Category Archive: News Wire Services
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City group honors preservation efforts
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, May 3, 2005Dan Sufak paid little attention to the Victorian details of his family’s Round the Corner Tavern when he would slip in the backdoor for a sandwich as a schoolboy in the 1950s.
But when he and his wife, Susan, bought the Lawrenceville bar and hotel in 1984 — 90 years after it first opened — they vowed to undo decades of neglect to restore the features that set the Butler Street building apart from scores of other neighborhood watering holes.
“I always hated the way the placed looked,” Sufak, 61, said of the oldest continuously operating bar in Pittsburgh. “It’s a unique building, but a lot of bad things were done to it for a long time.”
Susan Sufak, 60, said she and her husband were embarrassed about the way the building looked. “So when everybody around here started fixing up their properties a few years ago, we decided to do ours,” she said. “We didn’t want it to be known as the ugliest place on the street.”
The Sufaks are among 20 property owners in the city who will be honored Friday at the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission’s 22nd annual preservation awards ceremony.
“Unlike some parts of the country, Pittsburgh has not had a substantial amount of government money available for people who want to do historic preservation,” said Angelique Bamberg, the city’s historic preservation planner. “We feel it’s important to recognize people who have taken the initiative and used private funds to preserve the historic fabric of our communities.”
Local historic preservationists say the restoration of older structures pays financial and cultural dividends.
“When Americans travel, it often is to historic cities,” said Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “We love to walk the streets of London, and visit the sites in Rome and Paris. The older buildings in this region are part of our cultural heritage. They are worth saving.”
State Sen. Jim Ferlo, a longtime activist in preserving the city’s historic buildings, said even if people cannot see the cultural benefits of saving older buildings, they should recognize the economic value.
“A decade ago, if anybody would have said lofts in older Lawrenceville buildings would be selling for $200,000- $250,000, they would have been laughed at,” said Ferlo, D-Highland Park, who serves on the state’s Historic and Museum Commission. “There clearly are tremendous development opportunities in historic preservation.”
Ziegler said attempts to revitalize Pittsburgh neighborhoods by replacing historic structures with new ones generally have failed, while efforts to restore older buildings have succeeded.
“Station Square has worked, Allegheny Center Mall didn’t,” Ziegler said. “The restoration of homes in the Mexican War Streets has been a success, while efforts in the 1960s to remake East Liberty with modern housing units failed.”
The loss of buildings with architectural treatments that cannot be reproduced are not the only casualties of demolition.
“When the old Market House on the North Side was torn down for Allegheny Center Mall, we lost what was the vital core of a community for 100 years,” Ziegler said.
“And the same thing happened with the absurd idea of putting a pedestrian mall in East Liberty. It seems that nearly every time we try replacing the old with the new, it’s a failure. I think there’s a lesson there.”
Honorees
Projects that will be honored at the 22nd Annual Preservation Awards ceremony at noon Friday in Pittsburgh City Council chambers, 414 Grant St., Fifth Floor.
901 Allegheny Ave., Allegheny West — The Pittsburgh Presbytery
Owner: The Rev. Dr. James Mead, the Pittsburgh Presbytery
Architect: MacLachlan, Cornelius and Filoni Architects Inc.307, 313 and 315 Terminal Way, South Side
Owner: Pittsburgh Terminal Properties
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group900 East Carson St., South Side — George C. Cupples Stadium
Owner: Pittsburgh Board of Public Education
Architects: John A. Martine, Alan J. Cuteri, and Sean Beasley — STRADA1290 Mifflin Road, Lincoln Place — Mifflin Elementary School
Owner: Pittsburgh Board of Public Education
Architects: John A. Martine, Alan J. Cuteri and Cas Pelligrini — STRADA2000 E. Carson St., South Side — Southside Steaks
Tenant: Marc Feldstein
Architect: Jason Roth, Hanson Design Group1609-13 E. Carson St., South Side — Former Lorch’s Department Store
Owner: 17th Street Partners
Architect: David Morgan, Morgan Associates Architects4720 Fifth Ave., Oakland — Central Catholic High School
Owners: Catholic Institute of Pittsburgh, Diocese of Pittsburgh
Architects: David Brenenborg and Charles Brown, Brenenborg Brown Group315 Shady Ave., Shadyside — Parish House at Calvary Episcopal Church
Owners: Calvary Episcopal Church
Architects: Kent Edwards and David L. Ross, The Design Alliance Architects4905 Fifth Ave., Oakland — Rodef Shalom Temple
Owners: Rodef Shalom Congregation
Architects: David L. Ross and Bradley Smith, The Design Alliance Architects1535 Lincoln Ave., Lincoln-Lemington — Powerhouse Full Gospel Holiness Church
Owner: Powerhouse Full Gospel Holiness Church
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group410-16 North Craig St., Oakland — The Luna Lofts
Owner: 410-416 North Craig Street, LP
Architect: Dutch McDonald, EDGE Studio6101 Penn Ave., East Liberty — Former Liberty Bank Building
Owner: Liberty Bank Building, LP
Architect: Dutch McDonald, EDGE Studio5501 Elgin St., Highland Park — King Estate or Baywood
Owner: Dr. and Mrs. Frank H. Brown3718-20 Butler St., Lawrenceville — Round Corner Tavern and Hotel
Owner: Dan and Susan Sufak
Architect: Keith H. Cochran, Cochran Associates Architects3519 Butler St., Lawrenceville
Owner: 3811 Associates
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group5165 Butler St., Lawrenceville
Owner: Wylie Holdings, LP
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group5166 Butler St., Lawrenceville
Owner: Wylie Holdings, LP
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group5169 Butler St., Lawrenceville
Owner: Wylie Holdings, L.P.
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group4054 Penn Ave., Lawrenceville
Owner: Elizabeth Beroes
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design Group145 44th St., Lawrenceville
Owner: William Cornell
Architect: Jill Flannery Joyce, Joyce Design GroupTony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com.
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Meadowcroft, Chatham Village become Landmarks
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, May 02, 2005One of the earliest places of human habitation in North America and one of its most influential planned communities have been designated National Historic Landmarks.
Washington County’s Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Mount Washington’s Chatham Village this month joined fewer than 2,500 places around the country to be so honored.
“It’s something that will give us some national exposure, and by reinforcing the significance of that archaeological site, it will help us attract more visitors to Meadowcroft and ensure its preservation,” said David Scofield, director of Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Museum of Rural Life.
The designation “comes at an ideal time, since this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Rockshelter’s discovery in 1955,” said James Adovasio, the Mercyhurst College professor who’s been the site’s principal investigator since 1973.
Adovasio’s research challenged the long-held view that humans crossed the Bering Strait and first settled in North America near Clovis, N.M., about 12,000 years ago. Artifacts, animal bones and other evidence suggest there was human habitation under a rock overhang at Meadowcroft 16,000 years ago.
Meadowcroft opened for its 37th season yesterday, and visitors will be able to tour the excavation site and an additional historic building at Meadowcroft Village. An 1870s clapboard-covered log church, moved from just outside Jollytown, Greene County, in 1997 to Meadowcroft, joins four other relocated historic structures open to the public — a schoolhouse, two log houses and the Pine Bank covered bridge.
Two of the buildings — the schoolhouse and one log house — are associated with the family of Meadowcroft founders Albert and Delvin Miller. A blacksmith shop also is on site; all have costumed interpreters.
This season’s programs include Adovasio leading “insider” tours of the rockshelter from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 18, July 16 and Aug. 20. Information: 724-587-3412 or www.meadowcroftmuseum.org.
For Chatham Village, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1998, designation as a National Historic Landmark means more that just added prestige.
The U.S. Dept. of the Interior annually reviews the conditions of and threats to National Historic Landmarks, and makes legislators aware of potential threats.
“They are getting the word out of the need to preserve these properties,” said architect and 20-year Chatham Village resident David Vater, who wrote the original National Register nomination.
Vater said the federal agency pursued the National Historic Landmark designation after reviewing the National Register nomination and a theme study of the early planned communities of master planner-architects Clarence S. Stein and Henry Wright.
The designation regards Chatham Village, built in the early 1930s, as “one of the most celebrated and influential projects to result from Stein and Wright’s highly creative, 10-year collaboration and the efforts of the Regional Planning Association of America to promote social reform and improvement in the housing of moderate-income Americans in metropolitan areas.”
Its plan of low-rise buildings clustered around a village green helped shape the design of the first federally funded public housing projects of the 1930s.
Eight to 10 village families open their homes every other year for the Chatham Village house and garden tour, which will be held Oct. 5.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
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Route 28 redesign relies on railroad
By Jim Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, April 27, 2005Norfolk Southern Railway Co. is negotiating with PennDOT to provide land for widening Route 28 in Pittsburgh, which could speed commute times and possibly spare the vacant St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church.
Only a sidewalk separates St. Nicholas — the nation’s first Croatian Catholic church — from the busy highway, which PennDOT plans to rebuild from Millvale to the North Side in 2008. The project, previously estimated to cost up to $200 million, would add shoulders to the narrow highway and eliminate traffic signals at the 31st and 40th Street bridges that cause traffic tie-ups.
“It’s bits and pieces of other designs,” said Cheryl Moon-Sirianni, PennDOT’s assistant district executive for design. “We’re trying to please all of the stakeholders, and we think this alignment will please most of the traveling public, property owners and community groups.”
PennDOT would not divulge more details of its plan, but said it would reveal the design this summer, likely in July.
“We don’t want to go out to the public until we know what the railroad says,” Moon-Sirianni said. “Once we hear back from the railroad, we’ll have a better sense of where we’re going.”
Railway spokeswoman Susan Terpay declined to discuss details of the proposal because it involved a possible real estate transaction. “We continue to have ongoing negotiations with them, and we are reviewing the first draft of their proposed plans,” she said.
There’s just one hitch that has former St. Nicholas parishioners concerned: The project would close the church’s driveway from Route 28 and, so far, the new design does not provide for a replacement.
Members of the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, which wants to preserve and reopen the church, lobbied PennDOT a week ago to build a new access road. They fear the absence of a new road in the design means PennDOT might use the church property, especially if talks with the railroad fall through.
“It’s essential that the access road go in,” said Robert Sladack, of Reserve, who belongs to the group. “On the more recent preliminary design, it was not listed.”
PennDOT has not ruled out building the access road, which could be added in later versions of the design, said Moon-Sirianni.
“Nothing’s been decided,” she said. “Everything is still on the table.”
Rebuilding Route 28, which is used by about 60,000 drivers each day, became an engineering nightmare in the last several years. Most problems are linked to the highway’s narrow path in the city. Numerous buildings, including the church and the Millvale Industrial Park, line one side of Route 28, while the railroad tracks border the other side. Behind the row of buildings is a steep hillside climbing up to Troy Hill.
In order for the new Route 28 to carry high-speed traffic through the city the way the Parkways North and East do, PennDOT must build shoulders on both sides to improve safety. Adding the shoulders likely would increase speed limits to 50-55 mph, from 35-40 mph.
PennDOT’s initial plan called for leveling the church to make enough room for a faster, four-lane highway. Churchgoers and preservationist groups objected and PennDOT decided to find alternatives.
The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh closed the church in December and moved the parish to a Millvale church, but formed a group to research other possible uses, said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, a diocesan spokesman. The diocese advanced $50,000 to St. Nicholas parish to repair a broken boiler so it could heat the empty building during the winter and avoid damage such as frozen pipes.
PennDOT’s last round of proposals included tall retaining walls along the highway. Groups such as the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and the Riverlife Task Force objected, and the transportation department again chose to find a new plan.
“We were concerned, as was Riverlife, about an 80-foot retaining wall,” said Cathy McCollom, the foundation’s chief programs officer.
Until now, PennDOT and the railroad were unable to agree on a plan that would use railway property. That changed after the proposal of a state law that would have allowed Allegheny County government to take railroad property through eminent domain.
“In the course of introducing the legislation, I found it was not necessary to push the movement of the bill because Norfolk Southern became amenable to working with PennDOT,” said state Rep. Don Walko, a North Side Democrat. “Suddenly, things just seemed to open up.”
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7933.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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South Side church becomes restaurant
By Johnna A. Pro,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, April 14, 2005The historic Cleaves Temple on the South Side had been left to deteriorate in recent years, its stained glass windows covered in grime, its majestic columns and dome towers marred by the hands of vandals and Mother Nature.It was little more than a crumbling eyesore on Carson Street between 10th and 11th streets, a fate hardly befitting a building that served as a place of Christian worship for nearly 100 years.
Since January, though, contractors and artisans working for developer and restaurateur Clint Pohl have worked painstakingly to recapture the building’s past while readying it for a future as a restaurant, the Halo Cafe, much to the delight of the city’s historical preservationists.
“It’s going to be fabulous,” said Maria Burgwin of the city’s Historic Preservation office, which approved the renovation plans in the fall. “We hate to see vacant buildings in historic districts.”
The project is the second one undertaken by Pohl, who spearheaded the renovation of the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in the Strip District, turning it into Sanctuary, a nightclub.
While records about Cleaves Temple are sometimes sketchy, the building was constructed in 1913 by J.O. Keller at the behest of a congregation of Ukrainian Presbyterians formed several years earlier. At the time, the two existing churches that served the large Ukrainian population living on the South Side were Byzantine Catholic churches.
The newly formed congregation found a patron in a wealthy woman named Mrs. William McKelvey of East Liberty Presbyterian Church. She donated the money to construct the church, a building with an exterior reminiscent of an ornate Eastern European church and an interior reflecting a classic Calvanist tradition. On the outside, the red-brick facade featured an entrance reminiscent of a Greek Temple with a wide staircase leading from the sidewalks and four massive columns supporting a triangular gable. On either side of the building were twin hexagonal towers capped at some point by Byzantine onion domes, each topped with a traditional Orthodox three-bar cross. Stained glass windows adorn the building.
Inside, rich woodwork, clean lines and simple frescoes were the church’s hallmarks.
The church was initially called the First Ruthenian Church. In 1949, that congregation merged with South Side Presbyterian, which today remains one of the most vibrant churches in the neighborhood.
Some historians have written that the building’s onion domes were added in its early history and it was used as a Greek Catholic Church, although none of the experts cite a specific reason for that conclusion.
What is certain is that by the 1950s, members of the South Side Christian Methodist Episcopal Conference owned the building and had renamed it Cleaves Temple CME Church. It would remain an active congregation through the turn of the century until the building was put on the market.
Enter Pohl — owner of Andora restaurant in Ohio Township — who was looking to do a project on the South Side. While much development in the neighborhood is occurring on the far end of Carson Street at the South Side Works, Pohl was drawn to blocks near the 10th Street Bridge, where an eclectic array of businesses are.
While he wasn’t looking for a church in particular, Cleaves Temple caught his eye.
“I was looking for a real estate investment and it happened to be a church. It’s good architecture and it’s inexpensive,” said Pohl, who paid $135,000 for the property, but will invest 10 times as much on the renovations. He also will provide parking at a lot less than a block away.
“I see this as the entrance to the South Side,” Pohl said.
He enlisted the design help of architect Felix G. Fukui of Fukui Architects, who also helped to create Sanctuary.
“Structurally, it’s great,” Fukui said. “The challenge is to marry the new and the old. To tie the rhythm and the form of the church together with the modern design.”
In this case, that means restoring stained glass, bringing the woodwork back to it original luster, using the former balcony space for seating and designing lighting so that it fits with the interior space.
Because the building sits back from the street, Fukui has redesigned the entrance so that a center staircase will lead from street level down to a lower level lounge. Two other staircases will sweep from street level up either side to the portico and the restaurant’s main entrance.
The restaurant, expected to open in early June, will feature intimate booths and table seating surrounding a main bar. The separate spaces are meant to provide patrons privacy while allowing them to be part of the activity. Additional dining space will be in the former balcony.
Jeff and Laura Mae Greene of Greene Glass in Sharon have overseen the restoration of the two dozen stained glass windows.
“I just loved the building from the first time I saw it,” Jeff Greene said. “I just was fascinated with the idea of fixing a building like that up.”
The stained glass was less damaged than it appeared, Greene said.
“In the scale of what we have seen over the years, it was in pretty good shape. To the untrained eye, it can often look pretty bad. It was not in disastrous condition. The painting is beautiful, well done, and the colors are fantastic. The bulk of the effort was just cleaning them.”
Louise Sturgess of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation said that one of the reasons the South Side remains a vibrant neighborhood is because so many of its former churches have found new uses.
Cleaves Temple, while not one of the largest, has always attracted attention because of its charm.
“It’s been scaled to fit right in that block of workers rowhouses,” Burgess said. “It should be grander but humbly fits in there with the streetscape. When you think about the scale of things it takes you by surprise to see this ethnic church.
“I think it’s great that it’s being reused. We’re all for imaginative reuses as long as the historical integrity is retained. It’s wonderful how generally on the South Side, historic churches have been treasured, given a new life and a new use. They create a quality of life that wouldn’t exist without them. They help people feel connected to the story of a neighborhood’s history.”
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Students take role in city’s history
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Friday, April 8, 2005History is one of Amy Lollo’s favorite subjects.
So it’s not surprising the fourth-grader at Phillips Elementary School on the South Side is an eager participant in the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s “Save Our History” project.She is among about 500 students from four elementary schools in and around the South Side taking part in the project, which is focused on preserving the legacy of East Carson Street, the community’s historic main street.
“I love history,” Lollo, 11, said Thursday just before she joined other program participants, their teachers and guests for an afternoon program at Phillips Elementary to thank the History Channel for a $10,000 grant.
Since January, students from Phillips, Arlington and Philip Murray elementary schools, and Bishop Leonard Catholic, have been involved in activities ranging from research and community interviews to drawing sketches of commercial buildings and composing poetry and works of art.
“I interviewed my grandmother about what things have been made and what has been torn down,” said Lollo, adding that she later composed an essay about her experience.
One thing she learned, she said, is the Brady Street Bridge, which for years spanned the Monongahela River, was torn down in 1978 after the construction of the Birmingham Bridge now linking the South Side to neighborhoods on the northern bank of the river.
The History & Landmarks Foundation is one of 29 organizations across the country chosen for the newly established History Channel grants, said Judy Klein Frimer, director of brand enhancement for the History Channel.
“You folks are the whole future of saving our history,” Frimer told the students yesterday. “Unless you understand and treasure it, we won’t have a history and neither will your children’s children.”
“East Carson Street is 194 years old, but it’s very much alive today because of the quality of life it supports,” said History & Landmarks Foundation executive director Louise Sturgess, who is overseeing implementation of the local project.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street Program, designed to spur revitalization of commercial districts. East Carson Street was designated a Great American Main Street by the National Trust in 1996.
“Main streets are the heart of the neighborhood,” Sturgess said.
The next significant event for the Save Our History project will be “Spotlight on Main Street,” a major community program April 30 featuring a scavenger hunt and other activities at the South Side Market House and along East Carson between 10th and 22nd streets.
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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Project gives students a fresh look at Main Streets: Learning from landmarks
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, April 07, 2005Since its founding in 1964, Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has been quietly growing the next generation of preservationists.
Working with teachers, Landmarks staffers are leading children out of their schools and into their neighborhoods, where they are learning to look up, up, up — to the bull on the South Side Market House, to the Moderne eagle on the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building and to dozens of other details on Main Street buildings they have passed by for years and never noticed.
Since Landmarks expanded its education programs in 1994, the foundation has reached 5,000 children in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, including about 500 students at four South Side elementary schools now participating in the “Spotlight on Main Street” project focusing on East Carson Street. It’s funded by a $10,000 “Save Our History” grant from the History Channel, which comes to town today to honor their work with the presentation of plaques for each school.
The project began in December, when fifth-grade students from Phillips Elementary School visited Douglas Cooper’s panoramic Pittsburgh mural at Carnegie Mellon University’s University Center and learned about his technique, which includes the use of oral histories to develop the mural’s content. Working with Louise Sturgess, Landmarks’ executive director, and Kelly Docter of CMU’s School of Architecture, they learned how poetry could be used to describe buildings, and they wrote poems and made drawings inspired by Cooper’s mural and based on photographs of South Side buildings.
Students also toured East Carson Street and explored several of its buildings, later interpreting them in poems, paintings and drawings, as well as collages in the style of Romare Bearden. They recorded interviews with elderly residents and learned how life on the South Side has changed.
Along the way, they’re strengthening their academic and creative skills and developing a sense of pride in their neighborhood. And that “fosters a better working environment within the school itself,” Sturgess says.
“They begin to see there’s a world outside themselves and being part of a community is an important part of being a citizen,” said Phillips principal Barbara Rudiak. “We support the work the community does, and the community supports us.”
The six-month project also involves students at Arlington Elementary/Middle, Bishop Leonard Catholic and Philip Murray Elementary schools. On April 30, the students will join to host a community event at the South Side Market House, with an East Carson Street scavenger hunt open to the public; it begins at Carnegie Library’s South Side branch and focuses on building details and history. The family radio program “Saturday Light Brigade” will broadcast on WRCT (88.3 FM) from the market house beginning at 6 a.m., with students reading their poems intermittently between 8 and 10:30 a.m.
The South Side Local Development Co., which hopes to illuminate some of the facades of historic East Carson Street buildings, also is partner in the grant, which will fund the lighting of the Bridge Cafe and the Maul Building. Landmarks is helping, too, with a $2,500 grant.
The end products also include an interactive Web site of information for and by students, www.spotlightonmainstreet. com, which will eventually include photographs and student-researched histories of East Carson Street buildings; student poems, artwork and audio interviews; interactive activities and games and other resources.
There were 699 grant applications in this first year of the History Channel’s community preservation grant program; Landmarks was one of only 29 organizations to receive them.
“We were thrilled by the response,” said Dan Davids, president of The History Channel. “The grants not only enable communities to maintain the fabric of their local history, but the collaboration between the schools and the historic organizations brings communities together and the interaction between generations will hopefully inspire young people to continue their historic preservation efforts.”
While Landmarks had been doing field trips and in-school projects with the four schools before the grant, it allowed Sturgess to link programs with a single theme focusing on East Carson Street and with bricks and mortar projects, such as the facade illuminations. One of the goals is to show children the value of the historic main street as it faces increased competition from the new SouthSide Works development and from shopping malls.
Children who have grown up shopping at indoor malls describe Carson Street as “an outdoor mall,” Sturgess says, and find discovering the street’s design details lots of fun.
Landmarks’ commitment to education dates to its earliest days; its first newsletter in 1966 reported that with the help of the Junior League, a slide lecture program, based on buildings discovered during Landmarks’ survey of Allegheny County, was being offered to all fifth-grade classes in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Today, Sturgess spends 90 percent of her time on education, which includes newsletters, publications and programs for all ages.
“We work with pre-schoolers all the way up through graduate students,” she said. “For instance, we can show pre-schoolers three different views of Pittsburgh — in 1817, 1939 and 1994 — and ask them ‘What’s the same? What’s different? What shapes do you see?’ ”
For high school students, Landmarks offers scholarships to students who write convincing essays about the importance of historic preservation. Sturgess now is working with a University of Pittsburgh graduate student who is doing volunteer research on the history of Miller School for a booklet of student art and essays Landmarks will publish honoring the school’s centennial this year.
In December, Landmarks received a three-year, $60,000 grant from the Grable Foundation. It will fund several projects, including a Web site of Pittsburgh’s historic art and art-in-architecture, such as murals and stained-glass windows.
Another focus will be a program for children affected by school closings, to help them understand their new school’s neighborhood and buildings.
For school groups visiting the Children’s Museum, the grant also will support an architectural scavenger hunt within the museum, seeking out the history, details and green features of its three buildings erected in different centuries.
With two national history conferences coming to Pittsburgh (the American Association for State and Local History in September and the National Trust for Historic Preservation in fall 2006), the “Spotlight on Main Street” and Grable grant projects give Landmarks a chance to shine a spotlight on its fine work in education. Its programs could — and should — become national models.
(Architecture critic Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Saving Carson Street’s history
By Ron DaParma
Tribune Review Real Estate Writer
Thursday, April 7, 2005Hundreds of young “historians” from four local schools will join their adult counterparts from the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and The History Channel today to celebrate a project designed to bring to life the history of East Carson Street on the South Side.
The pupils from Phillips, Arlington and Murray elementary schools and Bishop Leonard Catholic — all in or around the South Side — already are deeply involved in the project funded by a $10,000 inaugural “Save Our History” grant to the foundation.
The grant’s purpose is to raise awareness about East Carson, a historic main street lined with Victorian-style commercial buildings.
The landmarks foundation is one of only 29 organizations across the country chosen for the newly established History Channel grants, which are for “innovative, educational projects designed to bring communities together and engage children in the preservation of their local history.” Today’s event is set for 1:30 p.m. at the Phillips school on the South Side.
“We expect the auditorium to be packed,” said Louise Sturgess, the foundation’s executive director and overseer of the East Carson project.
Students in grades kindergarten through eight are integrally involved, she said, handling tasks ranging from conducting research and community interviews to sketching buildings and presenting oral histories.
In all, about 500 students are expected to participate in the project, which is to run through May 15.
“People from The History Channel are coming to recognize the work that the students have been doing since we received the award in January,” Sturgess said.
They will be bringing with them project banners and enamel plaques to present to the participating schools.
“There will be some really neat stuff,” Sturgess said. “It will help the kids understand that they are part of one of the few programs in America who are getting the chance to do a project that really helps preserve a part of history.”
“We are thrilled to see the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation work hand-in-hand with local students to teach them about the great city around them,” said Judy Klein Frimer, director of brand enhancement for The History Channel.
As part of the project, students have been working in pairs to identify and document more than 20 historic main street buildings along East Carson.
They also have interviewed senior citizens to document how South Side buildings have changed over the years, created silk screens of some of those buildings and composed poems, sketches and other artistic pieces.
The foundation also has worked in conjunction with “The Saturday Light Brigade,” a family-oriented public radio program on WRCT-FM, to host chat sessions between students and community members.
Plans are to record and archive these recollections of the neighborhood and the main street in particular.
Officials today also will announce plans for “Spotlight on Main Street,” a major community event planned for April 30 at the South Side Market House and along East Carson, between 10th and 22nd streets.
“That will be a highlight of our project,” Sturgess said. It will feature a scavenger hunt, entertainment and a live radio broadcast conducted by the “Saturday Light Brigade” from the street.
After the Save Our History project concludes on May 15, plans are to launch a new interactive Internet site that will feature the buildings identified by the students, as well as “fun facts” and trivia about the buildings and neighborhood.
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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Phipps completes first phase of expansion project
By Kellie B. Gormly
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, March 29, 2005Visitors to Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens this weekend will find a warm and bright spring greeting in the new Welcome Center, which is the first phase of a $36.6 million expansion project.
“It’s the first building in a major expansion of the conservatory that’s going to make Phipps the finest conservatory in the entire country,” says Richard V. Piacentini, executive director of the Oakland attraction. “We think it is the most attractive entrance to a botanical garden in the entire country.”Officials will discuss details of the new Welcome Center at a news conference scheduled for Thursday, which marks the official public opening. A grand-opening celebration for the public is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.
The 10,885-square-foot Welcome Center — portions of which have been opened for about a month — includes updated visitor amenities, the 2,000-square-foot Shop at Phipps and the 78-seat Cafe Phipps. The center, topped by a 46-foot glass dome, sits mostly underground, with a small lobby on the ground level that leads to the Palm Court and the rest of the conservatory. The dome allows plenty of natural light to spill in, making it seem to visitors that they are not underground, Piacentini says.
“One of the biggest problems we had in the design process was figuring out how to put the building in front of the conservatory without blocking it,” he says. “This is an absolutely brilliant solution.”
The next phase of the project — a state-of-the-art greenhouse production facility designed to grow plants for exhibition — is scheduled to open this fall, followed by the 12,000-square-foot Tropical Forest Exhibit in the fall of 2006. The final two phases are adding facilities for special events and education administration. Timelines for these two projects depend on funding received, Piacentini says.
IKM Inc., a Downtown architectural firm, designed the Welcome Center, which replaces a pavilion that was built in the 1960s and complements the design of the 112-year-old conservatory, Phipps officials say.
“The Phipps Welcome Center is a beautiful and contemporary addition to a grand historical landmark,” said Jim Stalder, chairman of the Phipps Board of Trustees, in a written statement. “However, behind the beauty is an environmentally conscious structure that strives to lessen the impact on its surroundings while maintaining historical significance.”
Landscaping surrounding the Welcome Center is a work in progress, but Piacentini says the grounds can be tended and more flowers planted when the rain subsides.
Meanwhile, Phipps officials today will install more than 100,000 brightly colored, tulip-sized flags on the sloping front lawn to give a colorful spring flower appearance, he says.
The Welcome Center includes an upgraded ticketing and admission system, a visitor locker area, new restroom facilities and a grand stairway to the Palm Court, which leads to other conservatory exhibits. The Shop at Phipps — which is about four times the size of the old gift shop — will carry botanically themed merchandise such as cards, toys, beauty products, home items, gardening books and cookbooks, and actual house plants.
Cafe Phipps — operated by Big Burrito Group, which owns area restaurants including Mad Mex, Soba and Casbah — offers self-service meals and snacks featuring locally grown produce.
About the Welcome Center
Nearly 25 percent of the materials used are manufactured from within a 500-mile radius of Pittsburgh. Much of the material — such as steel, concrete, limestone block and bricks — also are extracted regionally, and much material was recycled.
The facility is awaiting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification at the silver level, which means it meets strict environmental and sustainability guidelines.
The building is environmentally conscious in its operations. For instance, energy used to operate the building comes from wind power, which helps prevent global warming and conserve natural resources.
About the Tropical Forest ExhibitThe 12,000-square-foot facility, scheduled to open in the fall of 2006, will be about one and a half times the size of the existing tropical exhibit, which is about 7,900 square feet. It will be 60 feet high and feature cascading indoor waterfalls spanned by an overhead catwalk.
The Tropical Forest Exhibit will have a rotating schedule, with a new country’s tropical region featured every two years. The first country featured will be Thailand.
The forest will have an 8,000-square-foot, single-pane glass wall that will maximize sunlight. It will include a Palm Circle, where as many as 40 visitors can gather to hear presentations, sample tropical foods, weave baskets, pot plants and participate in other learning activities.
Docents will lead in-depth tours throughout the exhibit, and hands-on educational areas will be available. Phipps’ Botany in Action researchers will be on hand throughout the year to talk with visitors and explain their work.
The exhibit will be environmentally friendly in its structures and operations. For instance, it will utilize a venting system on its glass roof that aims to conserve energy, and a blanket-curtain system at night to retain heat.
Source: Phipps Conservatory and Botanical GardensKellie B. Gormly can be reached at kgormly@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7824.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review