Beech Avenue in Allegheny West, widely regarded as the city’s prettiest street, with its well-kept historic houses and herringbone brick sidewalks. But what really sets Beech Avenue apart is its abundance of trees, which form a tall, lacy canopy over the street.
“Even in the wintertime, trees just transform this street,” Ames said. Along with their visual appeal, she added, they provide a sense of security and calm traffic. And while they seem to be as old as this 19th-century neighborhood, most of the trees are littleleaf lindens planted around 1980, said Beech Avenue resident John Canning.
“We know that the trees in our neighborhood have significantly added to the value of homes,” Canning said. “Not only do they look beautiful, but they shade the asphalt streets from the sun and soften noise.”
Some of the proceeds from the Allegheny West house tours pay for tree maintenance, including two late-winter prunings that allowed more sun and air to filter through.
The tree canopy on Beech is so lush because the lindens were planted on both sides of the street and allowed to reach their full height, thanks to federal funding that paid for relocating utility lines and poles to the rear service alleys. But even streets that carry power lines can have one tall tree canopy, with lower-growing trees on the utility side.
“What the inventory can do is give the city a lot of insight on planting the right tree in the right place,” said forester and Shade Tree Commission member Jennifer Arkett, who oversees tree pruning operations for Duquesne Light.
At the hearing, Ferlo, now a state senator, reminded council that funding the Shade Tree Commission was the quid pro quo for allowing advertising on bus shelters. Councilman Alan Hertzberg recalled that what swayed council was using the ad revenue to enhance the trees.
Yanking the commission’s funding now, Canning told council, is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
He’s right. Pittsburgh’s biggest draw will continue to be the quality of life in its neighborhoods. Now more than ever, City Council shouldn’t lose sight of the big picture. Who wants to live in a city that can’t see the urban forest for the trees?
(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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Highland Park’s grandeur reborn – Fountain at center of renovated entry
By Ervin Dyer,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday, August 28, 2004In Highland Park, the past is present.
In the early 1900s, a grand Victorian entryway greeted visitors with imposing bronze sculptures, clustered Ionic columns, a fountain, reflecting pool and lush formal gardens.
Just beyond the entry of the twin stone pillars, there is evidence that that world is returning: polished stone work; sweat-soaked contractors; and the most refreshing sign, a gush of sparkling water 15 feet in the air.
Decades after its demise, the Highland Park Fountain is almost back.
The water seen spouting this week comes from crews testing new pipes that have been laid. Over the next few weeks, the fountain may be on or off, depending on the testing schedule.
According to city workers, no official opening has been scheduled yet.
But under yesterday’s sunny skies, walkers, residents and passers-by caught an early peek.
“It’s beautiful,” beamed Annette Marks, 67, a lifelong resident of the East End neighborhood that was laid out over 300 acres in 1778. “It’s going to be just like it was.”
As a child, Marks remembers Sundays in the park. There were plenty of picnics and leisurely walks with her parents. As a mother, she and her husband, Ron, took their own children swimming and strolling there. The fountain then, in the late 1960s, was in such disrepair it was taken down and covered in soil. Marks’ husband can’t recall there ever being a fountain.
At one point, the pond where the fountain was centered held lilies and, some remember, goldfish.
To see it gurgling again gave Annette Marks, a local museum fund-raiser, a flash of yesteryear. “They’re bringing it all back, reverting to what we had originally. It’s going to do a lot for this neighborhood.”
The spruce-up of the park began six years ago when the Highland Park Community Development Corp. received a $75,000 state grant to help pay for restoration of the garden, fountain and reflecting pool.
To receive the grant, the group raised an additional $75,000 in matching funds in foundation and private donations. Financial assistance also came from Allegheny Regional Asset District funding earmarked to aid the city’s parks.
It is estimated the completed project will cost about $700,000.
“It is quite lovely,” said Maxine Jenkins, a schoolteacher who lives in nearby Stanton Heights and regularly walks near the fountain.
Jenkins did not initially know the fountain was there, but watched its rebuilding. “I haven’t seen anyone sitting down there,” she said of the fountain’s new benches, “and it seems a little impractical to use funds when the city could be doing other things.”
Phase two of the project is expected to begin shortly. It will involve more horticultural work to restore the Victorian Gardens, which will offer a rainbow of seasonal color, said Philip Gruszka, a director with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, a group working with the city and Highland Park community groups to rebuild the park.
The city has four grand parks — Highland, Schenley, Riverview and Frick. Highland Park, when it opened in 1896, was the most formal and grand, said Arthur Ziegler, of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
It had a promenade, with the fountain and a lily pond, he said. “It was important” because it helped the newly developed community attract people and traffic to the East End.
It is believed the park was designed by German-born Berthold Froesch, a parks designer who lived in Morningside.
The 500-acre park, with the zoo and open-air reservoir, continues to be one of the city’s most well-used parks for walkers, runners and retirees. “To enter the park with less than an optimum image was not good,” said Ziegler. “This will give everything a new life and set the tone for other restoration in the park.”
As the temperature steamed toward 86 degrees, the fountain was one of the coolest spots at the park yesterday.
“It is certainly tranquil,” said Marette Simpson, a minister from Monroeville, jogging past the babbling fountain on her 3-mile run. “I’m ready to take a dip in it.”
(Ervin Dyer can be reached at edyer@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1410.)
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Homeowner wants to make sure Heathside Cottage will outlive her
By Gretchen McKay,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Saturday, July 12, 2003Anyone who’s ever fixed up a neglected old house knows it takes more than time and money. It takes some of your soul.
Judith Harvey in the “urban garden” at her Fineview home. She restored the dilapidated Gothic Revival cottage then bought the abandoned house next door, had it torn down and created the garden. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)
Just ask Judith Harvey. She spent close to five years restoring Heathside Cottage, a six-room Gothic Revival cottage in the North Side’s Fineview neighborhood. Snow White herself would feel at home within its rounded walls and fanciful gingerbread trim.
“Some houses talk to you,” says Harvey with a delicate shrug of her shoulders. “I knew the moment I saw its chimney from the street up above that I had to have it.”
What one person loves, however, another might surrender to the wrecking ball. So soon after the meticulous restoration was complete, the former librarian began worrying about her tiny house’s future. What would happen when she was gone?
“It really troubled me,” she recalls. “It was important that I find a way to protect it.”
A member of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Harvey said her first thought was to simply leave it in her will to the historic preservation group. It didn’t matter if it used it as an art gallery or a study; all she wanted was peace of mind that her 165-year-old house — which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and bears a Landmarks plaque — would survive intact for years to come.
But while gifts of property provide Landmarks with much-needed cash to support its mission, “we’re not in the real estate business,” says Jack Miller, director of gift planning. Besides, even though Landmarks would get the proceeds from the eventual sale of the house, buyers would be able to do anything they wanted with the property. So he suggested protecting it first, then making a “retained life estate” gift.
Here’s how it works: Harvey granted a facade easement to Landmarks that guarantees no one could ever change the exterior of the house. She then deeded the house to the foundation but retained the right to live in or rent it for the rest of her life. She would also be responsible for property taxes and maintenance.
Heathside Cottage sits on Caroma Street in Fineview. Owner Judith Harvey is making sure that the house and all the work she put into restoring it will outlive her by making a “retained life estate gift” of the property to Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette)
“Nothing changes until the day she dies,” Miller says.
But what about taxes? Harvey is entitled to a charitable income tax deduction. Also, the property is no longer part of an estate that could be attached — by a nursing home, for instance — if Harvey could no longer care for herself. The best part, however, is that Harvey’s home and handiwork will be preserved for future generations.
Built around 1855 by bridge engineer James Andrews, the brick cottage is so unusual that it was featured in Rick Sebak’s 1997 documentary “North Side Story.” It is a model of Early Victorian design, with lacy bargeboard, a steeply pitched roof and diamond-paned sash windows. And its location on a hilly outcrop gives it a mighty fine view of Downtown, hence the neighborhood’s name.
Harvey bought the dilapidated house in 1992 as a weekend “playhouse,” then moved in permanently after her husband died in 1996. She also purchased the abandoned house next door and then had it torn down to create an urban garden (the stone foundation serves as a wall).
The largest rooms in the two-story cottage measure just 14 feet square, though the 11 1/2-foot ceilings on the first floor –many with beautiful wallpaper — lend an airy feel. Antiques and collectibles reflect Harvey’s love for anything old.
But there are some modern touches, as well. A large mirror above the mantel in the “futon” room is an inspired background for several smaller mirrors; Harvey herself designed the dining room’s enormous rosewood sideboard, which was handmade in Pakistan.
A narrow staircase leads to the light-filled second floor. Here, slanted walls and a whimsical diamond-shaped window in the bedroom (it’s held up by a chain attached to a hook) add to the cottage’s storybook feel. A slender, pointed “lancet” window in the bedroom-turned-closet room reminds visitors of the home’s Gothic roots. Harvey couldn’t bear to think of it in ruins.
“It’s protected as much as it can be,” she says. “It’s where people can see history and be a part of it.”
“Judith obviously cared very much about the property, so it worked out well,” says Miller.
Many people are not aware that they can give their house or farm — or in the case of one donor, a pizza manufacturing plant — to a charitable organization.
Miller says such “planned gifts” work best for people who want to do something for the community and, in some cases, receive income from an asset that is not normally an income-producing property. With a planned gift, donors find that they are able to contribute more than they thought possible while still providing for their family. Miller is quick to note that no one should enter into one of these agreements without the advice of a lawyer and/or financial consultant or accountant.
Harvey’s retained life estate gift of Heathside Cottage, the first gift of its kind to Landmarks, is only one way to go, Miller says. A charitable gift annuity, for instance, allows someone to give a gift of property in exchange for fixed income payments for life that are based on the age and number of beneficiaries. An added benefit is an upfront tax deduction.
A charitable remainder trust, by way of contrast, permits someone to transfer a property to a trust, avoid capital-gains tax and receive a fixed or variable payment each year for up to 20 years or the lifetime of the income beneficiary. Like the annuity, the gift also carries a federal income tax deduction for the donor.
Lucille Tooke chose the charitable remainder trust option when she donated her historic property, Hidden Valley Farm in Pine, to Landmarks in 2001.
Tooke and her husband, Jack, bought the farm in 1954 and spent the next 40 years raising their three daughters on its 64 acres. After Jack died in 1993, it became increasingly difficult for Tooke to take care of it on her own.
“It got to be more than I could handle,” says Tooke, a longtime Landmarks member who now lives in Chambersburg, Franklin County.
So in 2000, she asked Landmarks officials if they knew anyone who might be interested in buying and preserving the property. Most of the land surrounding the farm, which was built in 1835 by Lewis Ross and his wife, Temperance, had already been developed. The thought that it, too, might one day become part of the ‘burbs “made me shudder,” says Tooke.
Unlike Harvey, Tooke was ready to sell the house so she could move closer to her daughters. However, she also needed an income to meet living expenses. Landmarks helped her work out a plan.
She avoided capital-gains tax by turning the farm over to the trust and received a charitable deduction for a portion of the property’s value and a percentage of the trust’s value each year.
When the trust put the farm up for sale, Landmarks had the right to match the highest bid and ended up buying it.
Before reselling it, Landmarks added deed restrictions that required owners to get prior approval from Landmarks before altering the house’s exterior. They also stipulated that the land could not be subdivided or used for non-agricultural commercial purposes.
Even though the restrictions lowered the selling price and made it more difficult to find a buyer, it helped preserve a historic landmark.
“The land and building will be there forever,” says Miller. “And one day, when urban sprawl takes over, the public will be able to see what an early 19th-century farm looked like.”
OK, you’re thinking, a property has to be of historical or architectural significance for Landmarks to be interested in it. Not so. Mary Ann and Tony Kopczynski recently donated the buildings that housed their pizza manufacturing business in McKees Rocks in the form of a charitable gift annuity. In exchange for the 5,000-square-foot warehouse and adjoining office building, the couple receive fixed annual payments for as long as they live.
They also got a sizable federal charitable income tax deduction for the gift portion of the property transfer.
“It gave them an opportunity to retire without having to worry about selling the property,” says Miller.
For more information on the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s Planned Giving Program, visit http://plannedgifts.phlf.org/or call Jack Miller at 412-471-5808, ext. 538.
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City gets advice on developing waterfronts
By Patricia Lowry,
Post-Gazette Architecture Critic
Wednesday, February 12, 2003What makes a great waterfront?
Ann Breen should know. As co-founder and director of the nonprofit Waterfront Center in Washington, D.C., the city and regional planner has been visiting, studying and consulting on urban waterfronts for more than 25 years.
“Every waterfront should be unique and not remind you of someplace else,” Breen told a group of 160 people at a luncheon talk yesterday at the Renaissance Pittsburgh hotel. It is Pittsburgh’s challenge, she said, “to capture the asset and character that is unique to this place.”
As Pittsburgh inches toward implementation of its Three Rivers Park waterfront plan and makeover of Point State Park, the event provided food for thought for planners, architects, funders and interested others. The luncheon was part of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s “Making Cities Work” series.
“You have this marvelous industrial heritage,” something to work with and embrace, Breen said, rather than erase.
“You have a lot of water here in Pittsburgh. We’ve gone to cities where they have barely a trickle and try to make something of it.”
During a slide tour of more than two dozen cities, from Prague, Czech Republic, to Portland, Ore., Breen stressed that the best waterfronts are those that incorporate a variety of uses and capture the spirit of a city.
“What I like about Prague is there are all these nooks and crannies where you can eat,” Breen said. “A floating barge with umbrellas and tables is instant fun.”
In Budapest, Hungary, where trolley tracks run along the river, barges can make the riverfront come alive, as in other cities with waterfront road and rail barriers.
Barges can hold not only restaurants, Breen showed, but also swimming pools and outdoor cinemas.
She praised parks built to withstand and accommodate the inevitable flooding, like Cincinnati’s riverfront park, with its walkway embossed with a geological timeline.
And she praised variety: “A riverfront is not uniform; it should have many, many different places, some green, some hard.” Still, “many cities want nothing but green on their waterfront. That’s for each city to decide.”
Good riverfronts also have “a lot of programming and a lot of public art,” and don’t skimp on the way-finding signs.
As for architecture, she said, “you can have great buildings, but do they address the waterfront?”
Breen lauded the Sydney Opera House, with its balconies and welcoming walkways, but criticized Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim for its lack of integration with and views of the Nervion River.
In a smaller session after the luncheon, Breen said Pittsburgh “doesn’t need another big bell and whistle” with high visibility and impact.
She diagnosed the problem with Pittsburgh’s riverfronts in a single, simple sentence: “Your edges don’t sing.”
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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Improvements planned for Gilfillan Park, homestead
By Vince Guerrieri
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, April 30, 2002Upper St. Clair officials are working with the historical society to draw more people to Gilfillan Park and soon, Gilfillan House.
Commissioners approved a resolution outlining a cooperative relationship with the Upper St. Clair Historical Society to address parking and traffic concerns at Gilfillan House as well as build a visitors’ center in Gilfillan Park.Margaret Gilfillan died last year at age 100, and had lived at the Gilfillan home at the corner of Washington and Orr roads for 98 of those years. She willed the home and the 15 acres it sits on to the historical society with the idea of turning it into a historical site.
The house is already recognized by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation as an important building in Allegheny County history. Previously, the Gilfillans gave about 60 acres to the municipality, which became known as Gilfillan Park.
Municipal Manager Doug Watkins said the township will develop a site plan for the home and its outbuildings, as well as the park and a proposed visitors’ center at the park.
“I think we have some pretty focused visions that we’d like to see,” Watkins said.The historical society has been working to renovate the home, but President Jean Brown said that unexpected obstacles have come up, giving the example of a bathroom restoration that led to floor repair. She said restoration was going on, but slowly.
Of course, visitors will not be allowed in the home until a parking lot is made and some traffic problems are addressed. Municipal officials are looking into expanded turning lanes and a left turn signal.
“We can’t open until we get the parking,” Brown said.
For the full story, read Wednesday’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Vince Guerrieri can be reached at vguerrieri@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5607.
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Park picnic shelter transformed into visitor center
11/25/2001
By David M. Brown
TRIBUNE-REVIEWA structure in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park that started as a picnic shelter nearly a century ago has undergone a Cinderella-like transformation into a 21st-century gateway for one of the city’s popular nature retreats.
The Schenley Park Visitor Center – the old building restored for a new use – is nearing completion and will be ready for an open-house gala planned for the first weekend in December, said Meg Cheever, president of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
“We’re thundering down the home stretch,” Cheever said of the $1.9 million undertaking that was launched two years ago.
The center is the second in a series of showcase projects spearheaded by the conservancy, in conjunction with a long-range plan to improve Pittsburgh’s parks system. It is located on Schenley Drive, near the park’s entrance, across from Phipps Conservatory in Oakland.
The conservancy entered a 30-year lease agreement with the city to operate the center.
The open house is scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. Dec. 1-2.
“We’re happy with the way it’s turning out,” said architect Ellis Schmidlapp of Landmarks Design Associates, the Pittsburgh architectural firm that designed the center.
The plan restored the two-story building into a 2,600-square-foot facility that retained the old shelter’s foundations, brick exterior walls, ornamental windows and heavy timber roof construction.
“The challenge always is to put as many uses into the building as possible. It started out life as nothing but a picnic pavilion,” Schmidlapp said.
Now the building will contain a visitor’s center, gift shop, cafe and public bathrooms.
The idea for restoring the structure – Schenley Park’s only remaining original building – stemmed from responses to studies the conservancy conducted in 1998.
“A unifying thread was that people said they loved the parks, but they would stay longer if some of their basic human needs were met, such as clean usable restrooms, a place to get a snack or a drink, and park information,” Cheever said.
The cafe will serve coffee and light lunch fare. A gift shop will sell nature-themed merchandise. An information kiosk will include a trip planner for outings in the park, a calendar of events and a survey to provide information about park use.
Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy praised the project as an outstanding example of investments the city is making in its parks. An avid runner, Murphy said he plans to make use of the center himself during jaunts through the park.
The center will give visitors a home base for exploring the park, said Abbie Pauley, conservancy spokeswoman.
“This building has had a lot of incarnations. It’s really a dramatic transformation. Not only is the building coming to life, but it brings new life to Schenley,” she said.
Constructed around 1904, the building first served as a picnic shelter. Later, it was used as a nature museum and concession stand.
In the early 1930s, the structure was converted into a tool shed. After being used from 1935 to 1940 as home of the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Center, the building fell into disrepair and has remained closed since the 1980s.
Barry Hannegan, director of historic design programs for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, applauded the work to save the original building. The noted Pittsburgh architectural firm Rutan and Russell first designed the building.
“It’s an extremely important early building in the park. It was and is again now a very handsome example of the Arts and Craft style of architecture, and its restoration is a significant recovery for our architectural history here,” Hannegan said.
By spring, the center will offer nature-oriented lectures, slide shows and programming for all ages, Pauley said. Meeting rooms will be available for use in the evenings. The downstairs portion will serve as a substation for police, providing a police presence at all hours.
Sponsors of the project include the Allegheny Foundation, Eden Hall Foundation, Heinz Endowments, Rachel Mellon Walton Fund of the Pittsburgh Foundation, Hillman Foundation, Sanford N. and Judith Robinson Family Foundation, the Allegheny Regional Asset District, the city of Pittsburgh and the Neighborhood Needs Program.
Who is Mary Schenley?
Mary Schenley donated 300 acres of land in 1889 to the City of Pittsburgh, which later became Schenley Park.
The former Mary Groghan was the granddaughter of James O’Hara, a wealthy capitalist in early Pittsburgh. While in boarding school in New York at the age of 15, she met and fell in love with Capt. Edward Wyndham Harrington Schenley. They eloped in 1842.
The couple spent most of their married life in England.
Although Schenley had no desire to live in her native city, she made large donations here.
In addition to giving the city property for a park, she presented the Blockhouse, the city’s oldest building, to the Daughters of the American Revolution as a memorial of less peaceful times.
When Schenley died in 1903, her Pittsburgh real estate holdings were worth more than $50 million.
Source: Pittsburgh, by Stefan Lorant
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review