Category Archive: News Wire Services
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Many twists and turns for East plans in last three years
By Peggy Conrad,
Staff Writer
Woodland Progress
Wednesday, August 22, 2007By the end of this month or early in September, East Junior High School in Turtle Creek could be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“It’s an excellent designation, an excellent honor,” says Ron Yochum, chief information officer of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
He hired a specialist in the field, Laura Ricketts, to research and document the history of the building and submit the proposal, which is “a very, very complicated process,” according to Yochum.
In March, the commission voted unanimously to nominate the structure to the National Register. The National Park Service requested some additional details, which Ricketts submitted with the nomination on July 16.
“We’re hopeful the National Park Service will agree with us, as well as with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,” Yochum says.
A decision could be made in the next couple of weeks, as the approval process takes about 45 days to complete. The designation would provide protection for the structure if any federally funded project were threatening the building.The school board voted to begin the process of closing East earlier this year and is scheduled to make a final decision in October. Generations of area residents have attended the school, and many are anxious to see what will become of it.
The first cornerstone for the building was laid in 1917. The school opened in 1918 and the first class graduated in 1919.
In 1939, an addition to house the gym and additional classrooms was built by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency that provided jobs during the Great Depression. A plaque stating the details of the addition is housed, but not currently mounted, at the school.
Originally Union High, the institution was the first joint high school in Pennsylvania, combining Turtle Creek, Wilmerding and East Pittsburgh high schools, according to Bob Mock, head of Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School.
The building became Turtle Creek High, then East Junior High after the merger that formed Woodland Hills School District.
“To remove such a wonderful landmark in the community would be tragic,” says Yochum. “I think it’s an asset for the community that should be preserved.”
If it achieves historic status and a project threatens the building, the case would go into an automatic review process, he says. If the district were to renovate the building, it would not be a problem, unless the renovation would affect the facade.
“I’m sure the community would not be happy with that.” Yochum, whose agency has been offering assistance to Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School, could not be more correct in that assessment.
About two and a half years ago, the group of Turtle Creek residents came together to protest the district’s plans to demolish the building and construct a new junior high school on the same spot.
“Had they done that, knowing what we know now, what a big mistake they would have made,” says Mock, who rallied his neighbors to join the cause.
A national preservationist who attended a town meeting in Turtle Creek in 2005 in support of preserving the school said the structure was a “slam dunk” for the National Register.
“It sailed right through at the state level,” says Mock, a 1968 alumnus of the high school. “This is a positive for our community and a positive for the school district.”
The past few years have been a roller-coaster ride for anyone invested in the future of East. A brief outline follows:
- August 2004 — HHSDR Architects presented preliminary plans for renovation and for new construction. The architects did three to four variations on plans for a new building in the months that followed.
- January 2005 — Hundreds of residents turned out for a town meeting held by the board to voice their opinions on proposed renovation plans for several district buildings. Options for East included the possibility of relocating the school.
- April 2005 — Survey companies were authorized to begin surveying the property at East in preparation for renovation or reconstruction.
- November 2005 — The school board voted in favor of borrowing approximately $30 million to fund the proposed building of a new East Junior High and renovations of the Wolvarena and high school soccer stadium. The district scheduled groundbreaking for the new school building in the summer of 2006.
- November 2005 — A town meeting organized by Commit-tee to Save Turtle Creek High School overflowed with outraged residents who wanted the building to be preserved.
- December 2005 — The board directed HHSDR to de-velop further renovation plans following objections by residents to the planned demolition and rebuilding of the school. Construction costs increased to estimates of $20,641,170 for renovation and $20,329,874 for new construction.
- Initial plans called for putting an addition on the front of the building, but the committee requested the facade not be altered. The administration said keeping the exact shell of a renovated building would increase the cost.
- February 2006 — The board decided to not vote on whether to rebuild or renovate the school until it received more public input on the issue. The district sought residents from all its communities to serve on an ad hoc committee to study the proposed renovation / construction plans.
- May 2006 — After meeting for two months, the committee recommended the district create detailed and comparable design plans, one each for a renovated and new structure, and that the board commit to the least expensive option. Be-cause of a lack of support among members, the board voted to not follow the recommendation and to no longer pursue constructing a new building, but to have renovation plans developed in more detail.
- June 2006 — HHSDR presented an update on work needed immediately at East and asked for direction. Cost of the urgent “A-list” items was $500,000 to $750,000.
- A “B-list” of needed but not urgent items would have cost about $5 million. Following discussion, it was clear the board would not reach a consensus, so the architects were asked to return at a meeting on June 28.
- There was no discussion regarding renovation at that meeting because the board had not had adequate time to meet with the architects and make a decision.
- October 2006 — The superintendent announced the district would consider closing East and two other schools due to declining enrollment.
- Superintendent Roslynne Wilson recommended, as part of the Next Quarter Century Plan, closing Rankin Intermediate, Shaffer Primary and East, as they had the biggest enrollment declines. The proposal was based, in part, on state Act 1, which limits how much districts can hike taxes. The closing of East would save more than $800,000 a year.
- December 2006 — Parents voiced concerns at a public hearing on the plan to consolidate schools. Several board members were concerned that the proposal would have a negative impact.
- January 2007 — All who spoke at a second public hearing were opposed to the consolidation plan. At its next meeting, the board listened to residents and voted down the superintendent’s plan as well as a counterproposal to close East in 2008.
- March 2007 — The board voted to begin the process of closing East and consolidating all seventh- and eighth-graders at West Junior High in 2008-09.
- The Swissvale school, to be renamed Woodland Hills Mid-dle School, would have to be renovated at a cost about $5 million and would have about 740 students in the first year.
- July 2007 — The board held a public hearing on the possible closing of East. Res-idents were opposed to closing the building without a definite plan in place on its future use.
Several options were discussed, including moving ad-ministration offices to the school, turning the building into a creative and performing arts high school for the district and turning it into a charter high school.
Wilson said the process to close the school will include formation of an ad hoc committee that will be asked to report to the board on Oct. 3. The board expects to vote to close the school on Oct. 10.
“It’s been a long saga with a lot of twists and turns,” says Mock, who believes East deserves historic designation for many reasons. The white brick structure was built in the neo-classical style as part of a “City Beautiful” campaign designed to uplift communities in the early 1900s, he says.
“There’s a lot of history here.”
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$500K to fund feasibility study of commuter rail
By Rich Cholodofsky
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, August 17, 2007Efforts to start commuter rail service from Arnold into Pittsburgh keep chugging along as county transit officials this week received a $500,000 state grant to study whether the project is feasible.
Officials announced Thursday they likely will hire a consultant later this year to determine whether there are enough potential riders to justify rail service as well as peg cost estimates for the project.The Westmoreland County Transit Authority is exploring a two-phase project that would offer commuter rail service between Arnold to the Strip District and Latrobe to downtown Pittsburgh.
“We want to get this study done as quickly as we can, maybe within a year,” said authority Executive Director Larry Morris. “Then a decision to go forward or not will be made.”
The state grant will pay for the feasibility study. Transit officials have been waiting for nearly six months for the money.
In the meantime, plans for the commuter rail project have been tweaked as officials moved to extend the proposed Greensburg-to-Pittsburgh line eastward toward Latrobe.“It made sense to extend it out to Latrobe because Latrobe has a train station that has been remodeled and is being used now by Amtrak,” Morris said. “It only made sense to extend it out a little bit.”
Commuter service from Westmoreland County to Pittsburgh was a top recommendation of a study completed last year by a regional planning agency that explored improving transportation needs in the region.
The proposed rail line from Arnold to Pittsburgh’s Strip District would stop in New Kensington, Oakmont, Verona and Lawrenceville. It would utilize existing train tracks.
Projected costs for the Arnold line are about $140 million.
By initial estimates, the proposed Allegheny Valley rail line would service as many as 6,700 daily riders making the 34-minute commute.
Initial plans suggested the proposed Latrobe-Greensburg line could use existing tracks and train stations. It would include stops in Jeannette, Irwin, Trafford, Wilmerding, East Pittsburgh, Braddock, Swissvale and Wilkinsburg.
Early cost estimates ranged from $190 million for a limited-service system to a more ambitious $300 million line that would operate every 30 minutes during peak commuting times.
Preliminary studies have indicated that the more expensive system could carry about 8,800 passengers every day for the 49-minute trip between Greensburg and downtown Pittsburgh.
Transit officials learned earlier this year that for the first time there is a pool of money available to pay for the rail projects.
As part of the comprehensive state transportation bill approved in July by state lawmakers, $50 million a year was allocated to finance commuter rail projects throughout the state.
Rich Cholodofsky can be reached at rcholodofsky@tribweb.com or 724-837-0240.
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North Shore discovery well worth the effort
By Richard Byrne Reilly
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 13, 2007An old well unearthed by construction crews digging the North Shore Connector tunnel has given archeologists a brush with history.
Among glassware and dinner plates was a 10-inch-long toothbrush that historians speculate was last used in the 1850s.“It’s very exciting to find a toothbrush because you generally don’t find them,” said Lori Frye, a lead historian and archeologist with GAI Consultants, a cultural resource group hired by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which is overseeing the tunnel project.
The toothbrush — made of a compound resembling stone and hardened wood — is one of hundreds of artifacts that workers found inside the well, which is in a massive shaft being prepared for a huge German boring machine that will tunnel under the river for a T subway extension connecting Downtown and the North Shore. The well was discovered two weeks ago.
So far, items retrieved from the well have been packed in 50 plastic bags and taken to GAI’s headquarters in West Homestead. Each item is cleaned, researched, bagged and tagged before being sent to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, said Benjamin Resnick, a cultural resources manager for GAI. Items that filled 30 other bags have been recovered from other areas of the construction site since digging began earlier this year.
Items found include bottles, plates, pencils, kerosene lamps and toys, such as pieces of porcelain dolls. Often, when water tables changed or if the well became contaminated, the well was used as a garbage dump — and therefore is an archeological treasure troves.“These are actual physical pieces of our past. The artifacts are from a narrow time frame. It allows us to form a picture of the people who lived here before,” Resnick said.
The shaft sits near the corner of Mazerowski Way and West General Robinson Street across from PNC Park on the North Side. The area was in separate town known as Allegheny City before Pittsburgh annexed it in 1907.
The well was found in an area that had been a sprawl of heavy industry and smaller shops producing glassware, iron-cast stoves, train locomotives and houses in the mid-19th century, said Mike Coleman, president of the Allegheny Society. Pittsburgh painter Mary Cassatt was born in 1844 nearby. Coleman said workers undoubtedly will uncover more artifacts as they dig deeper.
“They’re going to unearth a lot of stuff,” Coleman said.
Resnick estimated that the well dates from the mid-19th century or possibly the early 19th century.
Armed with massive research books with titles such as “Encyclopedia of Britain Pottery and Porcelain Marks,” Resnick’s four-member team tries to determine the manufacturer and production dates for the material. A majority of the ceramics found were produced in England and Ohio, he said.
Resnick’s team is compiling an archeological impact report that will be presented to the Port Authority.
“Anything we collect, we give to the team. This is historical in nature, and that’s why we go through the process in order to preserve history,” said Keith Wargo, director of the North Shore Connector Project.
One of the choicest finds is a large, ornate glass boar, missing three legs and part of its tusks. GAI assistant lab director Colleen Dugan says the boar was a collector’s piece. Numerous clay smoking pipes and scores of bottles — including containers for medicine, alcohol and soft drinks — have been catalogued.
“I love the pig. I named him Spider Pig after the pig in ‘The Simpson’s Movie,'” Dugan said.
One large bottle, in pristine condition, has a label reading: EE Hecks, Pharmacy. Corner of Smithfield and Liberty Streets, Pittsburgh, PA. Prescription Bottle.”
The well was discovered 15 feet below ground, and crews haven’t finished excavating it. The mud and earth have helped keep many items intact, experts said.
“The preservation has just been phenomenal,” Resnick said.
Richard Byrne Reilly can be reached at rreilly@tribweb.com or 412-380-5625.
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Renovations inch closer at historic Dormont pool
By Daveen Rae Kurutz
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, August 6, 2007After two seasons of uncertainty, Dormont Pool users can expect changes that will cement the future of the historic summer hot spot.
Dormont council is expected to approve a measure tonight to begin accepting bids to renovate the aging pool’s bathhouse.“It’s a good start to keeping this pool the centerpiece of the community,” said John Maggio, president of Friends of Dormont Pool, a nonprofit group that raised money for repairs. “Everyone’s been great and offered a lot of support.”
The organization, dedicated to keeping the 87-year-old pool from closing, collected about $812,000 from donors and in grants since spring 2006.
The group received $75,000 from Allegheny County and $250,000 from the state Department of Conservation of Natural Resources. Both grants require the borough to match the money.
Initially, officials estimated repairs at $2.6 million, but Maggio said $1 million is more realistic.The landmark art-deco pool, which opened in 1920, is believed to be the largest public pool in the state. Other than the addition of a community recreation room in 1996, the facility has undergone little renovation.
The pool almost closed last summer after officials discovered leaks and an unstable bathhouse. Friends of Dormont Pool formed and raised about $30,000 to pay for plugging leaks and shoring up the pump room.
In the offseason, workers sealed cracks and repaired pipes to ensure the pool would not leak.
“This is about 1 million gallons of water we’re talking about,” said Ann Conlin, a Dormont councilwoman. “That’s not something you want to mess with.”
Repairs are scheduled for the bathhouse and to support the nearby deck.
“Once these repairs are done, it could stay that way for many more years,” Conlin said. “But we want to add some amenities, but keep the footprint of the pool.”
Council will meet at 7:30 tonight at the municipal building on Hillsdale Avenue.
Maggio said the pool is an essential part of the borough’s identity.
The citizens group shouldered the burden of raising money, Conlin said. She and other borough officials say the group saved a community icon.
“”They’ve done a tremendous job … to make Dormont Pool a jewel,” Conlin said. “For generations to come, people will be able to keep driving down Banksville Road thinking, ‘Oh my God, it looks like a beach.’ The integrity of the pool will continue.”
Daveen Rae Kurutz can be reached at dkurutz@tribweb.com or 412-380-5627.
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Overnight in a Wright – Our architecture critic visits the Duncan House and discovers the delights of a mid-century modern Usonian
Sunday, August 05, 2007
By Patricia Lowry, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteGarden is watered, cats are fed, family is squared away. It’s Mom’s overnight out, a solo retreat on which my only companions will be a few good books, including my old, yellowing paperback copy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “The Natural House,” because I’m going to stay in one: The Duncan House, a plywood prefab built in the 1950s in a Chicago suburb.
But I’m headed east out of Pittsburgh, at 4:09 on a Monday afternoon. As I pull onto a crowded parkway, I’m hoping the gas in my tank will get me to the town of Mt. Pleasant, where they still pump it for you at no extra charge. Just as I pull into a gas station there, my warning light comes on. “Fill it up, please,” I say, getting in a 1950s groove.
So it isn’t until I’m almost to Kecksburg that I feel that I’ve shed the city and things-I-must-do. As I come up over a rise, the countryside spreads out before me, patches of green under a cloudless blue sky, with a farmhouse and barn in the distance and horses grazing in a small pasture to my right.
When selecting a home site, “The best thing to do is go as far out as you can get,” Wright, a notorious anti-urbanist, advises in “The Natural House,” published in 1954 as a guide to building the Usonian house, the acronym he coined for the United States of North America. Usonian houses were affordable, single-story dwellings for the middle class; over his long career he built more than 100 of them, including the Duncan House.
At 5:30, I pull onto the private road leading to the Duncan House. There’s a pickup truck crossing the one-lane bridge up ahead; the driver is Tom Papinchak, the house’s owner. We wave and I follow him through the dense, deciduous forest up to the house, a long, low ranch in a clearing at the end of a winding road.
“I’m ready for my night in the woods, Tom,” I say, gravel crunching underfoot as I follow him through the side door under the carport. This old screen door with its patina of scuffs and scratches must have been the one Don and Elizabeth Duncan used every day, not the big double doors at the main entrance.
The Duncans built this house in Lisle, Ill., in 1957. Fifty years later, I’m walking into their kitchen on a hilltop in Western Pennsylvania’s Laurel Mountains. No time-space warp at work here; just old-fashioned ingenuity — and a vision to link four houses in the Laurel Highlands with Wright associations.
A low-key resort
After Don Duncan’s death at age 95 in 2002, his estate sold the house and its 15 acres to a developer who didn’t want the building but agreed to work with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy to find a new location for it. In April 2004, the 2,200-square-foot house was deconstructed and moved to Johnstown, where it was to become an educational center for 20th-century architecture and design on the grounds of a proposed botanical garden at Sandyvale Cemetery, the town’s oldest burial ground. Papinchak, a young Westmoreland County home builder and carpenter, would be the general contractor.
He and his wife, Heather, had an interest in Wright; they had purchased 125 acres near Acme, Westmoreland County, that held two Wrightian weekend houses designed in the 1960s by former Taliesin apprentice Peter Berndtson for Pittsburgh businessmen James Balter and Harry Blum.
When the Johnstown plan fell through for lack of funding, a new one evolved — move the house to the Papinchaks’ land and open it as a guest house that also would accommodate tours and seminars. The state helped with a $200,000 First Industry Fund tourism loan, and many suppliers donated materials.
“Why wouldn’t I want to do this?” says Papinchak, who led a small crew in the yearlong reconstruction. “I already had the land and the company to build the house.”
What he didn’t have were construction plans, although there were detailed photographs and drawings documenting the deconstruction, and each piece had been lettered and numbered.
“Once we caught on to the system, we were all right,” he said. “I was like, ‘Give me a 2AF1!’ ”
Berndtson’s 1962 master plan for the site had called for 24 houses, each set within a 300-foot circular clearing in the woods, but only the Blum and Balter houses were built. Today the property, laced with about five miles of hiking trails, is a low-key resort called Polymath Park, the name given the land by its previous owner and which Papinchak retained. Lodging is available in the Duncan and Balter houses; the Blum House will serve as the visitor center, cafe, spa and gift shop when it opens later this month.
Close to two other Wright houses — it’s about 15 miles to Fallingwater and 30 to Kentuck Knob — the Duncan House is one of only six Wright houses in the country that accommodate overnight guests.
Because of Wright pilgrims, “We’ve been full almost every night,” Papinchak says.
An open plan
The place is decidedly more homey than it was at the ribbon-cutting on June 14. There are towels in the bathrooms and a microwave, small fridge, toaster oven and hot-and-cold water dispenser in the breakfast room off the kitchen. A note left on the kitchen island, surfaced in the original red-linen laminate, advises against using the house’s cooktop range, dishwasher, big pink refrigerator and oven, “to preserve the historical integrity.”
But look, there’s a bowl of fruit on the table in the breakfast room, a nice, welcoming touch. I make a beeline for the grapes.
Plastic! What a letdown. Then I laugh. Very 1957. I heat up my leftover soup in the microwave, then paw through the basket of snacks on top of it, settling for a small bag of “fruit crisps.” Very 2007.
And that’s the way it is throughout the Duncan House: One minute you’re in the 1950s in the kitchen, fantasizing about what Elizabeth Duncan cooked and looked like, and the next President Bush is commuting Scooter Libby’s sentence on MSNBC in the master bedroom. Happily, the living room is TV-free, and the overall ambience, furniture-wise, is mid-century modern.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s enter the house like the guests we are, through the double doors. Here Wright is up to his old tricks, compressing space overhead in the entrance hall before opening it up to the great expanse of the sunken living room. Three steps down and we’re in it, marveling that a room that feels this big could be contained in a house that, from the outside, looks so small. Straight ahead, there’s a view of the stone-walled terrace through a span of glass-paneled doors.
To the right is the stone fireplace wall, where the living room flows into the dining room, which flows into the cork-floored kitchen, unusually large for a Wright house.
With a small kitchen, “We have more money to spend on spaciousness for the rest of the house,” he writes in “The Natural House.” But in the Usonian houses, Wright saw the kitchen as an extension of the living room.
“Back in farm days there was but one big living room, a stove in it,” he wrote. “And Ma was there cooking … .”
Well, Ma’s not cooking tonight, so let’s get on with the tour, back through the living room and up the three steps to the long hall Wright called the gallery, which runs along the front of the house and is lined on one side with built-in cupboards designed for storage within and display above. Off the gallery are two small bedrooms and a bath; another bath is on the opposite side of the master bedroom, located at the end of the gallery.
Downstairs, but off limits to overnight guests, is a conference room with its own stone fireplace and terrace.
Concrete to stone
I plug in my laptop at the kitchen table and start to write. The house is wireless, so I curse myself (again) for not having a wireless card. Then I curse the cursing. Relaaaax, I tell myself. There was no Internet in 1957.
At 8:30, the sun is dipping below the tree line and throwing golden rectangles on the stone fireplace wall. There were no stones in the house when the Duncans owned it; they opted for the less expensive concrete block. But the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy told the Papinchaks that stone would be an appropriate upgrade, if they could afford it. It also would be a better fit with the house’s rugged, rocky new surroundings.
The house was full of natural light in late afternoon.
“Orientation was a key factor,” Papinchak said, adding that the house is south-facing, the same way it was in Lisle. But with the sun going down, it’s time to turn on some lights.
Artificial lighting, Wright writes, should be “as near daylighting as possible.” He used recessed lighting in ceilings to create the effect of natural light. But the Duncan House rooms are too evenly illuminated at night; for me they lack drama and hominess. The Papinchaks have provided some table lamps, but the house could use more, especially in the bedrooms. My reading-in-bed plan thwarted, I veg in front of the tube until I fall asleep.
At 5 a.m. I wake to a brightening sky and bird songs. I should get up, but I roll over. At 7:30 I’m faced with two choices — the master bath with a glass-walled shower facing the woods or the windowless bath next door. I opt for the warmer, cave-like bath.
After breakfast I visit the nearby Blum and Balter houses, separated from each other by a broad meadow with a view of the Laurel Ridge.
And after a lingering look, it’s time for my reluctant return to the city.
First published at PG NOW on August 3, 2007 at 12:11 pm
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Brentwood’s Point View won’t be saved – Final OK Given to Tear It Down
By Erin Gibson Allen
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, August 02, 2007The Point View Hotel on Brownsville Road in Brentwood is believed by local historians to have been a likely stop for slaves hoping to escape to Canada on the Underground Railroad.
At its July 24 meeting, Brentwood council gave final approval to demolish the historic hotel. Brentwood Medical Group, which now owns the hotel, plans to build a three-story medical building on the site.
Louise Sturgess, of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said there are few buildings in Pittsburgh that are as old as the Point View Hotel.
“Based on documents the foundation has seen, we believe the building did serve as a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s.” Estimates of the construction date are as early as 1832.
The foundation included the hotel in its book, “A Legacy in Bricks & Mortar, African-American Landmarks in Allegheny County.”
Samuel Black, the curator for African American history exhibits at the Senator John Heinz History Center, agreed that the Point View Hotel is an historic site, although it was never officially designated. He regrets the pending loss of the building not only for its historical significance, but also for its potential to serve as a tool for teaching about the antebellum era.
“It is an important asset that places the community in American history,” he said.
Sarah Martin, a teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools and self-described Underground Railroad buff, has for years given tours to area children of Pittsburgh locations believed to have served as safe houses for fleeing slaves.
Of visiting the Point View she said: “Over the years not much was done to the basement. I got chills standing on the dirt floor. My hair stood on end. It was a very moving experience.”
Pittsburgh was a strong force in helping slaves escape to Canada, she said.
“African Americans in Pittsburgh were more active than in a lot of other places,” Ms. Martin said. She believes that because many African Americans in Pittsburgh were business owners at the time, a slave could easily disappear by finding a sympathetic person with access to places to hide.
In recent times, Point View has been used as a bar and restaurant, although historically it was an inn. Famous Americans who allegedly stopped at the inn include Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor and James Buchanan.
Keith Andreyko, an architect with Integrity Design, the firm responsible for design of the new building to be erected on the site, said that he had not toured much of the hotel himself because he thinks it is unsafe.
Several historical sites in the area have been lost over the past 15 years because they were not kept in their original condition, Mr. Black said.
Dr. Scott Carnivale, president of Brentwood Medical, said, “It’s sad for a building of that age to be demolished. I recognize that it’s a loss for the community.”
Although it initially hoped that the building could be kept intact, once the History & Landmarks Foundation determined that it could not be saved, its strategy was to stay in contact with Brentwood council and the developers. The foundation hopes to be granted a final tour of the historic site.
Ms. Sturgess, Mr. Black, and Ms. Martin each said that honoring the building’s place in history is important and hope that a permanent plaque describing the hotel’s role in the Underground Railroad can be installed somewhere on the site.
Both Dr. Carnivale and Mr. Andreyko indicated that they are optimistic that they can arrange a final tour of the building.
Demolition is expected early this fall.
Erin Gibson Allen is a freelance writer.
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Market Square may get historical makeover
By Jeremy Boren
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, July 30, 2007Two Market Square landmarks could be poised to regain their early-20th century charm when the city’s Historic Review Commission weighs renovation plans Wednesday.
Developers and architects believe the improvements will heighten the appeal of the square — a place many avoid because of the prevalence of homeless people and panhandlers.
Washington County developer Lucas Piatt said exterior renovations to the vacant G.C. Murphy Building will restore a 1920s or ’30s era look, based on photographs of the store in its heyday. On the opposite side of Market Square, Nicholas Coffee Co. plans to turn a closed bar into a coffee shop with an old-style European look.
Most of Piatt’s $32 million renovation project is to begin by year’s end. Retail space will occupy the first floor of the G.C. Murphy Building, and most of the 38,000-square-foot headquarters of the YMCA will be on the second floor. The Y will occupy a portion of another floor as well.
“The benefit of having the activity back in the building is huge,” Piatt said. “The tax repercussions for the city will be phenomenal.”
Piatt’s project will receive about $6 million in state aid and benefit from tax credits for restoring historic buildings.
Downtown architecture firm Strada LLC is handling the design work on the G.C. Murphy Building and nearby structures, such as the adjoining seven-story D&K Building.
“There’s a combination of architectural styles within all these buildings,” said John Martin, a Strada principal. “We’re trying to bring the buildings as close as we can to their own original look.”
Original brick that was painted over will be exposed, decorative stone fixtures at the entrance will be rebuilt, and windows will be replaced.
“The (historic commission) would rather you don’t invent,” Martin said. “They don’t want it to be Disneyized.”
To avoid that, he’s relying on photographs of the buildings from the 1930s to help guide the design. Martin said he thinks the commission will approve the project. The changes still would need approval from the state Museum and Historic Commission.
Nicholas Coffee hopes to expand its imported coffee, tea and spices business to include the former Mick McGuire’s bar next door on Graeme Street. The Irish pub was closed Jan. 12 after police arrested three people accused of dealing drugs from the business.
Architect Doug Sipp of Sipp & Tepe Architects has designed about $50,000 worth of facade renovations for coffee shop owner Nicholas G. Nicholas. The interior would be changed into a cafe offering coffee, espresso, pastries and other treats.
“The facade will be like a step-down European storefront,” said Mike Kratsas, project manager. “There will be large windows like an old-time storefront.”
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, welcomed both of the historically sensitive upgrades to Market Square.
“I think that both coming together give a great deal of substance to the effort to make the square a vital part of the residential Downtown,” Ziegler said. “Restoring historic buildings creates an environment where people want to be.”
Jeremy Boren can be reached at jboren@tribweb.com or 412-765-2312.
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Bedford Springs course put back on map
By Rick Starr
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, July 22, 2007Many golf courses would be proud to claim either Donald Ross or A.W. Tillinghast as its designer. Bedford Springs Resort Old Course displays the work of both architects from the “Golden Age” of golf course design.
The classic 18-hole course, which just reopened for public play, offers a rare chance to not just study their hole designs, but play them.
Bedford Springs is back on the golf destination map following a $120 million renovation and restoration of the links and 216-room hotel by Bedford Resort Partners, Ltd.
Green fees range from $110 to $135.
The resort reopened July 12 after being closed for almost two decades. It was virtually abandoned in 1986, just two years after the Department of the Interior designated its hotel and spa as a National Historic Landmark.
Located about 100 miles east of Pittsburgh, Bedford Springs Old Course now welcomes a new generation of golfers.
While the hotel dates to 1804 (Vice President Aaron Burr was one of its original guests), golf didn’t arrive on the scene until 1895.
Spencer Oldham built the original 18-hole layout, complete with geometric designs such as the S-curve and donut bunkers, which have been restored on the third hole.
In 1912, while cutting it back to a nine-hole layout, Tillinghast designed a classic little 130-yard par-3 hole (now the 14th hole) which he named “Tiny Tim.”
Ross kept “Tiny Tim” intact when he redesigned the course in 1923. Even Ross couldn’t improve on Tillinghast’s use of mounding, wetlands, a creek, pond and tight bunkering on the short hole.
“Tiny Tim” stretches from 108 to 138 yards, and Tillinghast later wrote about the 13 little mounds on the left, referring to them as the “Alps.”
Bedford Springs superintendent David Swartzel said Ross’ work is obvious on holes No. 4 through 9, which follow the flood plain of Shober’s Run, one of the states Gold Medal trout streams.
“We created a lot of habitat for trout during our construction,” Swartzel said.
While only 6,785 yards from the back tees, Bedford Springs Old Course features five par-5 holes, and five par-3 holes.
The signature par-4 sixth hole, known as Ross’ Cathedral, is cut out of a deep stand of oak and hickory.
“You could pick that hole up and put it down in Ashville, N.C., and you wouldn’t know the difference,” Bedford Springs golf pro Ron Leporati said. “Beautiful is the only word to describe it.”
Architect Ron Forse, whose Forse Design team specializes in golf course restorations, rebuilt every course feature at Bedford Springs, from the bunkers to the bent grass fairways, greens and tees.
“It’s all new, but it’s not a new style of architecture,” Swartzel said.
Forse also reinstated Ross’ original closing holes, which had been replaced by a driving range.
Bedford Springs is the 37th Ross design and 11th Tillinghast layout which Forse has restored.
“These strategic courses are forever enjoyable for every golfer’s ability,” Forse said.
About Donald Ross
No course designer had a greater impact on the American golf landscape in the first half of the last century than Donald Ross.Born in 1872 in the north Sottish coastal town of Dornoch, he arrived in the United States in 1899 to build the Oakley Golf Club near Boston.
Before his death in 1948, Ross built or designed 413 courses, and his work still can be seen across New England, the midwest, and southeast coast.
Over 100 national championships have been played on his courses.
Courses considered to be among his best include Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, N.C., Oakland Hills Country Club in Birmingham, Mich., Inverness Club in Toledo, Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y., and Seminole in North Palm Beach, Fla.
Given the constraints of train and car travel, Ross never saw some of his courses. He did many designs from topographic maps and blueprints which he studied in his cottage behind the third green at Pinehurst.
As Ross often said, “Golf should be a pleasure, not a penance.”
Design features
Following is a list of design features which Ross repeated in many of his golf courses:• Very little walking required from one green to the next tee.
• Short par-4s built on uphill ground.
• False fronts and openings to the front of greens to invite run-up shots.
• Fallaway slopes next to greens.
• Deep trouble over the green to punish bold golfers.
• Greens (pushup construction) sloped with the terrain for drainage.
• Subtle breaks hidden in greens.
Source: Donald Ross Society
Local connections
Following is a list of area courses designed in whole or in part by Donald Ross:• Edgewood Country Club
When Ross designed the 18-hole layout for the private club in 1921, he had to factor in the typical hilly terrain near Pittsburgh.
A total of 13 holes have drop offs behind or alongside the greens.
Edgewood, which was founded in 1898 as one of the first golf clubs in the country, took advantage of its 100th anniversary to go back to many of Ross’ original designs.
Ross’ work clearly can be seen in Edgewood’s par-3 12th hole. A slightly uphill tee shot of about 175 yards must clear the false front of the green and find the right level, or bogey quickly comes into play.
“Once you get to the green, that’s when the strokes happen,” Edgewood pro Pete Micklewright said. “It’s really a classic Donald Ross design.”
Arthur Hills redesigned the areas around Edgewood’s clubhouse in 1990.
• Immergrun Golf Course
The public course in Loretto is owned and operated by St. Francis University and has never been redesigned since Ross built it in 1917. The nine-hole layout was built as part of industrialist Charles M. Schwab’s estate. He attended the college before moving on to become president of Carnegie Steel, U.S. Steel and Bethlehem Steel.
Golfers interested in playing a Ross design can pick up a bargain here – it’s only $8 for a walking round on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Rumors abound at Immergrun, but it’s not true Ross designed it for a left-handed golfer. (It’s true Schwab kept champagne cool in the spring house beside the ninth green, where he would pause with guests before finishing the round.)
• Rolling Rock Club
The private club near Ligonier was originally a nine-hole course designed by Ross in 1917.
Brian Silva designed nine new holes in 1997.
The course is not overly long – Ross’ front nine measures 3,066 yards – but makes up for it with its greens.
In typical Ross fashion, the greens are fast, well contoured and difficult to lag.
“I’d put our greens up against any in the country,” assistant pro Stephen Witcoski said.
Rolling Rock’s par-3 third hole features another Ross signature – hidden bunkers. The three massive bunkers are not visible from the tee.
More info: www.donaldrosssociety.org
Rick Starr can be reached at rstarr@tribweb.com or (724) 226-4691.