Category Archive: News Wire Services
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Stay Out: Downtown’s Closed Plazas are an Unwelcome Sign
Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:05 AMStaff Blogs by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
One of the best features of Pittsburgh’s compact Downtown is its open spaces, plazas and walkways where pedestrians can take a short breather from daily routines without even breaking their stride.
There is something relaxing about strolling past the plants, trees, benches and fountains, and even brief visits to these oases can put a smile on a preoccupied face or help clear a cluttered mind. During the summer’s heat wave, the ponds and water sprays provided relief from the intensity and acted as magnets on office workers out at lunchtime.
That’s why the increasing number of signs, fences and barricades encroaching on these places are a blemish on the countenance of the city. They transform a friendly face that says “Welcome” into that of a grumpy neighbor yelling, “Hey, you kids, get offa my lawn.”
As Post-Gazette architecture critic Patricia Lowry noted in a commentary Wednesday, these urban spaces didn’t happen by accident. The city’s zoning code contains requirements for green space, including guidelines for landscaping, seating, trees and even trash receptacles, and they clearly state that pedestrian access should not be blocked.
It’s true that the walkways through Gateway Center, the EQT Plaza on Liberty Avenue, the Katz Plaza on Penn Avenue and other venues throughout the city are private property, maintained by their owners who are responsible for keeping them in good repair. And the owners certainly are within their rights to deal with miscreants who might damage the shrubs or vandalize the fixtures.
But they don’t have to be exclusionary about it. PPG Plaza, whose fountain in summer and ice rink in winter were a gift from philanthropist Henry Hillman, is completely open and welcoming. Now that’s the face of Pittsburgh.
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Vocational Training Center Opens in Larimer
Auto body shop owner will train budding mechanics in 14,500-square-foot facilityFriday, October 01, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mike Fiore and his son, Michael, expect Mike's Auto Body and Vocational Center in Larimer to be fully operational by early next year. Pam Panchak/Post-Gazette
Mike Fiore stood behind a podium Thursday morning, with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl to his left, and said, “We finally got here.”
Mike’s Auto Body and Vocational Center — a dream that Mr. Fiore began chatting about with his son Michael four years ago — officially opened with a ceremony on the Meadow Street site in Larimer on Thursday. It will be fully operational by early next year, when Mr. Fiore expects to enroll his first class of mechanics for certification training, he said.
Mr. Ravenstahl called the training center the first substantial private investment in the neighborhood in 40 years. Mr. Fiore’s shop specializes in collision repairs and custom body work. He has run his business in Larimer for 40 years and trained young mechanics, but he had to take them off-site for some instruction. The new 14,500-square-foot vocational center will keep them on-site for hands-on and classroom work.
Mr. Fiore said he hopes 36 will graduate each year, certified in welding, spraying paint, diagnostics and other skills.
The $1.8 million project, with investment from the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the Small Business Administration and Fidelity Bank, will employ 10 people full time and has the potential to join other businesses in retrofitting gas-burning cars into electric cars.
Mr. Ferlo said that while multi-million dollar projects get most of the attention, “we never lose sight of the importance of small businesses and the cumulative total of their benefits.”
Tom Link, manager of the URA’s business development center, said small business is responsible for 70 percent of new job creation.
Mr. Ravenstahl said the training center “is a seed for future growth,” and that, with the new Target store being constructed nearby in East Liberty, “shame on us if we can’t figure out how to spread investment throughout the Larimer community.”
Meadow Street is a strategic corridor because it runs through Larimer and into Highland Park and East Liberty.
Mr. Ferlo, a URA board member, said the URA would like to buy several properties directly across the street from the vocational center in order to develop a retail and housing link.
Already, the vocational center has been used as meeting space for Highland Park neighborhood advocates, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Larimer Green Team and ward leaders.
Mr. Fiore said he advanced his idea to a lot of people and that many weren’t encouraging.
“A lot of folks said, ‘wonderful idea,’ and walked away,” he said. “But my son and his wife [Michael and Chrissy Fiore] were nonstop support. And Jim Ferlo. He kept after me through all the paperwork, ‘C’mon, we’re going to get this done.’ We’ll get through all the hassles.’
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History Festival to Mark East Liberty’s Past
First-time event to highlight area’s change, influenceFriday, October 01, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In this photo taken in the 1890s, Civil War veterans participate in a reunion in front of a building on Penn Circle South that is still standing in East Liberty. The past of the East End/East Liberty area will be celebrated during Saturday's first-ever East Liberty History Festival. Courtesy of the East End/East Liberty Historical Society
Public knowledge of East Liberty’s past is stuck on urban renewal, high-rises and crime. But that era was a blip.
East End history buffs hope to put the past in perspective Saturday at the East Liberty History Festival, a first-time event in a neighborhood of firsts.
What most people don’t know about East End history — with East Liberty at its hub — would overflow the parking lot at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, but the day-long event of the East End/East Liberty Historical Society has been designed to fit there, for free, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
From Indians and traders to the first immigrant settlers, the festival will highlight the progression of development and industrial change that brought unparalleled prosperity to the area. In a recent Arcadia “Images of America” publication, the title “Pittsburgh’s East Liberty Valley” was chosen to encompass the breadth of East Liberty’s influence.
Historical society members who put the book together said many images that would today be in Shadyside or other adjacent neighborhoods were then described as East Liberty.
“On the old postcards, East Liberty went all the way up to Fifth Avenue,” said Marilyn Evert, a member of the historical society and director of development at Homewood Cemetery. When East Liberty began its slump in the 1970s, she said, “people began to disassociate themselves.”
Al Mann, a retired chemical engineer from Highland Park, has been at the helm of planning the festival for the past year as the society’s president. In a bag behind the driver’s seat of his car, he has been carrying around items for display, among them a large aluminum mold of an Easter bunny.
The mold was used at Bolan’s Candies in East Liberty, the first of the family’s several stores, open on Penn Avenue from 1918 until several years ago.
“We have a lot of firsts,” said Mr. Mann. The first commercial oil refinery in the nation was in Highland Park, and the society has the papers to prove it. The first radio broadcast of a church service was from Calvary Episcopal in Shadyside in 1921. The nation’s first drive-up gas station was at Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street. Pittsburgh’s first traffic light was at Highland and Penn avenues.
Festival highlights will include re-enactments of processes developed by industrialists who lived or did business in the East End.
Charles Honeywell, executive director of the historical society, will demonstrate iron and aluminum production using small furnaces. “The blast furnace will produce iron from iron ore, coke and limestone, just like the big ones. Superheated 3,000-degree iron will pour out into a mold that people can see.”
Aluminum will be melted in a small crucible furnace and poured into medallion molds with street car emblems. Those will be sold to the public.
Bus tours throughout the day will take people to points of interest that include the Highland Park reservoir, a Negley family burial marker, grand churches, the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater and a house that encases a log cabin built in 1794.
Exhibits will show the historic transitions of Calvary and St. Andrew’s Episcopal churches and a wall of fame reproduced from panels in the Kelly-Strayhorn. The photos of performing artists and other celebrities attest to the role the East End played as a breeding ground for the entertainment industry.
Ms. Evert said her interest stems from working and worshipping in the East End. She lives in Fox Chapel.
When the society formed in 2002, she said, it was in part to interest people in the East End’s future.
“The idea was that if people became aware of their history and where they came from, that would be conducive to development. It has such an extraordinary history. It’s unbelievable the things that came out of this one place.”
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Historic Downtown Site Sold
By Thomas Olson, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation was given the easement to the historic Burke Building, Downtown, by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy so the foundation can assure no future owners tear it down or alter its exterior. Jasmine Goldband | Tribune-Review
The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has sold the oldest architect-designed building in Pittsburgh — and granted an easement to the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to make sure it’s never torn down.
Built in 1836, the Burke Building at 209 Fourth Avenue, Downtown, was sold Monday to Burke Building Enterprises L.P., said conservancy spokeswoman Stephanie Kraynick.
She declined to provide further information about the purchaser but described the partnership as people “who appreciate the historical quality of the building and plan to preserve” it.
The three-story, stone structure — a striking contrast to the modern PPG Place that sits next to it — is one of the few remaining structures to survive the city’s great fire of 1845. The building is unoccupied.
“It is a really important building,” said Arthur Ziegler, president of History & Landmarks. “Anyone who owns the building now and forevermore is subject to the condition that they can’t demolish it or change the exterior without our consent.”
“The conservancy has easements on lots and lots of land. They gave us this (easement) because we protect buildings,” he said.
The conservancy’s headquarters was located in the Burke Building until September 2007, when the organization relocated to Washington’s Landing.
The architect was John Chislett, an British native who relocated to New York in 1832. He moved to Pittsburgh a year later and remained here.
“The Burke Building is extremely handsome and the oldest building we’ve got,” said Al Tanner, the foundation’s historical collections director. “Over the years, it housed a bank, a restaurant, and a variety of other (tenants).”
Three other buildings in Pittsburgh that Chislett designed are still standing. The Gateway and Lodge of Allegheny Cemetery, which are two adjoining structures in Lawrenceville; and the Widows and Orphans Society of Allegheny City building on the North Side.
Tanner said that in Chislett’s day, he was probably best known in Pittsburgh for designing the original Allegheny County Court House in 1841. It burned down in 1882 and was replaced two years later with a design by the world-famous H.H. Richardson, who designed other buildings in this region.
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Uses for South Park Fairgrounds Offered
By Matthew Santoni
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 30, 2010Allegheny County residents Wednesday night offered their ideas for revitalizing the rundown fairgrounds in South Park as part of the county’s push to reuse or redevelop it.
More than 100 people attended the meeting in the Museum Building to discuss how they’d like to see the 80-acre site made more attractive and useful, with ideas ranging from converting buildings into indoor sports arenas to tunneling under a hill so pedestrians can reach Port Authority’s nearby light-rail line.
The county has retained Homestead-based GAI Consultants Inc. to hold public hearings, focus groups and online surveys to gather ideas with the hope that the county can do more with its limited money and manpower, said sustainability manager Jeaneen Zappa.
The fairgrounds still hosts community days and other events but hasn’t been the site of a county fair since the late 1970s.
During World War II, German and Italian prisoners of war were temporarily housed in some of the buildings, said Robert Bastianini, a member of the South Park Township Historical Society.
“I would like to see some kind of fair come back,” he said. “These buildings have stood empty almost all year round.”
Bastianini also asked that one of the buildings be donated to the historical society for use as an office and museum.
Representatives of the Allegheny County Martial Arts Center, a nonprofit which has rented, renovated and maintained one of the former exhibit buildings since 1986, would like to see other organizations given a chance to lease sections of the buildings as studios, practice spaces or storefronts, said senior martial arts instructor Rick Sbuscio.
“These clubs are resources,” said Jeff Danchik, director of the Mon Valley Express Drum and Bugle Corps, another long-term tenant of one of the buildings. “We fix up the building, and that’s our rent … but there isn’t any mechanism in place for these groups to go from an idea to getting money and building something.”
Another public hearing will be held in November, and a final report is expected by mid-December. County residents can fill out an online survey at alleghenycounty.us/parks/SPFairgrounds.
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Total Transformation of Allegheny Public Square
Total transformation of Allegheny Public Square moves forward with completion of final design phase
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The City of Pittsburgh, in partnership with The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, community members, and Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture, have completed the second major phase of design for the revitalization of the Northside’s Allegheny Public Square Park.
Since San Francisco based Cochran won the competition in 2007 to produce the final design for the park, a large amount of redesign has been done to the original plans, based on the concerns and wishes of the community and various stakeholders.
“To her credit, after three or four community meetings, Andrea went back to the drawing board and came back with a refined design that has been lauded, and I think reflects the community input extensively,” says Chris Seifert, deputy director of The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.
- Allegheny Public Square
With the final designs completed, the project will go to bid for construction next March, with an estimated construction budget of $3 million. Over $4 million of the estimated $6 million overall budget has been raised. Due to the economy, the capital campaign was delayed for a brief time, but was able to get back on course last Spring.
By 2012, what is now merely a sunken concrete area in very poor condition will be transformed into huge public green space with sophisticated sustainable systems in place. In addition to a large meadow area, six dozen trees will be introduced to the park, along with a variety of low-maintenance native species. A large piece of public art will be installed in the center of the park, which will feature fog spraying devices to reflect light and allow visitors to cool off in the hot summer months.
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Source: Chris Seifert, The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
Writer: John FarleyImage courtesy of The Children’s Museum
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Urban Ministry Rescuing Decayed Friendship Church
Monday, September 27, 2010By Jon Schmitz, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteThree years ago, the stately 19th-century sandstone church at Friendship and South Pacific avenues in Bloomfield lay in ruins and was targeted for demolition.
“Can this church be saved?” a newspaper article asked at the time. The answer, borne out by a leaking roof, missing windows, falling plaster, buckled flooring, peeling paint and pervasive mold and mildew, seemed to be “no.”
Since then, all manner of angels have descended on the former Fourth United Presbyterian Church.
More than 1,000 volunteers have helped to replace the roof, tuck-point the sandstone walls and gut the interior, upgrading its plumbing, electrical and heating systems, replacing windows and framing out space for classrooms and a kitchen.
Before the building celebrates its rebirth as Pacific Sanctuary, it will need a few more angels.
Earthen Vessels Outreach, which bought and rescued the building after it was slated for demolition three separate times, is trying to raise an additional $100,000 to finish a community center on the ground floor for the hundreds of at-risk children it serves from five Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
Thanks to volunteers and donated materials, the organization has spent only $450,000 while accomplishing an estimated $1.2 million to $1.5 million in improvements, project manager Ryan England said.
“It was said in the beginning that we could never do this,” said Marilyn Chaney, director of Earthen Vessels Outreach. “But we’re doing it and we’re going to keep doing it.”
“The question was asked ‘Can this building be saved?’ ” said her husband, the Rev. John Paul Chaney. “It’s been saved. The question now is if we can restore it.”
Most of the remaining work is finishes — flooring, ceiling tiles, lighting and bathroom fixtures. Volunteers will continue to buzz about, but some of the work requires the hiring of skilled professionals, Ms. Chaney said.
Mr. England, a California native who earned his master’s in civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and decided to make Pittsburgh his home and community service his vocation, said he can finish the ground floor in four to six weeks if funding is secured.
“Our youth programs have wait lists or are full or really crowded” in the ministry’s current space down the street, he said. “We have a hard time turning people away.”
The group serves about 200 children from Bloomfield, Garfield, East Liberty, Lawrenceville and Friendship on a regular basis and about 200 more sporadically with its after-school, day camp, performing arts, recreation and other programs.
“We feed every child who comes through our doors,” Mr. England said. The group serves 12,000 meals a year from its tiny kitchen.
“It’s a real struggle,” he said.
The ground floor of the church is being renovated to provide four classrooms — the current headquarters has none — plus a bigger kitchen and large gathering area.
Longer-range plans are to convert the main level upstairs into a recreation center and worship space for Seeds of Hope Church, also founded by the Chaneys, who moved to Pittsburgh from Chicago to launch their urban ministry about 10 years ago.
The church was built in the 1890s. Fourth United Presbyterian Church closed in the 1960s and was rented as a school building for about 10 years before being sold to a pair of ministers in 1976. Their congregation eventually abandoned the building and decay set in.
“When Ryan and I walked in, there was six inches of water on the floor,” Ms. Chaney said.
“And mold everywhere,” Mr. England added.
Mr. Chaney had tried to buy the church for years, once offering $250,000. When Earthen Vessels Outreach finally purchased it, in shambles, it fetched just $65,000.
A new red roof of aluminum and asphalt shingles, repointed masonry, new windows and French drains are protecting the volunteers’ investments inside, he said. “It’s structurally secured.”
Finishing the community center will enable the organization to gain the certification it needs to qualify for federal and state funding and expand its mission, the Chaneys said.
“We want it to be a peaceful place for young people to come and grow as human beings,” Mr. Chaney said.
To learn more about Earthen Vessels Outreach or to donate, visit www.evo-pgh.org or call 412-681-7272.
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Old Film Site Breathes New Life
Paramount building was empty for yearsThursday, September 23, 2010By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Greg Pierce, assistant film curator at The Warhol, left, talks with Rick Schweikert in front of the film vaults at Paramount's film exchange, 1727 Blvd. of the Allies, Uptown. Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
The Paramount Pictures Film Exchange, described by a nearby businessman last year as “a disaster,” now has a new roof, flushing toilets and a clutch of stockholders.
At an open house Wednesday, exclamations from old films burst from the screening room, the public took tours and live bands played at night in a celebration of the building’s new life.
“After all these months of labor, to see it lit up …” said Rick Schweikert, letting a smile finish the sentence. He is the primary owner, having given UPMC $50,000 for it last winter, just ahead of what many believed was a pending demolition.
“It was empty for 20 years, and water poured through a hole in the roof,” he said, stroking the tile in a bathroom illuminated by a skylight. “But it’s in great shape. People knew what they were doing when they built this thing.”
It was built in 1926 at what is now 1727 Boulevard of the Allies, Uptown. It was one of six or seven along that stretch that accommodated the film industry, local theater owners and the local and national press who interviewed stars when they traveled to publicize their films.
The old Paramount Pictures emblem still stands above the door to the entrance of Paramount's film exchange. Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette
Each studio stored movies at their exchanges, which were built like fortresses because film was so flammable.
The local exchanges included those of Warner Brothers — now home of the Duquesne University Tamburitzans — MGM, RKO and 20th Century Fox. The Paramount is brick and framed in terra cotta, with decorative scrollwork and egg-and-dart molding. The studio’s logo is still in place over the main door, which is now closed off; a door opening onto Miltenberger Street welcomed yesterday’s curious, among them a few film buffs.
Greg Pierce, assistant curator of film and video at the Warhol Museum, stopped by to see if his giant personal collection of industrial and locally made films might find a home at the exchange.
It was a film buff who brought the building into the public eye last summer.
Drew Levinson had entered a video contest sponsored by the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh for students 25 and younger. His video about the Paramount exchange won the contest. He and the YPA nominated the building for historic status.
Mr. Schweikert said he will rent studios to artists, install a cafe in the film vault room, screen films and hold entertainment events. The upstairs will likely attract a firm taking advantage of tax credits, since the building is in a Keystone Innovation Zone — an area targeted for investment.
In the screening room Wednesday, a run of black-and-white shorts were projected inside the original ornate frame on the wall, the first movies to show in that room since the early 1970s.
The building is 8,500 square feet of mostly open space surrounded with windows. In its previous incarnation, clients entered a wainscotted vestibule through the main entrance and rented movies, returned movies and paid bills at a service window.
At full capacity, the exchange hired 50 people, including managers, secretaries, projectionists and people who repaired and cleaned film, said Mr. Schweikert.
City council approved historic status in January, when Mr. Schweikert closed on the property. He contracted with roofers and he and his Uptown neighbor, Bob Marion, began cleaning out debris, removing old pipes “and an HVAC unit the size of a minivan,” said Mr. Marion.
Mr. Schweikert, who owns other buildings Uptown, said his budget of $300,000 “is all we need.” His investment group, PFEX Inc., issued 100 shares of common stock and has sold 54 so far at $3,000 each.
Jason Roth, the building’s architect, said he was “ecstatic when I got a call from Rick last winter saying he was going to try to save it. He got to it just in time.
“There’s a lot of energy in Uptown now. I certainly hope this will feed off of, and feed into, that energy.”