Category Archive: News Wire Services
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School preservation sought at Turtle Creek
By M. Ferguson Tinsley,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, March 30, 2006Listing the former Turtle Creek High School, now known as East Junior High School, on the National Register of Historic Places could be on the horizon — and it could help save the storied building.
A state preservation agency would have to be consulted before a nationally recognized landmark could be demolished, according to a representative of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
“We have a person working on the nomination form now,” said Ron Yochum, chief information officer for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
The nomination will be submitted in four to six weeks and a decision returned in a year, according to the foundation’s President Arthur Ziegler.
The final word must come down from the state Historical and Museum Commission in Harrisburg.
Ann Safley, a state museum commission historic preservation specialist, said the old high school was deemed eligible for the list several years ago and has been held at that status pending a formal nomination. Even so, eligibility alone bestows the same status as that of a building already on the national list, she emphasized.
Ultimately her department cannot stop demolition or renovation of a historic building, said Ms. Safley, but “if [Woodland Hills is] getting state or federal reimbursement for the project, they will have to consult with us.”
Mr. Yochum said The National Register designation is given to properties older than 50 that serve to recall significant historical events, people or locations.
“In this case it’s the architecture of the building and the importance to the community,” said Mr. Yochum.
Last December, up to 250 people rallied behind the Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School and challenged the Woodland Hills School District’s plan to spend up to $20 million to demolish the 90-year-old building in Turtle Creek.
Led by borough resident Bob Mock, the committee demanded that the district consider renovating the school rather than razing it for a new building.
Since then, the district has ordered HHSDR Architects/Engineers of Pittsburgh and Sharon to rethink the plan.
In January, the planners produced new drawings showing that renovations would cost nearly $22 million.
Further in response to the committee, the district formed a citizens/staff review group that has looked into the issue for several weeks. The group is due to comment on their findings next month, according to the district facilities coordinator Christopher Baker.
Mr. Baker said a representative from the Pittsburgh preservation group went through the building a week ago.
If the state Historical and Museum Commission gives the school a spot on the list, it could trigger more architect’s drawings. Demolition, however, may cease to be an option.
“Usually historical commissions don’t like for you to demolish their buildings,” Mr. Baker said.
(M. Ferguson Tinsley can be reached at mtinsley@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1455. )
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Dormont must address leaking, locker room repairs at pool
By Al Lowe
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Thursday, March 23, 2006Dormont officials are reluctant to say it, but it seems unlikely their landmark swimming pool will open on Memorial Day.
It might not open at all.
“I won’t say that yet,” Interim Manager Russell McKibben said after a special council meeting called last week to hear reports on the leaking pool and structural problems in the locker rooms at the complex at McFarland Road and Dwight Avenue.
Making the presentation were engineers from Gateway Engineers, a Green Tree firm hired to assess the situation.
“The work [to stop the pool’s leaking and to repair the recreation center] needs to be done or you shouldn’t open the pool,” borough engineer Ruthann Omer said.
Council members told the audience of more than 30 people that it planned to work with the community to try to resolve the problem.
Gateway reported to council that it would cost about $2 million to replace concrete and make piping repairs to stop the leaking. The pool loses 3 to 4 inches of water a day during operation; it should lose a half- inch a day to evaporation.
Another problem, structural deficiencies at the recreation center/locker room which would cost $635,000 to repair, caused Councilman John Sparvero to wonder if the second floor of the center could be rented to groups this summer, as council had planned.
Wayne Jacobs, of Gateway Engineers, said he had to study the problem more closely before making a recommendation on that.
Improvements that have to be made to the building include replacing planks supporting the floor of the men’s and women’s locker rooms, repairing or replacing beams in the filter room and installing a temporary support system while the building support columns are structurally analyzed and a repair method is planned.
Mr. McKibben said the borough could not float a bond to cover the cost of all the repairs. “Our indebtedness prevents us from borrowing that kind of money,” he said.
He had asked the engineers to evaluate the building and determine any structural deficiencies because few improvements have been made over the years. “If you want to shoot the messenger, go ahead,” he told the audience.
An option being considered is using a paint to act as a sealing agent to stop the leaking at what is expected to cost much less than $2 million; although that cost is not known. Gateway has asked Aqua Pool, a swimming pool contractor, to determine whether this is feasible.
The 60,000-square-foot pool holds 1.4 million gallons and is among the largest pools in the state. It received landmark designation from the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in 2002.
But officials were forced to fill the pool with 8.1 million gallons last year. The cost was $42,000, twice as much as normal for the summer, Mr. McKibben said.
“We’re losing a phenomenal amount of money,” Mr. Sparvero said.
As usual, the pool, which is normally open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, was a money-losing proposition, as pools are for other South communities. The borough received $37,610 in pool pass sales and $92,252 in daily receipts. Utilities cost $85,000.
Other costs included general maintenance and repairs, including replacing pumps, at a cost of $25,000, using chemicals costing $33,000 and salaries of $71,000.
“You can see the whole situation is pretty upside down,” Councilwoman Ann Conlin said.
She chairs the recreation committee, which is scheduled to discuss the problems further at at a 7 p.m. Tuesday meeting at the municipal building.
The pool began as a wading pool in 1923 by damming a stream, according to records kept by the Dormont Historical Society.
It was developed to look like a tropical lake before a decision was made to hire contractor Scheiffer and Rait, of Dormont, to build a pool. The project was finished in 1928.
The pool and a wooden pool house were dedicated in 1929. Fine sand was added at that time to make the area resemble a beach.
The all-time attendance record was set in 1949 when a crowd of 5,000 came to the pool July 4.
During audience comments at the meeting March 14 Sarann Fisher, of Dormont, implored council, “The pool is the reason people pay taxes in Dormont. There has got to be a way to fix it.”
(Al Lowe is a freelance writer.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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School fire does little damage at Arsenal Middle School
By Bobby Kerlik
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, March 21, 2006The roof of a historic Lawrenceville school caught fire Monday, but children are not expected to miss any classes, Pittsburgh Public Schools officials said.
There were no students in Arsenal Middle School at the time because an after-school program had just ended. The remaining staff were evacuated, and no one was injured, Principal Debra Rucki said.
Firefighters had the one-alarm fire — which started about 4:40 p.m. — extinguished within minutes of arrival. Arson investigators ruled the fire accidental.
A Strip District company, Ralph J. Meyer Co., has been doing work on the school’s roof.
Workers had been using torches earlier in the day, and parts of the roof that were smoldering progressed to flames, arson investigators said.
The fire was contained to the roof. It appeared to cause no damage inside the building, except for water seeping into the top floor, Rucki said.
Materials and equipment, including rubber insulation and propane tanks, sent thick plumes of black smoke into the sky, said Pittsburgh fire Battalion Chief Keith Drudy.
“It looked a lot worse than it was,” Drudy said of the fire. “I knew right away when I pulled up and saw the (trash bin). We always have (fire) problems with roofers in general.”
Ralph J. Meyer Co. officials could not be reached for comment.
Worried parents watched firefighters extinguish the flames.
“I’ll be debating to send my kids to school (today),” said April Rocco. “I want to make sure it’s OK.”
District spokeswoman Lynne Turnquist said there will be school today.
Under the right-sizing plan adopted by the school board on Feb. 28, Arsenal, located at Butler and 40th streets, will be converted to an elementary school this fall.
The school is named for the old Allegheny Arsenal, which made armaments during the Civil War. The school, built in 1931, occupies part of the site where the munitions factory once stood. An addition was built in 1939.
The school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. It was designated a historic landmark by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation on Nov. 30, 1999, and on Dec. 17 of that year, it was designated a historic structure by the city of Pittsburgh.
Bobby Kerlik can be reached at bkerlik@tribweb.com.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Unusual tax credit sale would fund renovations at Schenley High
By Joe Smydo,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, March 20, 2006Pittsburgh school officials are considering an unusual public-private partnership that would use federal tax credits to help pay for renovation of historic Schenley High School in Oakland.
Under the arrangement, Pittsburgh Public Schools would sell the 90-year-old building to a for-profit venture, such as a group of banks, and use the proceeds to address the school’s costly asbestos and systems problems.
But the for-profit group wouldn’t be buying the building as much as the tax credits an owner can get for overhauling an historic building, said Richard Fellers, district operations chief, and Chris Berdnik, district finance director.
Mr. Fellers and Mr. Berdnik said the for-profit partner would lease Schenley to the district for a period of years dictated by federal tax law. After that, the district would buy back the building at a nominal cost, perhaps $1.
The deal would allow the district to renovate Schenley while keeping its debt load down and the partner would get a reduction on its federal income taxes.
The plan is in a preliminary stage and subject to thorough vetting by the administration, school board and community, Mr. Fellers and Mr. Berdnik emphasized.
At Wednesday’s legislative meeting, school board members will vote on having the district’s bond lawyers work on the proposal.
“This is not a financing methodology that you read about every day for a school building,” Mr. Berdnik said.
But it isn’t unprecedented, either. Mr. Berdnik said he’s found three schools in Virginia and one in the area of Spokane, Wash., that were renovated under similar arrangements.
In addition, public-private partnerships have been formed to refurbish other kinds of historic buildings.
“Essentially, there is a market for for-profit organizations to acquire tax credits,” Mr. Fellers said.
Overall, the use of federal tax credits to rehabilitate historic properties is widespread. Since 1978, the program has helped owners make $3.5 billion in upgrades to 2,090 properties in Pennsylvania.
The tax credits are available only to building owners. The district doesn’t pay federal income taxes or have use for tax credits itself. Mr. Berdnik suggested bringing in a private partner to leverage the credits and limit the renovation project’s impact on city taxpayers.
In November, as part of a districtwide reorganization, school Superintendent Mark Roosevelt proposed closing the triangle-shaped Schenley building and moving the school to the Reizenstein Middle School site in Shadyside in 2007.
Mr. Roosevelt said the district couldn’t afford to renovate Schenley, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has a long list of distinguished alumni. One architect estimated the project would cost $55.7 million, and another put the cost at $86.9 million.
Parents, students and other school supporters mounted a campaign to save the building, saying its location in vibrant Oakland fueled success of the school’s international studies program. Mr. Roosevelt named a task force to study the school’s future, and a third architect later proposed a scaled-down rehabilitation for $32 million.
Mr. Roosevelt has put Schenley’s fate on hold indefinitely.
While Mr. Fellers and Mr. Berdnik declined to say how much money the district may put into Schenley, they said tax credits wouldn’t fund the whole project.
To make up the difference, the district could issue bonds or use proceeds from the sale of other buildings. There’s no shortage of buildings to sell, given that Mr. Roosevelt’s reorganization will close 18.
The federal tax credits would cover 20 percent of the cost of work allowed by the federal government, said Bonnie Wilkinson Mark, historical architect with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Abatement of asbestos and overhaul of heating and ventilation systems are allowable work; landscaping and sidewalk work are not.
Mr. Fellers and Mr. Berdnik proposed selling the tax credits for more than 90 cents on the dollar and offered this example:
A $40 million project would generate $8 million in tax credits. The district would sell the building — and the credits, they said — for about $7.3 million. The district would use the proceeds for renovations, and the private partner would use the credits to lower its income taxes.
Under federal law, the private partner would own the building for at least five years after renovations are completed.
During that period, the partner would lease the building to the district for continued use as Schenley High School. At the end of that period, the district would buy back the building for a nominal charge.
Ms. Wilkinson Mark said she’d already heard about the proposal from an architect working with the district.
She said the partners would have to submit the proposal to her organization for review. The commission would then make a recommendation to the National Park Service, which has the authority to accept or reject tax-credit projects.
On Wednesday, school board members will vote on paying up to $30,000 for the district’s bond counsel to research the proposal.
(Joe Smydo can be reached at jsmydo@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1548.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Man with a plan
By Jerry Vondas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 19, 2006Wilmerding has its own version of a medieval Scottish castle, a majestic five-story edifice that overlooks the Westinghouse Valley community that George Westinghouse established for his Air Brake Corp.
The Castle, as it is known, was designed in 1886 by Frederick Osterling to house the executive offices of the Westinghouse Air Brake Corp.
The Castle, with 55,000 square feet of office and dining areas and 57 rooms, is constructed of Indiana limestone. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks designation of historic Allegheny County Buildings.
For over a century, the Castle served as the headquarters of a corporation that fabricated railroad and industrial pneumatic devices, including the air brakes that were invented and patented by Westinghouse.
The interior has the original marble floors and corridors, brass fixtures and oak woodwork throughout. Several of the conference rooms are paneled and have marble and carved-stone walk-in fireplaces. The textured ceiling of the executive dining room is painted with symbolic works of art.
The hand-carved oak doors of the executive dining room, which stand 12 feet high, are done in a linen-fold design, carved to resemble the convolutions of a folded napkin. And the four-face clock tower — which was added to the main building when the Castle was rebuilt in 1897 following a disastrous fire — chimes on the half-hour.
But to the residents of Wilmerding, a small borough nestled in the Westinghouse Valley in the eastern environs of Allegheny County, the Castle is more than a historic landmark. It is a reminder of WABCO, a company that Westinghouse relocated in Wilmerding in 1989, and that, along with its successor, Wabtec, has been the borough’s primary employer.
Westinghouse, a man known for his benevolent management style, plotted and then established Wilmerding as one of the nation’s first planned communities. He built substantial homes for his workers, who at first emigrated primarily from Wales and Ireland, and then from southern and eastern Europe. He also built a school to educate their youngsters, provided for their health care and established a pension plan.
In his company, unlike others, female engineers were accorded the same benefits and respect as their male counterparts.
Samuel Gompers, considered by many as one of the great labor leaders in American history, noted that if all employers treated their employees like Westinghouse did, there would be no need for labor unions.
Wabtec, the spin-off of WABCO, still provides employment for more than 1,000 residents of the borough.
It is this impetus of having a viable industrial entity still operating in an area where many of the steel mills and factories have been shuttered that motivated a group of six individuals — John Cagetta, John Nalevanko, Joseph L. Castagnola, Barbara R. Hiquet, James H. McConomy and Geraldine Homitz — working closely with borough officials to form a nonprofit group called Wilmerding Renewed Inc., to revitalize what they understand is an industrial area with a promising future.
“We have been told,” said Castagnola, a businessman, “that Wabtec has enough orders to take them into the next decade. And that they intend to add additional employees in the coming months in order to produce the components for new subway cars being built for the Port Authority that services New York and New Jersey.”
WRI is using the Castle, which continues to have such a positive impact in the community, as the cornerstone of its revitalization project — a project that will include, in addition to the continuation of the George Westinghouse Museum and its collection of prized memorabilia detailing the career of Westinghouse and his WABCO, the addition of ample office and meeting areas that can be used as a gathering place for community educational and social purposes.
The nonprofit APICS E&R Foundation, which owns the Castle, is selling the Castle when its 20-year lease is up this year.
Currently the WRI, as part of its 10-year revitalization plan, has signed an agreement to purchase the castle for $750,000. It will be refurbished and used as a first-class office building.
“It would be unthinkable to go ahead with plans to revitalize the borough and have an empty Castle,” Castagnola said. “We hope to raise the money from public and private sources and grants.”
Although James “Bert” McConomy, an attorney with offices in Downtown Pittsburgh, left Wilmerding when he was 14, he continues to think of the borough as his home.
“As kids, my brother and I sold newspapers at the gate of the WABCO plant,” McConomy said. “We sold newspapers for 4 cents. Everyone gave us a nickel, and we got to keep a penny. And as kids we used to watch the limousines as they made it up the driveway to the Castle. It was awesome.”
McConomy envisions as part of the revitalization plan — which includes the upgrading of the borough’s historical district along with replica lampposts identical to those in Lennox, Mass., where Westinghouse had a home — the acquisition of the former George Westinghouse Memorial High School building for use as an entertainment and repertory theater complex.
“The school auditorium seats 600,” McConomy said. “And in addition, we’ve been told that we can upgrade the gymnasium, classrooms, meeting rooms and library facilities at a minimal cost.”
During his lifetime, Westinghouse established 60 companies, including the Westinghouse Electric Corp., which he lost during the business panic of 1907. He also acquired nearly 400 patents.
Geraldine Homitz, a former mayor of Wilmerding, recalled t
“It was a sense of pride to work for Mr. Westinghouse’s company,” she said. “The women employees who worked in the general and executive offices wore white gloves and hats and the men suits and ties. It was an elegant sight to see them leaving the Castle at the end of the work day.
“Mr. Westinghouse also provided a pension for the widows, gave his employees a half day off on Saturday and every family received a ham for the holidays.”
Shortly before his death in 1914, Westinghouse — who, as Union Navy veteran of the Civil War is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., along with his wife, Marguerite — told a friend:
“If someday, they say of me that in my work I have contributed something to the welfare and happiness of my fellow men, I shall be satisfied.”
Jerry Vondas can be reached at jvondas@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7823.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Mellon’s Downtown plans leave subtenants in limbo
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Thursday, March 9, 2006Come May 31, one of Pittsburgh’s most dramatic buildings, the ornately designed Two Mellon Bank Center, will be nearly empty.
That’s not surprising, since the major tenant, Mellon Financial Corp., announced last year it planned to vacate the 11-story Downtown building — also known as the Union Trust Building — sometime before the end of May.
However, the question that has many people still guessing is: “What’s next?” for the landmark building constructed by industrialist Henry Clay Frick and opened in 1917.
“Limbo is a good word,” said Rick Conley, owner of Oliver Flowers, describing the plight of the more than 20 tenants who still populate the first-level retail arcade area, and remaining office tenants on the floors above.
“We really haven’t heard anything,” said Conley, who just about every day talks to someone else with a question about what’s going on there.
“We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop,” said Rachelle Scanga, owner of the Remedies pharmacy, a 20-year-plus tenant.
Scanga, like a number of other tenants, said she’d like to stay, and is anxious to hear word on her fate from DeBartolo Property Group LLC, the building’s owner.
Most of the tenants are subleasing from Mellon, which has decided not to renew its master lease for the nearly 600,000-square-foot structure designed in Flemish Gothic style by noted Pittsburgh architect F.J. Osterling.
Their continued tenancy is in question because their subleases expire concurrently with Mellon’s master lease at the end of May.
Last year, Joseph Lufkin, senior vice president of Tampa, Fla.-based DeBartolo, successor to the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp., of Youngstown, Ohio, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that it was the company’s intention to try and re-lease the building.
However, the building is losing occupancy at a time when the city’s commercial office market vacancy rate remains just under 20 percent and large tenants looking for space are scarce.
In the meantime, there has been little word from DeBartolo, tenants say. Lufkin could not be reached for comment.
One of those not moving is Larrimor’s, the upscale clothing store that has been in the building for 66 years. The store has a separate, longer-term lease with DeBartolo, said its owner, Tom Michael.
Business at the store is good, he said.
“We like our space, we believe in Downtown, and we think our location is fairly good, although I wish the building wasn’t empty,” Michael said.
Also not moving “at this time” is a Citizens Bank safety deposit box and foreign exchange center in the building’s first sub-basement level, said Mike Jones, a Citizens spokesman.
But others are, including a 3,000-square-foot U.S. Steel Corp. training center that is shifting to the U.S. Steel Tower, and the Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which is moving to the Frick Building on Grant Street.
“We’re moving at the end of March,” said Sky Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, whose office is on the 11th floor at Union Trust. The council is moving to One Mellon Center across Grant Street.
“The Union Trust Building is one of the most significant buildings, architecturally, in the city, after the Allegheny County Courthouse,” said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
“It’s a very dramatic, highly visible piece of Gothic architecture, remarkable inside and out, and we were delighted with the restoration that was completed several years ago,” Ziegler said. “It is one of the most lively and agreeable buildings in which to step out of your office and into the hallways and see that great rotunda space and the beautiful terra cotta Gothic ceiling.”
Mellon is relocating its employees to one of three other Downtown buildings — One Mellon Center, 325 William Penn Place and the Mellon Client Services Center.
“The pending expiration of this lease at Two Mellon Center has provided us with the opportunity to restack our headquarters facilities, which is part of a larger ongoing initiative to reduce occupancy expenses corporate-wide,” said spokesman Ron Gruendl.
Mellon, which has a total of 6,300 employees Downtown, hasn’t said how many of those workers are based at the Union Trust building. Real estate officials have estimated it occupies about 70 percent of the nearly 600,000 square feet of office space there.
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Groups band together to preserve local farmland
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, March 07, 2006Farmer Ron Beinlich, who grows berries, peaches, pumpkins and other fruits and vegetables on his Triple B Farms near Monongahela, has been watching family farms disappear all of his life.
“Every farm in Allegheny County is under some development pressure,” he told a nearly full house in the 183-seat Carnegie Museum of Art Theater Saturday morning. They came to hear an overview of local farm preservation efforts from three groups working to keep the bulldozers at bay: Allegheny County Farm Preservation Board, Allegheny Land Trust and Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. They do it by purchasing the development rights of farm land, which are held as easements against the property.
“We have preserved every farm we’ve tried,” Beinlich said of the preservation board, which he helped establish seven years ago. The board, funded by the county and authorized by state law, has preserved nine farms and a total of 1,100 acres in the county. Through the Growing Greener II ballot initiative, which Pennsylvania voters approved last year, $3.6 million in farm preservation money is available to the board this year.
The money will be used to identify farmers interested in preserving agricultural use of their land in perpetuity and to fund the preservation easements. The cost of the easement is equal to the amount of the development value of the property — put another way, it’s the difference between what the farm would sell for as a farm and what it would sell for as land to be developed for housing or non-agricultural commercial use.
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has purchased easements on farm building facades as well as entire farms, said attorney Martha Jordan, a Landmarks trustee. Jack Miller, Landmarks director of gift planning, said that with the help of a $500,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation grant and $600,000 from Landmarks the organization has preserved more than 13,000 acres of farmland in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties with a collective value of almost $6 million. In Washington County, the Allegheny Land Trust, headed by Roy Kraynyk, has preserved the 103-acre Linder horse farm.
While the museum’s program focused mostly on Allegheny County efforts, almost every Pennsylvania county now has an agricultural land preservation board. And through Growing Greener II, the state protected 37 farms on 3,360 acres last year. The goal is to protect another 2,000 farms over the next six years. Pennsylvania leads the nation in farmland preservation, with a total of 2,783 farms and 318,350 acres saved from development, and with 55 of its 67 counties enrolled in the easement purchase program.
Those efforts seem to have come just in the nick of time, as the Brookings Institution’s 2003 study showed Pennsylvania also is a national leader in sprawl, second only to Wyoming.
The museum program, called “Preserving Western Pennsylvania’s Farms,” was held in conjunction with the Heinz Architectural Center exhibit, “Barns of Western Pennsylvania: Vernacular to Spectacular,” which continues through May 28.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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The city behind the city
By Craig Smith
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, March 5, 2006Pittsburgh police Sgt. Michael DelCimmuto recalls learning early on about the city’s alleys.
“When I was a rookie 17 years ago, an old-timer came up to me and said, ‘Kid, if you want to stay sane, stay out of the alleys,’ ” said DelCimmuto, 39, who works in the Hill District.
“All the crap happens in the alleys,” he said.
But that’s no longer necessarily so.
Once the domain of garbage trucks and hooligans, the lowly alley is undergoing a transformation. Alleys in cities from Manhattan to San Francisco — Pittsburgh included — are being revitalized.
A number of cities are designating alleys for walkers, and some restaurants now set up outdoor cafes in them, said Maria Riley, 34, a landscape designer with the Downtown firm of Klavon Design Associates.
“I love alleys,” she said. “It’s sort of a subgrid in the city that allows people to move around in a different way.”
Pittsburgh has more than 500 alleys that, if laid end to end, would almost reach Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in Erie County.
In them, DelCimmuto has seen the good and the bad over the years. “I’ve seen alleys where you thought you’d catch some disease just being in it, and others where you say, ‘Whoa, this is here?’ ”
Bill Siess likes the old-fashioned feel that alleys give his neighborhood and says they can reduce speeding in a low-tech way.
“They’re full of potholes, so you can’t go too fast,” said Siess, 48, an engineer who lives in Lincoln Place.
The intricate system of alleys around his Stock Street home is more than just a web of pedestrian walkways. The alleys are places where neighbors congregate, kids play and new moms push babies in strollers.
These “intermediate spaces between two worlds … function as the equivalent of the backyard fence,” said Northwestern University sociologist Albert Hunter.
Hunter, himself a fan of alleys, said they provide “a voyeuristic backside view” of everyday life.
“It’s in the alley that you see the workers taking their cigarette breaks. It’s the backstage,” he said.
Social spaces
The Institute of Traffic Engineers and the Federal Highway Administration later this month will unveil new design standards for urban thoroughfares — from alleys to interstates. Pittsburgh will review the suggested standards to see how to incorporate them into its development planning, said Patrick Hassett, the city’s assistant director of planning.
“Alleys are a crucial, very important part of any urban environment,” said Hassett, 51.
Frank Yenca and his wife, Marita, prefer walking the alleys over the main streets near their Wilkinsburg home. The alleys have more character, he said.
“You see things that aren’t the public face,” said Yenca, 41. “It’s a little more real.”
Until recently, these “social spaces” full of ambiance and energy had been forgotten, said Riley, the landscape designer.
“Real life traditionally occurred in alleys, and we’ve lost that,” she said.
Alleys are appealing because they are small, intimate, out of the way spaces compared to the skyscrapers around them, said Jonathan Cox, 48, director of operations at the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, which launched a revitalization project for Strawberry Way, a four-block alley used by more pedestrians than any other in Downtown, according to the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership.
Riley is one of the designers working on the Strawberry Way project. The alley, which stretches from Liberty Avenue to Cherry Way, links the city’s cultural, retail and government districts.
Strawberry Way someday will be lit by lights embedded in the pavement and have art, information displays and limited vehicular traffic, said Riley. The project carries a $2 million price tag.
Art destination
People have been coming to Sampsonia Way, the small alley in front of exiled Chinese poet Huang Xiang’s home in the North Side, for almost 10 years to see the poetry he has written on his house or to hear his readings.
His “installation art” attracts visitors from all over, said his wife, Jhang Ling, who serves as his interpreter. The couple fled China in 1997 and came to Pittsburgh in 2003. He opened the “House Poem” in November 2004.
Meredith Knight, spokeswoman for the nearby Mattress Factory Art Museum, said Xiang’s work and that by artists Diane Samuels and Ruth Stanford are transforming the alley from a mere roadway into a destination.
“A sense of community is being fostered there,” she said.
The work of Samuels, who lives on Sampsonia Way, has chronicled each crack of the 828-foot-long street. Stanford has restored a home on the alley to provide a glimpse into the lives of generations of former residents.
These types of projects “show alleys being used in a new way,” said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
The city at one time had an unusually large number of houses on alleys, which became part of “a shared backyard,” he said. Many of these homes remain in neighborhoods such as Lawrenceville, the South Side, Bloomfield and Lincoln Place.
Alley renaissance
Not everyone is a fan of these often-brick or cobblestone roadways.
“They’re not well-lit,” said Jim Sholtes, who routinely searches for treasures in the trash of others.
“There’s days you find things worth a lot of money. Other days you don’t,” he said during a recent search in Edgewood, where he found wire snippers and socket wrenches.
Sholtes, 38, of Oakmont, devotes about three hours a week to his hobby of sifting through what others throw away.
“A lot of people worry ’cause there’s thieves. You don’t have to steal. There’s so much junk,” he said.
Alleys remain a low priority for those who maintain them.
“When we plow, they’re the last routes we get to,” said Pittsburgh Public Works Director Guy Costa. Alleys also are low on the waiting list for paving.
Alleys first appeared about 2,500 years ago in Greece and became a fixture in the United States as it expanded westward. Planners said there were practical reasons for alleys. They allowed streets to function more for display and lessened the amount of manure on a city’s streets.
Alleys were essentially eliminated from American residential planning in the 1930s, but some designers have attempted to restore a measure of the alley’s social connectivity by creating some type of backyard-accessible commons.
“New urbanism” planners are bringing back alleys to make streets more pedestrian.
David Ginns, a transportation specialist with Sustainable Pittsburgh, said the alley is an idea whose time has come — again.
“In terms of smart growth, they do make sense,” he said. “The idea of getting away from cul-de-sacs.”
These new alleys likely would be a far cry from the one in lower Lawrenceville that a young Michael DelCimmuto walked to get to Freddy’s Market, the neighborhood store down the street from his childhood home.
“My mom would give me $2 to get a pound of jumbo, a pound of American cheese, bread and pop,” he said. “The pop cooler door was broken. It was held shut with a 10-penny nail.”
Craig Smith can be reached at csmith@tribweb.com or (412) 380-5646.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review