Category Archive: Main & Elm Street Programs
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Money Tagged for I-579 Project Could Be Used at New Arena
By Jeremy Boren
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 13, 2010Federal money intended to plug an unsightly concrete gap next to Interstate 579 might be used at Consol Energy Center instead.
At the request of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, Sen. Bob Casey proposed redirecting the $974,000 earmark to pay for most of a walkway that would hug the exterior of the Penguins’ new home and connect its Fifth Avenue and Centre Avenue entrances.
People working on a master plan for the Lower Hill District and trying to preserve the Civic Arena question whether a Consol walkway is the best use of federal money in a neighborhood struggling with crime and poverty.
“If we’re going to move it around anyway, we need it for public safety on Centre Avenue,” said Carl Redwood, founder of the Hill District Consensus Group. “That takes priority.”
Redwood supports the concept of the $1.5 million walkway at Consol but said his group lobbied city police to address concerns about drug deals occurring near the Zone 2 station on Centre, not far from the arena.
Casey, D-Pa., declined to say whether he believes there’s a better use for the money, but he’s aware no consensus exists.
“If there are better ways to target the dollars, we try to be responsive to that. It doesn’t always work,” the senator said. “What I try not to do is to be an urban planner or a local government official. That really has to be a decision made here in Pittsburgh.”
The Consol walkway, dubbed “Curtain Call” by California artist Walter J. Hood, would feature 15-foot-tall stainless-steel curtains, a lighted path and photos of Hill District life embedded in the steel sheets.
URA Executive Director Rob Stephany said an “engineer’s sketch” of the I-579 “cap” project between the Hill District and Downtown would cost an estimated $15 million.
The original application for federal money from Casey’s office touts the cap as “a new urban green space that finally reconnects the Lower Hill District to downtown.”
After learning from the Sports & Exhibition Authority, which owns the new $321 million arena, that it lacked enough money to pay for Curtain Call, URA officials requested the money from Casey, Stephany said.
Rob Pfaffmann, a Downtown architect and frequent critic of the hockey team’s desire to demolish the Civic Arena and develop its 28-acre site, supports Curtain Call. Pfaffmann formed the grass-roots group Reuse the Igloo.
He believes the connection between Fifth and Centre is crucial because walking outside from one side of Consol to the other is difficult.
“Frankly, the Penguins should have paid for it,” Pfaffmann said.
In 2007, the Penguins agreed to contribute $4.1 million a year for 30 years to pay for part of the arena. Pittsburgh’s Rivers Casino pays $7.5 million a year from gambling revenue, and the state funding fueled by casino taxes chips in another $7.5 million a year.
The city Planning Commission required the walkway at the arena, Stephany said, noting the team never wanted anything so elaborate.
“We kind of fell in love with that notion of a public art project and pedestrian way,” he said.
The walkway would be open to everyone, not just hockey fans, he said.
“Will it make for a great experience for people at a game? Yes. Will it make for a great connector for a student on his way to a grocery store? Yes.”
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Poke Run Presbyterian Church Divided Over Historic Building
By Chuck Biedka, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Friday, September 10, 2010
Last updated: 7:11 am
From left, Emma and Jim Dunmire, of Washington Township; Jack and Eleanor Zerbini, of Salem Township; Maynard Miller, of Kiski Township; and Kathy Moneymaker, of Washington Township, all gather together in front of the Academy Building located beside the Poke Run Church located in Washington Township on Thursday. Erica Hilliard/Valley News Dispatch
Nine members of Poke Run Presbyterian Church are asking Westmoreland County Court to side with history and preserve the church’s academy building and its contents.
The four couples and one individual filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop their congregation from demolishing the academy building and prevent the sale of antiques or other items inside.
Trustees insist that the congregation followed all congregational and Redstone Presbytery rules when it voted, 61-49, in June to demolish the wooden academy building, said trustee Vice President Walt Lange yesterday.
Trustee President Vince Goodiski said the congregation, organized in 1785, attracts 150 people to its two Sunday services. The church is located along Poke Run Church Road in Washington Township, across Route 66 from the intersection with Route 366.
Poke Run Presbyterian Church in Washington Township
Goodiski, a member since the 1980s, said the members voted to use the space to add an elevator and ground-floor access to the fellowship hall in the basement of the church.
The academy building has “no amenities, a crumbling foundation, musty smell,” and its metal roof recently sustained wind damage, he said.
Goodiski also said an older $10,000 ramp leading to the front of the church is inadequate and, at the back of the church, a $7,000 chair lift needs to be replaced to accommodate wheelchairs.
“It’s not feasible to fix the lift, and people who use the ramp and come into the church late are immediately seen by everyone else,” he said.
The nine members believe the handicap access is sufficient, and they want to have the building that opened in 1889 classified as a historic structure, member Maynard Miller said.
Both sides in the dispute retain deep emotional attachment to the church, even if they disagree about the fate of the academy building. Many have attended the church for decades.
Miller, whose name appears first on the lawsuit, said the academy served as the township’s first high school, starting in about 1919 and lasting about 10 years.
Miller said his wife, Martha, was baptized in the church, and she married him there in 1946.
James W. Dunmire is among those who are asking for an injunction.
“This is historic. We don’t want the building destroyed,” Dunmire said.
Goodski said the congregation has dealt with the issue for “at least five or six years” and this is “not something that came up as a last minute thing as they are trying to say.”
Goodski said they have offered the building to the nine “and anyone else to move it.”
One solution may be to “put the building on a slab” and move it elsewhere on the church property, he said, although that could be tricky because of the condition of the academy and its maintenance budget.
Goodiski could not say how much the church has spent on the building.
The church land includes the academy and church as well as an education building.
Goodiski and Lange believe the education building can be enlarged to handle community meetings, including those for the Kiski Valley Habitat for Humanity and Beaver Run Community 4-H Club.
He said the congregation wants to remove the building “so that we can better reach out into the community.”
The complaint includes a request for an injunction but a hearing on that hasn’t been scheduled.
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Hiding in Plain Sight: A House as Old as Larryville
The house on the southwest corner of 38th St. and Charlotte Street in Lawrenceville is up for sale. It was bult a decade after Lawrenceville became a town in 1814.
We know this because house historian Carol Peterson, a denizen of Larryville, researched the records. The house you see now — ruddy-colored clapboards, patched in part with old tin advertisements — encloses the original log home that was built in the 1820s. The “new” part is from the 1870s. That’s Michael Connors in front of it. Michael has been part of the Lawrenceville Historical Sociaty’s efforts over the years to get it, and to have it renovated.
Read Michael’s “Next Page” in the Post-Gazette on Sept. 12 for a story about one of the buildings past inhibitants, a teenager who packed munitions and died in the deadly arsenal explosion of 1882. And, by the way, thanks to Matt Smith, who was walking along with a smart phone and agreed to take the photo you see. (So, OK, the sun was in the wrong place.)
For some time, heavy hitters including the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, Sen. Jim Ferlo and other public officials, were at least cheering on the historical society’s effort, Michael tells me.
Arthur Ziegler, president of Landmarks, said the interest and needed money could not be reconciled. “We don’t have many log houses left and we would like to save them,” he said, “but this had been so changed over the years, to put it back the way it was would have meant cutting new logs.”
The historical society “knew it was way beyond our ability” to afford and renovate, Michael said.
It is owned by a limited partnership. Historical Society members toured it a few years ago when the owners wanted $39,000. We’re trying to find out the asking price from the Realtor.
This building was part of the original town of Lawrenceville that composer Stephen Foster’s father subdivided. In 1841, Lawrenceville town was carved out of Pitt Township roughly from 38th to 41st Streets and from Woolslayer to the Allegheny River, Carol said. Lawrenceville was incorporated as a borough in 1834.
“Just think that someone in this house could have walked up the street to see the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited Pittsburgh” in 1825, Michael said. In case history isn’t your subject, Lafayette was a hero of both the French and American revolutions and knew George Washington.
He was our first president.
Michael said his dream is that UPMC, whose Children’s Hospital presence is “the biggest and newest” in the neighborhood, offers the needed largesse “for the smallest and oldest” and help Lawrenceville showcase one of its original structures, which could be an attraction for visitors to the hospital.
Walkabout is putting it out there, like a butterfly wish that might merge with the fluttering fancy of the right person…or institution.
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Sculpture of Steel Worker to Highlight Natrona Heritage Park
By Tom Yerace, VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Tuesday, September 7, 2010Natrona’s history is forever linked to industry, and that is the focus of a new park being planned there.
“We’ve been working with Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, and one of the focuses of Natrona Comes Together is to preserve the history of Natrona,” said Bill Godfrey, president of the grassroots neighborhood improvement group, in discussing the proposed Natrona Heritage Park.
Natrona’s first major industry was salt mining by The Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co. dating to 1850. In fact, Godfrey said the park site, which is about 100 feet by 100 feet, is the site of the old Penn Salt company store.
Although Penn Salt evolved into a chemical conglomerate, it eventually became overshadowed in Natrona by the steel industry and Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., now known as ATI-Allegheny Ludlum.
It is the steel industry that is the focus of the heritage park, according to Godfrey and Stephen Paulovich, the New Kensington native who is a renowned Louisville, Ky.-based sculptor.
Paulovich is known throughout the Alle-Kiski Valley for his sculptures at the coal miners memorial in Harmar and for the statue of New Kensington football legend Willie Thrower at Valley High School’s stadium.
According to Paulovich, the park’s dominant structure will be a sculpture of an 8-foot-high steel worker set on a base that will have the sculpture rise 18 feet above the park.
In addition, there will be smaller sculptures of buildings in Natrona, some of which still exist, he said.
Paulovich said he will donate his services, including any foundry work.
“I was trying to get something more public art-oriented,” Paulovich said. “Things that are more historical that kids can walk around and look at.
“We want to incorporate some of the buildings … some of them might (still) be there, some might not,” he added. “Those buildings were so important. And if it wasn’t for steel, they wouldn’t be there.”
Among the buildings Paulovich included in his initial drawings were the Pond Street School, St. Ladislaus Church and the Windsor Hotel.
“People in New Kensington might get mad at me, but I think Natrona is the gem, architecturally, of that area,” he said.
Paulovich and Godfrey said they plan to put the project in motion within the next week or two.
They and Natrona Comes Together are developing the project with Frank McCurdy of Harrison, who taught architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, before retiring. He also is a member of the Natrona Comes Together board, Godfrey said.
“We have absolutely no money for it yet, but we have strong passion for finding funds,” Godfrey said.
“We’re going to approach Allegheny Ludlum and the unions and get some other private financing,” he said. He said that they don’t have a firm cost estimate yet. “We’ll give a presentation to anybody that will be very clear and will leave nothing to the imagination. It will be like ‘This is what you get for your dollar.’ It will be like selling any other product.
“I think it is only fair that Allegheny Ludlum celebrates the history of the steel workers who actually built the company with their sweat and toil,” Godfrey said. “We have not approached them, but we are very excited about trying to get them to donate.
“It could be a model for how a steel mill improves the quality of life for a community.”
To underscore the community’s ties to steelmaking even further, Paulovich wants to cast the sculptures in stainless steel, Allegheny Ludlum’s core product for decades.
“I was going to do it in bronze, but it just doesn’t make sense. Bronze? In a steel town?” Paulovich said. “If the guys are making stainless down there, why can’t we use stainless/”
Also, Paulovich wants those “guys” to be involved with the project.
“We want to get some of the welders from Allegheny Ludlum to come down and help us put this together for us,” he said. “I don’t sweat like they do in 4,000 degrees; they need this. It’s just amazing what they do. They have to do it, it’s going to be their sculpture.”
“For them to drive by with their kids and hear them say, ‘Hey, Dad did that,’ that would be great,” Paulovich said.
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Historical Group Seeks Bell From Kittanning’s Town Hall
by Renatta Signorini
Leader Times
Thursday, September 9, 2010
KITTANNING A local group is on a quest to find a bell that once stood high above Market Street in Kittanning’s former town hall.
Joie Pryde has driven plenty of back roads in search of the bell without luck.
“We are on a quest to acquire that bell, restore it” and get boroough permission to place it in Riverfront Park, Pryde said.
It’s the latest mission of the Kit-Han-Ne Questers, a group of local residents dedicated to the preservation and restoration of historic sites and artifacts. The group is hosting the 11th annual Antiquing Along the Allegheny this Saturday in an effort to raise money for reatoration of the bell if they ever find it.
This year’s Antiquing Along the Allegheny features about 60 vendors sprawled out in Kittanning Riverfront Park, selling antiques and handmade crafts including toys, furniture and glassware. Quester Carolyn Schrecengost said some vendors are local residents who don’t have their own shops.
“We have them coming from all around,” said Quester Rovena Chauvaux.
She will be one of the vendors using the event to make room at own home for more antiques. Chauvaux said she will be selling vases, toys and Christmas decorations, among other items.
The local chapter of the Questers is linked to the International Questers, an antique study group with members in the United States and Canada. The group requires that chapters spend any money raised on restoration projects.
In the past, the Kit-Han-Ne Questers have restored stained glass windows, the portraits of four judges in the courthouse and old theater seats.
The project completed with funds from last year’s antiquing event was purchasing three lights for the kitchen and dining room at the McCain House Museum in Kittanning that are now on display.
“We wanted to get the time period suitable,” Chauvaux said.
The new lights are circa 1900 and replaced fixtures that were from a more recent time period.
“Really, they stuck out like a sore thumb, especially the ones in the kitchen because they were obviously ’50s,” Pryde said.
She has gotten a variety of information on the local bell that once hung in Kittanning’s town hall, which was located in the building that now houses First National Bank, but has not had luck finding the piece of local history. Pryde said she has learned that the bell is apparently dated 1906 and could be located somewhere in the Harrison Township area.
Historical societies in that area have made mention of a “bell haven” that was once in a collectors yard, but Pryde has not been able to locate it.
“We’ve hit a dead end everywhere,” she said.
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In McKeesport, Marina’s Success Boosts Other Businesses, City’s Hopes
Thursday, September 09, 2010By Candy Woodall, freelancePittsburgh Post-Gazette
The McKees Point Marina is located on Water Street in McKeesport. Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette
Summer may be winding down but Ray Dougherty already is preparing for next season at McKees Point Marina along the Youghiogheny River.
The 200 docks are full to capacity, and the waiting list is growing, a stark difference from the 60 spots that were filled when Mr. Dougherty started as manager of the marina in McKeesport four years ago.
In addition to the solar, steel building he plans to have constructed along Water Street to house boats during the off-season using a $150,000 Growing Greener grant, growth at the marina also has led to a new boat dealer opening in McKeesport and increased revenues at McKees Cafe.
He attributes the surge at the marina to reducing rates and adding entertainment.
The marina hosts free, live entertainment every weekend.
Rates were $1,080 annually for either a 30- or 20-foot dock in 2006. Now, they are $900 per year for a 30-foot dock and $580 per year for a 20-foot dock.
Mr. Dougherty said he puts the docks in the water for the boating season to begin April 15 and takes the docks out when the season ends Oct. 15. The marina also docks 18 jet skis and keeps 11 spots open for transient boaters who can anchor at the space for $20 to $25 per day.
“We keep those prices low to encourage people to come visit McKeesport,” he said.
The marina is now self-sustaining — purchased with a $1.8 million Housing and Urban Development Authority loan in 1998 — and costs about $100,000 a year to operate, he said.
By the beginning of next season, he wants to use marina revenues to build a small park for children near the marina for the families who dock there.
He attributes the surge in family boaters to a slow economy and the other offerings of McKeesport’s waterfront — not the least of which is its use as a trail head to the Great Allegheny Passage, Steel Valley Trail and Youghiogheny River Trail.
The combination of water traffic, foot traffic and boat traffic has boosted sales by 50 percent at McKees Cafe along Water Street, which Mr. Dougherty also manages.
His cafe, which makes its own homemade bread and sells $5 lunches, has a nautical theme, including a large mural of sea life on the walls. Another wall is signed by boaters, bikers and hikers who have visited the trails from seven countries and all but five states.
“We see a lot of bikers in the morning and boaters in the evening,” he said.
Boaters who buy a yearly lease at the marina also have a membership to the McKees Cafe Clubhouse, where they can host birthday parties, graduation parties or other events for free.
Mr. Dougherty said most members are from the Mon Valley or Westmoreland County, including the communities of McKeesport, North Huntingdon and Greensburg.
The boating activity is why Pittsburgh Boat Sales opened on Water Street this summer and celebrated a grand opening a few weeks ago.
“The McKees Point Marina has a central location to Pittsburgh, and we wanted to jump into the Pittsburgh market,” said Dino Ellena, service manager.
“We noticed a growth in boating. Families seem to be forgoing a $7,000 vacation in favor of buying a boat and having many summers of vacation.
“It’s another way to help the economy here instead of going somewhere else and spending money. More people are keeping the money local.”
And that’s great news, said Dennis Pittman, McKeesport city administrator.
He hopes the city’s natural resources — as a confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers — will create other economic opportunities for the city.
He’s making plans to build a fishing pier, establish a rowing club, partner with Penn State Greater Allegheny to construct a fish hatchery and develop the waterfront with small businesses.
Seeking Hope VI grant money, he hopes to use those public funds to build a $100,000 fishing pier at 13th Street along the Youghiogheny River next year.
“I may be dreaming a little because we’re rich in ideas and poor in dollars,” Mr. Pittman said. “But there’s no doubt we need to take advantage of what we have.”
When the Army Corps of Engineers is finished with its work on the Braddock Dam and eliminates the Elizabeth Dam, McKeesport will have a 20-mile pool of free-flowing water to use, doubling the 10-mile pool it has now.
Those changes also will cause the Youghiogheny to rise about 5 feet, according to Mr. Pittman, making boating on that river a more pleasurable experience.
Mr. Pittman also wants to see some rowing boats in the water within the next three years.
He said the city has the space and desire for a rowing club that could host high schools, colleges and junior programs.
He’s partnering with executives at Three Rivers Rowing to establish a program — possibly as a third site for the rowing club, which already operates facilities at Washington’s Landing and in Millvale.
Mr. Pittman would like to see an indoor facility with a glass front built along the water in an old pipe yard. It could include a gym, boat storage and restaurant. He’s seeking public funds, philanthropic support and partnerships with the private sector. He declined to give specific figures while costs are being analyzed and collaborations are forming.
He hopes a partnership with Penn State Greater Allegheny will lead to the creation of a fish hatchery at an old Westmoreland County water plant near 15th Street through the school’s agriculture program.
“We’ve talked to school officials there about raising the fish and stocking our local streams,” he said. “It’s a teaching and vocational opportunity.”
Mr. Pittman said he is talking to John Hohman, plant manager, to work out a ground lease. It also may be donated to Penn State Greater Allegheny or the city, he said.
“The elements are in place, but there’s still some work to be done,” he said.
The economic impact of developing a waterfront and using rivers can be huge, according to Rick Brown, executive director of Three Rivers Rowing.
It takes some work and money, but not necessarily much money, he said. Facilities range in costs, and sometimes boathouses start out with simple materials such as chain-link fencing, he said.
Eight high schools, three colleges and a junior team representing 20 local high schools compete through Three Rivers Rowing. It has 400 adult members, 100 youth members and about 3,000 total participants a year.
Mr. Brown is pleased that another local municipality wants to start a rowing program.
“I think more rowing in the area would help all of us. We’ll be an area better served,” he said.
And McKeesport would have more to offer, Mr. Pittman said.
“We want people to see us as a destination point,” he said. “We just have a lot more potential than what’s been tapped.”
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Part of Beloved Dormont Cinema to be Preserved
By Al Lowe
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 9, 2010History buffs got some good news at the Dormont Council meeting. Although Dormont’s South Hills Theater along West Liberty Avenue has been razed and will be replaced by a CVS store, its memories will live on because of plans to reassemble the theater’s box office and put it in the lobby of the municipal building.
“All I know is that I got a phone call one day at 3:30 p.m. and was told if I wanted the ticket booth, I better have it picked up by 4 p.m.,” said Muriel Moreland, who is president of the Dormont Historical Society. Her late husband, William, was the borough’s mayor for 24 years, until 1989.
Sections of the box office are being kept in her garage, off Espy Avenue.
“I hope they come get it soon because I have to put my lawn furniture there,” she said.
The Dormont municipal building has three rooms set aside for the Historical Society, which recently received a lot of memorabilia from the theater, including two masks denoting comedy and tragedy that once hung in the theater’s lobby. The theater opened in 1928 and closed in 2001, Moreland said.
Council member Joan Hodson said Monday, that, like many others, she and her husband, Jim, used to take their children to the theater. She said her husband will help to reassemble the box office in the lobby.
In other business, council voted 5-2 to pass a resolution in response to the Keystone Oaks School District’s proposal to close schools.
The resolution, written by Councilman John Maggio, states that council supports neighborhood schools and renews a willingness to collaborate with the district on planning efforts.
Heather Schmidt and Laurie Malkin cast the opposing votes.
They said they had no problems with the resolution, except for its timing. They thought that council should consider passing the resolution after a task force studying the district’s plans makes its recommendation.
Keystone Oaks is considering closing two kindergarten-through-fifth-grade elementary schools, Myrtle in Castle Shannon and Aiken in Green Tree, and converting Dormont Elementary from a K-5 school to a K-3 school for students from all three boroughs. The current middle school would be used for grades four through six, and the current high school would house grades seven through 12; grades seven eight would be kept apart from grades nine through 12.
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Healthy Downtown Business Program Shaping Up Eight Communities in Allegheny County
Wednesday, September 08, 2010?
Pop City Media
Healthy Downtown Business Program
Allegheny Together, a small business revitalization organization, launched the Healthy Downtown Business Program last Wednesday to encourage employees and residents of eight communities to explore their commercial districts by foot.
The program has distributed walking maps to small businesses in Bellevue, Bridgevale, Coraopolis, Elizabeth, Stowe Township, Swissvale, Tarentum, and Verona, which encourage people to get physically fit while supporting downtown revitalization. In addition, they have also distributed walking logs, which allow participants to chart how much they walk through their downtown area.
“We have over 600 people signed up, which exceeds what we anticipated,” says Jessica Mooney, assistant manager of business development for Allegheny County Economic Development.
Business employees can look forward to special awards for their log efforts. At the end of September, the logs will be returned to Allegheny Together, and prizes will be given to the “healthiest downtown business” and “healthiest downtown business employee” in each community.
Allegheny Together was started in 2007 by Allegheny Economic Development in order to “reinvigorate small businesses by bringing residents back to our traditional, walkable shopping districts,” says Dan Onorato, county executive for Allegheny County.
Financial support for the Healthy Downtown Business Program comes form a combination of public and private funds made possible by the Health Department. Allegheny Together hopes to expand the program in the future, by offering more features, such as free pedometers and even more detailed walking maps.
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Source: Jessica Mooney, assistant manager of business development for Allegheny County Economic Development
Dan Onorato, county executive for Allegheny County
Writer: John FarleyPhotograph courtesy Mara Dowdy