Category Archive: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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North Side library debate at historic dimension
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, December 19, 2007Supporters of a new Carnegie library on Federal Street say the city can develop the North Side and still preserve a 117-year-old branch that has been closed for 20 months.
Annette Green, 66, of the North Side told City Council on Tuesday evening that redevelopment does not have to wipe out historic preservation.
“The two can live together in peace,” she said at a public hearing on the proposed relocation of the library.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh wants to move its Allegheny Regional branch from 5 Allegheny Square to 1210 Federal St. City Council is considering a resolution authorizing the transfer of the Federal Street property from the Urban Redevelopment Authority to the Carnegie Library.
The Allegheny Square site has been closed since April 7, 2006, when lightning struck the clock tower, causing a piece of granite weighing several hundred pounds to fall into the second-floor lecture hall. A 1-ton chunk of rock destroyed the building’s heating and cooling system.
The lightning caused more than $2 million in damage. Insurance covered most of the cost.
The damage has been repaired, but library officials want the building, which opened in 1890, to stay closed and construct the new branch. The Federal Street site is near the old Garden Theatre, a former X-rated movie house that is being restored as part of a North Side development project
“We believe in the importance of historic preservation,” said North Side resident David McMunn. “We also believe in redevelopment and appreciate a more accessible and updated library.”
Carnegie Library spokeswoman Suzanne Thinnes said the new library would have 15,000 square feet of space, compared to 12,000 feet in the Allegheny Square building. She said it would provide access for the handicapped and parents with strollers, have wireless Internet access, a teen section and more children’s programming.
The new building would house historic collections such as directories, meeting minutes and newspaper clippings of the former Allegheny City, a community that was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907.
But opponents of the move complained that Carnegie Library had decided on relocating before getting public input or considering alternatives.
“I urge you to rethink your abandonment of this building,” said Mary Barbush, 54, of Allegheny West.
Another North Side resident, David Tessitor, expressed concern about the fate of the building. It was named a historic landmark by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation in 1970 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
“The No. 1 asset that the North Side has, besides the people who live here, is its historic character,” Tessitor said.
Carnegie Library hopes to break ground for the building in the spring and open it in 2009.
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.
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State situation with farmland takes on ‘sense of urgency’
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 16, 2007The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation’s latest newsletter provides an insight into the organization’s efforts to protect and enhance historic farms.
The situation with such farms in the state “is taking on a sense of urgency,” according to the December edition of PHLF News, which identifies urban sprawl as the culprit.
“Urban sprawl is occurring at a higher rate in Pennsylvania than in almost any other state in the nation,” Landmarks says.
Slowing down that encroachment is a goal of the foundation’s Historic Farm Preservation Program, said Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., the organization’s president.
The program was established in 2002 with a $500,000 lead grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and augmented by additional grants of $100,000 from Richard M. Scaife, owner of the Tribune-Review Publishing Co. and a trustee of Landmarks, and $50,000 from the Laurel Foundation.
Since then, the organization has moved to protect some 1,300 acres and 35 historic farm buildings with a collective value of $6.4 million through easements, acquisitions and gift planning strategies.
“This is important, because we are losing farms at a rapid clip,” Ziegler said.
As reported recently by the Valley News Dispatch, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has classified 7.65 million acres in Pennsylvania as farmland.
Figures from the American Farmland Trust show about 150,000 acres in the state have been developed in the past 10 years.
In order to get a better handle on where the foundation can help, the organization is involved in a survey of about 1,150 farms and farm buildings in Washington and Greene counties. (Ziegler said an error occurred in the headline of the newsletter and in one part of the text, which identified Westmoreland, not Washington, as one of the two counties in the survey.)
Working with the Historic Pennsylvania Agriculture Project, Landmarks has joined with the federal Preserve America program and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to help fund and manage the survey, which began in July.
Total project cost is $109,942, with Landmarks responsible for raising $44,942.
Ziegler said work on the project is probably “about half done” at this time.
It’s being carried out by project teams who are photographing buildings and landscapes, sketching site plans of farmsteads and documenting special features that may be unique to the region’s agriculture.
In the meantime, a group of consultants is visiting historical societies and libraries to gather data, historic maps and photographs.
“The purpose of the survey is to document the agricultural history and resources of these two counties and create a comprehensive database that will support a statewide effort to preserve working farms, boost the agricultural economy, develop heritage education and tourism, and raise awareness about the importance of Pennsylvania’s agricultural history,” the newsletter says.
When the survey is completed in August, the data will be accessible online, along with a collection of oral histories from Pennsylvania farmers and archival materials, including federal and state agricultural census manuscripts for 1850, 1880 and 1927.
The foundation says it also hopes to raise funds to conduct a market analysis for special agricultural purposes based on the survey data.
It wants to define and implement a rural tourism program based on the region’s historic resources, and access the potential for developing a farm preservation easement program for the two counties.
The state Department of Agriculture says there are more than 100 farms in Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler and Westmoreland counties that are protected by the state’s program. Officials said more than 370,000 acres are preserved in the state, representing about 5 percent of the state’s farmland.
“Pennsylvania leads the nation in farmland preservation,” said Doug Wolfgang, director for the agriculture department’s Bureau of Farmland Preservation.
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Banking executive makes impact through charitable work
By Thomas Olson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 16, 2007When Pittsburgh banker/lawyer James “Jay” Ferguson III was a teenager, his parents set up a family foundation that gave to local health and education causes.
Now, he and wife Ranny are following in his late parents’ footsteps, forming their own foundation so their three children can learn similar lessons about life, community and the spirit of giving.“It provides a venue for the family to get together, to be selfish about it,” Jay Ferguson says with a grin.
“But really, it’s to inspire the kids — as it did me when I was young — to research where the foundation income should go and to participate in the communities they live in,” Ferguson says during a recent interview in Gulf Tower, Downtown. There, he is Pittsburgh president of Fifth Third Bank — which, in the three years since entering this market, has made its presence felt, too.
The Fergusons’ own footsteps are something to follow. Jay and Ranny, both Pittsburgh-area natives, are a dashing couple — both in appearance and in meeting their busy schedules. The pair are practically ubiquitous in Pittsburgh’s social and philanthropic circles, and their influence is felt widely, say friends and leaders of various organizations.
“Jay and Ranny practice what they preach and help just about anybody that needs it,” says Carol Mitchell, president of the Verland Foundation, Sewickley. Jay served a decade on the board of the Sewickley group, which serves the severely mentally retarded. “A lot of people say they’ll do things, but Jay does them.”
“Charity work comes natural to Jay. He doesn’t do all those rubber-chicken dinners because it’s good for business,” says veteran banker A. William “Bill” Schenck III, who has known Ferguson for 45 years, including their many years at PNC Bank. “He does it because it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do in life: be part of the community.”
Variety of causes
The Fergusons divide their time and effort between board service at organizations devoted to children’s health, education and welfare, as well as public parks and the visual arts.
They also are regulars at benefits and fundraisers for groups such as the Arthritis Foundation, Gilda’s (cancer-care) Club Western Pennsylvania, the American Heart Association and the Ladies Hospital Aid Society. For instance, the couple gave more than $2,500 in 2006 to the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh/Lemieux Family Center, one of their favorite causes.
“Four years ago, we needed to expand because we were out of space in Oakland, and Ranny chaired the committee,” says William Wycoff, a Downtown attorney and former Children’s Home board president.
Result: In March, the organization moved into a $20 million, 63,000-square-foot facility in Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood. It contains 28 beds to care for children and infants with acute and special needs, plus day care for 60 kids and adoption services.
Three months later, Ranny Ferguson succeeded Wycoff as board president.
“Ranny really does get into it wholeheartedly,” Wycoff says of her decades-long Children’s Home involvement. “She’s always there when you need her.”
The compulsion to serve Pittsburgh communities “started with our parents, who were role models,” says Jay, 64.
Who would not be inspired by a surgeon father and pediatrician mother who each provided free clinics, as Ranny’s parents did? Or influenced by a Harvard Law-grad father and Chatham University-prof mother, as Jay’s parents were?
Ranny’s late father had been an obstetrician and gynecological surgeon whose practice included treatment of female inmates at a work house in Fox Chapel. Her mother served as a pediatrician at the Children’s Home when Ranny was a girl.
“I used to go and rock the babies there when I was about 14,” says Ranny, 60. She also remembers her mother conducting free clinics in Homewood, including escorted trips to the distressed neighborhood during the 1969 race riots.
“If we don’t give youth across all racial and economic lines value and a sense of purpose, it’s going to be devastating not only to Pittsburgh, but our entire country,” Ranny says.
Jay, a career trust attorney and wealth-management executive, has provided financial advice and fundraising expertise to two groups dedicated to blacks: the Neighborhood Academy, a charter school in East Liberty; and NEED, or Negro Educational Emergency Drive, Downtown, where he chairs the fundraising committee.
“There are threads that move you in one direction or another,” Jay says. For instance, a severely retarded trust client of his while at PNC Financial Services Group moved him to associate with Verland.
Deep local roots
Born and raised on 14 acres in Churchill, Jay gained a thirst for knowledge from his estimable parents and, perhaps, from further down the family line. His great-grandfather, Robert Gracey Ferguson, served from 1884 to 1906 as one of the first presidents of Westminster College, the liberal arts school in New Wilmington, Lawrence County.
Jay’s late mother was a Yale University graduate who taught speech and drama for about 20 years at Chatham University in Shadyside. His late father was a graduate of Westminster and then Harvard Law School before going on to become a partner of Tucker Arensberg & Ferguson.
Jay followed his father’s path into law, graduating from Dickinson School of Law, in Carlisle, in 1969. He then joined his father’s Downtown law firm, concentrating in trusts and estates. With most of his trust work being for PNC, Jay wound up joining the bank full-time.
He remained at the bank for almost 30 years, eventually rising to managing executive of PNC Advisors, the corporation’s wealth-management business. But he left PNC abruptly in late 2003 “because PNC had moved to more of a consultant orientation,” he says. “They looked more to outside consultants than employees for their strategies and business models.”
“He came home one day and said, ‘I’m going to walk, and there’s no umbrella,’ ” Ranny recalls. “I just said, ‘Absolutely,’ even though there was nothing out there at that point. Jay and I are a team.”
Meantime, Jay also had been chairing PNC’s charitable endowment. “So, I learned lots about different organizations,” he says.
Jay often takes philanthropic direction from colleagues. For instance, the late Mabon Childs, former vice chairman of the regional brokerage firm Parker/Hunter (now Janney Montgomery Scott), steered Ferguson to the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. Childs headed the investment committee; now, Ferguson does.
“Jay has done a superb job managing the endowment and investments of the school,” says board member and former Mellon executive Sandra McLaughlin of the $100 million-plus fund. “The school does not come up wanting, that’s for sure.”
As the head of Fifth Third’s Western Pennsylvania market, Jay also determines where the bank’s charitable donations go. This year, the bank has contributed more than $150,000 to at least 20 local organizations “where we can have an impact,” he says.
The Cincinnati-based bank got its peculiar name from the 1908 merger of Third National and Fifth National banks. (Minding the temperance movement of the day, the founders deliberately avoided calling the bank “Third Fifth,” Ferguson says.)
Local organizations sharing Fifth Third’s largesse include Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Women’s Shelter of Pittsburgh, Boy Scouts of America, Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania, City Theatre and Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
The Parks Conservancy is a favorite nonprofit of Ranny, who has chaired the annual hat luncheon to raise money for the preservationist group for the past five years.
“We take for granted our green space in Pittsburgh,” she says. “The parks are for everyone, open to everyone and are free.”
She is particularly drawn to the Carnegie Museum, whose women’s committee she has chaired since June 2006. Ranny says she is “enthralled” by museum programs such as the recent holiday party for special-needs children.
“That’s what Andrew Carnegie originally envisioned, a place where all doors are open,” she says.
Faith and family
Part of what moves Jay to give back is his religious faith. He and Ranny attend services at Calvary Episcopal Church in East Liberty. “I’m not a ‘wear-it-on-my-sleeve’ type. But it’s part of your responsibility to give back to the community.”
The Fergusons began as a mixed couple — she, a Catholic, and he, a Presbyterian. “So, we met in the middle, and became Episcopalian,” Jay says with a laugh. They met on a blind date in Sewickley and got married about three years later, in June 1968, two weeks after Ranny graduated from Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
She returned, with Jay, to Pittsburgh and later taught advanced math to girls at Ellis School in Shadyside and calculus to students at Shady Side Academy and engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh.
The couple have three children, all in their 30s, plus three grandchildren.
• Daughter Melissa, 36, an investment banker in Chicago, works for Kraft in mergers and acquisitions. (She won’t even tell her father what she’s working on, he says.)
• Son Rob, 34, works in Pittsburgh as a principal at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, a global firm based in Chicago, while his wife is an anaesthesiologist with UPMC.
• Son Bill, 30, works near Los Angeles as manager of youth national team administration for the U.S. Soccer Federation, developing youngsters age 13 to 19 for World Cup competition.
Soccer has legs in the Ferguson family. Jay was a soccer player in college and coached his two sons, he says. Jay also has season tickets to Steelers, Pirates and Penguins games.
He’s also a confessed car nut, having raced cars during his days at Duke. These days, he drives a Toyota Land Cruiser for commuting and a Porsche 923 GTS for fun.
In addition, he hopes to restore a 1958 Rolls Royce he inherited.
“One of the things I’ve toyed with doing in retirement is racing vintage cars,” he says, adding, with a grin, “I like cars that go fast.”
Thomas Olson can be reached at tolson@tribweb.com or 412-320-7854.
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City’s historic buildings have passionate advocate
By Richard Byrne Reilly
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 16, 2007Dan Holland has come a long way since he set out to save Pittsburgh’s historic buildings with $500 in his pocket.
“It hasn’t been easy. It’s been a volunteer effort on my part. I’ve had to scrape, borrow and steal,” Holland said, chuckling.
Holland, 38, is director of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, a one-man operation he launched in 2002 from an office inside his 1894 Victorian home in Friendship. Before setting his mind to locating, researching and protecting buildings of significant historical note, Holland spent years working for others to learn the intricacies of preservation.
“He has found his mission in life,” said Stanley Lowe, a friend and a vice president with the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington D.C. The two men worked together at the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation in the early 1990’s.
“For Dan, its not about money. He does whatever is necessary to galvanize people around him to help Pittsburgh understand what it takes to cherish and maintain its architectural heritage. And he doesn’t take the easy road to do it,” Lowe said.
The Young Preservationists Association has an annual budget of $57,000 and now counts 350 members in 19 states. Holland travels frequently, talking preservation with Baltimore’s mayor or speaking with urban preservationists from Portland, Ore. to Miami. Running the association is a full-time gig, yet Holland earns money from consulting projects he does on the side.
He has racked up an impressive set of accomplishments with the group, people who have worked with him say. He was instrumental in saving the Centre Avenue YMCA and the New Grenada Theater in the Hill District from demolition. He helped obtain a historical designation for playwright August Wilson’s childhood home in the Hill District, sparing it from the wrecking ball.
His current project is saving a Lincoln-Lemington mansion that once housed the National Negro Opera Co. Roberto Clemente, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington and jazz great Ahmad Jamal were frequent visitors to the now-dilapidated structure.
The YPA distinguishes itself from similar groups by making the concept of saving old buildings attractive to children and young adults, Holland’s colleagues say.
“Oftentimes, others regard the topic of historic preservation as a grown-ups activity. One of the things about YPA under Dan’s leadership is he’s been good at making a connection to young people,” said Ann Fortescue, the director of education and visitor services at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
Holland and Fortescue are collaborating on the Pittsburgh Regional Youth Heritage Festival set for next summer as part of the city’s 250th birthday celebrations.
Holland’s work is time-consuming. He spent several months photographing and compiling histories for more than 100 vacant buildings in Manchester slated for demolition, Lowe recalled. On Dec. 10, Holland organized the Youth Main Street Advisors Project at Pittsburgh Filmmaker’s in Oakland where 100 kids created video documentaries with their visions of how to revitalize communities.
“He can’t take no for an answer. One of the best things is our children. Sometimes when we’re driving and the kids see a house being torn down they’ll say ‘Oh, no, Mommy and Daddy, they’re demolishing a building,'” said Holland’s wife, Kasia, a physician.
The couple met in high school, dated, and then went their own ways while she studied in Washington D.C. and later obtained a medical degree from Penn State. Holland went to Carnegie Mellon University, where he obtained a degree in history and a master’s degree in public policy. Holland grew up in Squirrel Hill, the son of an artist father who taught at CMU. The couple have two children, Konrad, 4, and Adela, 2.
Holland is convinced he’s making a difference.
“Our biggest achievement is that we’ve survived at all. No other organization has done what we’re doing. We’re speaking directly to young people on a regional scale. That’s our core mission,” Holland said.
Richard Byrne Reilly can be reached at rreilly@tribweb.com or 412-380-5625.
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Banking executive makes impact through charitable work
By Thomas Olson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 16, 2007When Pittsburgh banker/lawyer James “Jay” Ferguson III was a teenager, his parents set up a family foundation that gave to local health and education causes.
Now, he and wife Ranny are following in his late parents’ footsteps, forming their own foundation so their three children can learn similar lessons about life, community and the spirit of giving.
“It provides a venue for the family to get together, to be selfish about it,” Jay Ferguson says with a grin.
“But really, it’s to inspire the kids — as it did me when I was young — to research where the foundation income should go and to participate in the communities they live in,” Ferguson says during a recent interview in Gulf Tower, Downtown. There, he is Pittsburgh president of Fifth Third Bank — which, in the three years since entering this market, has made its presence felt, too.
The Fergusons’ own footsteps are something to follow. Jay and Ranny, both Pittsburgh-area natives, are a dashing couple — both in appearance and in meeting their busy schedules. The pair are practically ubiquitous in Pittsburgh’s social and philanthropic circles, and their influence is felt widely, say friends and leaders of various organizations.
“Jay and Ranny practice what they preach and help just about anybody that needs it,” says Carol Mitchell, president of the Verland Foundation, Sewickley. Jay served a decade on the board of the Sewickley group, which serves the severely mentally retarded. “A lot of people say they’ll do things, but Jay does them.”
“Charity work comes natural to Jay. He doesn’t do all those rubber-chicken dinners because it’s good for business,” says veteran banker A. William “Bill” Schenck III, who has known Ferguson for 45 years, including their many years at PNC Bank. “He does it because it’s what he thinks he’s supposed to do in life: be part of the community.”
Variety of causes
The Fergusons divide their time and effort between board service at organizations devoted to children’s health, education and welfare, as well as public parks and the visual arts.
They also are regulars at benefits and fundraisers for groups such as the Arthritis Foundation, Gilda’s (cancer-care) Club Western Pennsylvania, the American Heart Association and the Ladies Hospital Aid Society. For instance, the couple gave more than $2,500 in 2006 to the Children’s Home of Pittsburgh/Lemieux Family Center, one of their favorite causes.
“Four years ago, we needed to expand because we were out of space in Oakland, and Ranny chaired the committee,” says William Wycoff, a Downtown attorney and former Children’s Home board president.
Result: In March, the organization moved into a $20 million, 63,000-square-foot facility in Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood. It contains 28 beds to care for children and infants with acute and special needs, plus day care for 60 kids and adoption services.
Three months later, Ranny Ferguson succeeded Wycoff as board president.
“Ranny really does get into it wholeheartedly,” Wycoff says of her decades-long Children’s Home involvement. “She’s always there when you need her.”
The compulsion to serve Pittsburgh communities “started with our parents, who were role models,” says Jay, 64.
Who would not be inspired by a surgeon father and pediatrician mother who each provided free clinics, as Ranny’s parents did? Or influenced by a Harvard Law-grad father and Chatham University-prof mother, as Jay’s parents were?
Ranny’s late father had been an obstetrician and gynecological surgeon whose practice included treatment of female inmates at a work house in Fox Chapel. Her mother served as a pediatrician at the Children’s Home when Ranny was a girl.
“I used to go and rock the babies there when I was about 14,” says Ranny, 60. She also remembers her mother conducting free clinics in Homewood, including escorted trips to the distressed neighborhood during the 1969 race riots.
“If we don’t give youth across all racial and economic lines value and a sense of purpose, it’s going to be devastating not only to Pittsburgh, but our entire country,” Ranny says.
Jay, a career trust attorney and wealth-management executive, has provided financial advice and fundraising expertise to two groups dedicated to blacks: the Neighborhood Academy, a charter school in East Liberty; and NEED, or Negro Educational Emergency Drive, Downtown, where he chairs the fundraising committee.
“There are threads that move you in one direction or another,” Jay says. For instance, a severely retarded trust client of his while at PNC Financial Services Group moved him to associate with Verland.
Deep local roots
Born and raised on 14 acres in Churchill, Jay gained a thirst for knowledge from his estimable parents and, perhaps, from further down the family line. His great-grandfather, Robert Gracey Ferguson, served from 1884 to 1906 as one of the first presidents of Westminster College, the liberal arts school in New Wilmington, Lawrence County.
Jay’s late mother was a Yale University graduate who taught speech and drama for about 20 years at Chatham University in Shadyside. His late father was a graduate of Westminster and then Harvard Law School before going on to become a partner of Tucker Arensberg & Ferguson.
Jay followed his father’s path into law, graduating from Dickinson School of Law, in Carlisle, in 1969. He then joined his father’s Downtown law firm, concentrating in trusts and estates. With most of his trust work being for PNC, Jay wound up joining the bank full-time.
He remained at the bank for almost 30 years, eventually rising to managing executive of PNC Advisors, the corporation’s wealth-management business. But he left PNC abruptly in late 2003 “because PNC had moved to more of a consultant orientation,” he says. “They looked more to outside consultants than employees for their strategies and business models.”
“He came home one day and said, ‘I’m going to walk, and there’s no umbrella,’ ” Ranny recalls. “I just said, ‘Absolutely,’ even though there was nothing out there at that point. Jay and I are a team.”
Meantime, Jay also had been chairing PNC’s charitable endowment. “So, I learned lots about different organizations,” he says.
Jay often takes philanthropic direction from colleagues. For instance, the late Mabon Childs, former vice chairman of the regional brokerage firm Parker/Hunter (now Janney Montgomery Scott), steered Ferguson to the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children. Childs headed the investment committee; now, Ferguson does.
“Jay has done a superb job managing the endowment and investments of the school,” says board member and former Mellon executive Sandra McLaughlin of the $100 million-plus fund. “The school does not come up wanting, that’s for sure.”
As the head of Fifth Third’s Western Pennsylvania market, Jay also determines where the bank’s charitable donations go. This year, the bank has contributed more than $150,000 to at least 20 local organizations “where we can have an impact,” he says.
The Cincinnati-based bank got its peculiar name from the 1908 merger of Third National and Fifth National banks. (Minding the temperance movement of the day, the founders deliberately avoided calling the bank “Third Fifth,” Ferguson says.)
Local organizations sharing Fifth Third’s largesse include Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, Women’s Shelter of Pittsburgh, Boy Scouts of America, Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania, City Theatre and Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.
The Parks Conservancy is a favorite nonprofit of Ranny, who has chaired the annual hat luncheon to raise money for the preservationist group for the past five years.
“We take for granted our green space in Pittsburgh,” she says. “The parks are for everyone, open to everyone and are free.”
She is particularly drawn to the Carnegie Museum, whose women’s committee she has chaired since June 2006. Ranny says she is “enthralled” by museum programs such as the recent holiday party for special-needs children.
“That’s what Andrew Carnegie originally envisioned, a place where all doors are open,” she says.
Faith and family
Part of what moves Jay to give back is his religious faith. He and Ranny attend services at Calvary Episcopal Church in East Liberty. “I’m not a ‘wear-it-on-my-sleeve’ type. But it’s part of your responsibility to give back to the community.”
The Fergusons began as a mixed couple — she, a Catholic, and he, a Presbyterian. “So, we met in the middle, and became Episcopalian,” Jay says with a laugh. They met on a blind date in Sewickley and got married about three years later, in June 1968, two weeks after Ranny graduated from Manhattanville College, Purchase, N.Y.
She returned, with Jay, to Pittsburgh and later taught advanced math to girls at Ellis School in Shadyside and calculus to students at Shady Side Academy and engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh.
The couple have three children, all in their 30s, plus three grandchildren.
• Daughter Melissa, 36, an investment banker in Chicago, works for Kraft in mergers and acquisitions. (She won’t even tell her father what she’s working on, he says.)
• Son Rob, 34, works in Pittsburgh as a principal at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, a global firm based in Chicago, while his wife is an anaesthesiologist with UPMC.
• Son Bill, 30, works near Los Angeles as manager of youth national team administration for the U.S. Soccer Federation, developing youngsters age 13 to 19 for World Cup competition.
Soccer has legs in the Ferguson family. Jay was a soccer player in college and coached his two sons, he says. Jay also has season tickets to Steelers, Pirates and Penguins games.
He’s also a confessed car nut, having raced cars during his days at Duke. These days, he drives a Toyota Land Cruiser for commuting and a Porsche 923 GTS for fun.
In addition, he hopes to restore a 1958 Rolls Royce he inherited.
“One of the things I’ve toyed with doing in retirement is racing vintage cars,” he says, adding, with a grin, “I like cars that go fast.”
Thomas Olson can be reached at tolson@tribweb.com or 412-320-7854.
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Banks reborn as nightclubs, restaurants and a spa
By The Tribune-Review
Thursday, December 13, 2007Back in the day, banks were built with a grandeur and strength in both material and design.
These magnificent shrines to commerce were built with tall granite columns, marble counters and brass cashier cages. The structures spoke of trust, reliability and permanence.
Fast-forward to the next century, and enter the world of credit cards, ATM machines and online banking.
The permanence of those banks as imposing buildings remains, but many have been renovated into new establishments, such as clubs, coffeehouses, condos, restaurants — and even a spa.
Here are a handful found throughout the area — and one with plans for the future.
CARSON CITY SALOON, SOUTH SIDE
You want a nightclub, you want a big, sturdy, solid building. Something that the bass from a Timbaland or Kanye West track isn’t going to shake apart. So why not a bank?
Carson City Saloon inhabits a space built for the German National Depository in 1896. It also was a Mellon Bank, then a Citizens Bank. Typical for its time, the massively imposing, thick-walled neoclassical building conveys fortress-like safety and stability. It’s an attractive structure, if not particularly festive or fun.
But inside, it has been totally transformed into a spacious, high-ceilinged cavern of sports, television and beer. One thing that remains from its bank beginnings is the giant, steel walk-in vault in the far back wall. Once, it probably served to reassure customers and intimidate potential robbers. Now, it’s just another decoration on the wall between the kitchen and the digital jukebox.
Carson City Saloon, 1401 E. Carson St., South Side. Hours: 11:45 a.m.-1:45 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays, noon-midnight Sundays. Details: 412-481-3203.
PERK COFFEE GALLERY, WEST END
The vault of a West End bank is now a treasure house of coffee, wraps, soups, sandwiches and an ever-changing selection of home-cooked entrees. New to the scene as of Nov. 17, Perk Coffee Gallery began serving customers in the safe deposit vault where generations of banking clients once stored their valuables.
Toni Herd, a Munhall resident and the owner of Perk Coffee Gallery, was looking for a space to open a coffee shop and art gallery that would become part of the West End’s revitalization. An artist friend told her about this available space.
Constructed in 1927 for the West End Savings and Trust Co., the building had been subdivided into an indoor mini-mall for shops and a National City Bank branch office.
Herd fell in love with the tiny space, especially when she learned she could fill the adjoining vault with tables and chairs for her customers.
She offers homemade dishes such as macaroni and cheese or green beans and smoked turkey alongside the lighter options that include vegan wraps, red beans and greens salads. The $6.25 Saturday lunch special menu features smoked and barbecued ribs or chicken, collard greens or baked beans, a corn muffin and a choice of cole slaw or potato salad.
Right now, most of Herd’s customers are people who work in the neighborhood. But there’s a number of art galleries nearby, and the walls of Perk Coffee Gallery are lined with original artworks created by Herd and other local artists.
“I’m hoping the area will become a place (for artists and their customers) to hang out comfortably,” she says.
Perk Coffee Gallery, 22 Wabash St., West End. Hours: 8:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Fridays, 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Details: 412-773-1057.
ROCKWELL’S RED LION RESTAURANT, ELIZABETH
The building that houses Rockwell’s Red Lion Restaurant in Elizabeth originally was built for the First National Bank of Elizabeth in 1906. The bank closed its doors permanently seven years later. The building housed a drugstore and a second-hand store and stood vacant until the Rockwell family purchased and renovated it, opening the restaurant May 14, 1980.
Framed old photos on the restaurant walls are a reminder of life in Elizabeth as far back as the late 1800s.
The restaurant is run by Orrie Rockwell Jr. and his children, Lynn McHolme, who runs the business office, and Orrie Rockwell III, who is the chef. The menu changes periodically to feature seasonal dishes. Chef Orrie’s specialties include roasted duck with blackberry and black cherry demi-glaze ($21.95), salmon with blueberry glaze ($16.95) and chicken with apricot glaze ($14.95).
The restaurant will hold a Christmas wine tasting and dinner Dec. 22. Cost of the four-course meal is $40.
Rockwell’s Red Lion Restaurant, 201 Second St., Elizabeth. Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays, 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturdays, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays. Details: 412-384-3909.
THE VAULT COFFEE & TEA BAR, BRIGHTON HEIGHTS
There are banks, and then there are savings and loans. The former typically is a marble-floored financial institution whose Doric columns and gilded ceilings radiate fiduciary gravitas. The latter is the bank’s folksy cousin, with functional carpeting and color schemes that recall the Brady Bunch rec room.
It makes sense that The Vault Coffee & Tea Bar, a mainstay of the Brighton Heights business district, should take up residence in a former savings and loan. Its homely intimacy serves its quirky sensibility well.
You won’t find a bank vault in The Vault — at least not on the main floor. But you will enjoy spotting vestiges of its former life while you wait for barista Matt Haberman or owner Bradley Richards to make your espresso.
The small lectern where folks used to fill out deposit slips now holds napkins. Beneath a sign that proclaims “Today’s Interest Rates” is a menu that touts stuffed grape leaves, Chicken Feta Mojo, bagels or toast. Another sign invites customers to “angry up” their usual cup of Joe with a shot of espresso.
The original office couches, where anxious customers waited for loan approval, now serve as posterior magnets in the small upstairs balcony. It’s strewn with laptops and back issues of Spin. If the coffee doesn’t wake you up, the loud blue walls will.
Customers Michele Knickerbocker and Michelle Ligon, both nursing students and moms, park themselves by the counter, where bank tellers reportedly served customers from behind bulletproof glass.
“I have two kids, and you can bring them here,” Knickerbocker says. “People don’t act annoyed that they’re around.”
The Vault Coffee & Tea Bar, 3619 California Ave., Brighton Heights. Hours: 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays. Details: 412-734-1935.
THE SEWICKLEY SPA, LIGONIER
Money-related puns abound with satisfied patrons at The Sewickley Spa, who often tell the owner that they got a wealth of a wonderful treatment with rich pleasures. Given that their pampering took place in a former bank vault, there’s no better way to describe it, says Dorothy Andreas Tuel, owner of the Ligonier spa that is housed in a former Mellon Bank building.
“People really get a kick out of it,” she says. “It’s a conversation piece as well as a relaxing treatment.”
Andreas Tuel — who also owns The Sewickley Spa at Sewickley, and The Sewickley Spa at Wisp Resort in Maryland — opened the Ligonier location in 2001. She says she was thrilled to discover that the Mellon Bank building was available, after looking around Ligonier for a new spot.
With plenty of open spaces, the bank building was easy to convert into a spa, she says. The building, with its granite columns, still retains some of its turn-of-the-century bank look, and some banking remnants — like a $20 bill from the 1940s — were found during the renovation. Inside the spa, visitors can get pampered with more than three dozen treatments, mostly skin and body therapy.
The Sewickley Spa, 112 N. Market St., Ligonier. Hours: 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Tuesdays, 8:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Details: 724-238-3878.
PITTSBURGH ENGINEERS BUILDING, DOWNTOWN
The former bank that now houses the Engineers’ Society of Western Pennsylvania was built in the heart of Pittsburgh’s financial district, Downtown, at the turn of the last century by famed architect Daniel H. Burnham. He also designed the Flatiron Building in New York City and Pittsburgh’s Union Station, now the Pennsylvanian, among many other buildings.
Members and guests of the Engineers’ Society have the privilege of eating inside the bank vault during daily lunches. But you’ll have to make friends with an engineer; unfortunately, the club dining room is not open to the public.
DISCOVERY & INTERACTIVE SCIENCE CENTER, GREENSBURG
A former Mellon Bank building in downtown Greensburg could become an interactive, hands-on science center if Douglas Lingsch and his wife, Mari-Pat, can make it happen.
The Bedford couple hope to open the Discovery & Interactive Science Center — run as a nonprofit, similar to the Carnegie Science Center — in the fall of 2008 or 2009.
The granite-block structure was built in 1928 for the Barclay-Westmoreland Trust Co. and has been vacant since Citizens Bank closed its branch in March 2005. In September, the Lingsches bought the vacant building for $258,000. Douglas Lingsch says it remains in good condition, and he anticipates spending about $1 million to convert it.
The lobby of the former bank would be completely renovated, and a mezzanine floor would be added to create more exhibit space. The bank’s two vaults — whose 800- to 1,000-pound doors have glass panels exposing the gears — would be part of the attraction.
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Proposal would dust off Wilkinsburg train station
By Sam Spatter
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, December 13, 2007There’s a proposal to bring new life to the Wilkinsburg train station, which has been vacant since the 1970s.
The board of the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County last month approved a request from the county’s Department of Economic Development to apply for a $15,000 grant from the state Historical & Museum Commission.
“The funds will be used to hire a professional to evaluate what renovations are needed, and their costs, to restore the station,” said Cassandra Collinge, assistant manager of the department’s housing division.
That person also will be asked to do an environmental survey of the property and provide suggestions for re-use of the station, she said.
The station is located at Hay Street and Ross Avenue, on a site behind the CVS Pharmacy on Penn Avenue.
This is not the first attempt to renovate the station.
In 2004, a team of students from Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management received a $10,000 grant from an anonymous contributor to conduct research regarding the station, including obtaining public suggestions for its use.
The students hoped to discover how the station could be used in a way that would benefit the community and boost the economy. Suggestions included a jazz museum, restaurant and cafe.
In 2005, architect Sylvester Damianos asked permission from the Wilkinsburg Municipal Authority/Wilkinsburg Borough Industrial and Commercial Development Authority to purchase the station.
Damianos said he could use the property for his offices, a community gallery and for a woodworking shop in the basement.
“We were definitely interested in doing the project, but found there were too many legal problems, because of a variety of ownerships, and we decided to drop out,” he said.
However, several groups continued to express interest in having the station preserved and reused.
Among them are Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
“We have been interested in the station for 30 years, and am happy the county has allocated funds for an architectural/engineering study to determine its current condition and how to stabilize the building,” said Arthur Ziegler, the foundation’s executive director.
“Once that is achieved, perhaps we can market the building.”
The Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh has listed the station as an historic site and offered assistance to any developer interested in restoring it.
Sam Spatter can be reached at sspatter@tribweb.com or 412-320-7843.
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A history of Kennywood
By The Tribune-Review
Wednesday, December 12, 20071815: Charles Kenny purchases land that becomes Kennywood to mine coal.
1860s: Some of the Kenny family’s land, known as “Kenny’s Grove,” becomes a popular picnic area.
1898: The Monongahela Street Railway Co. leases Kenny’s Grove in order to open a trolley park to encourage people to use the company’s trolley cars. Railway shareholder Andrew Mellon names the park Kennywood in honor of the Kenny family and picnic area.
1902: Kennywood builds its first roller coaster, the Figure Eight Toboggan.
1906: Andrew McSwigan, Frederick Henninger and A.F. Megahan form the Pittsburg Kennywood Park Co. and lease Kennywood from Pittsburgh Street Railway Co., which acquired the Monongahela Street Railway Co. Descendants of McSwigan and Henninger remain involved with the park.
1921: Kennywood’s oldest running roller coaster, the Jack Rabbit, is built. Additional coasters include the Pippin (1924) and the Racer (1927). A swimming pool opens in 1925.
1926: The Carousel is constructed.
1930-35: Kennywood survives the Great Depression by bringing in local and national “swing” bands and sponsoring school picnics.
1936: Kennywood constructs Noah’s Ark, the same year as Pittsburgh’s St. Patrick’s Day flood.
1950s-70s: With competition from Disney Land and other so-called theme parks, Kennywood grows and adapts, adding such rides as the Rotor, the first ride imported from Europe, the Turnpike and the Thunderbolt, redesigned from the Pippin.
1981: Kennywood for the first time surpasses the 1 million visitors mark.
1985: The park adds the Raging Rapids.
1987: Kennywood is designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior, one of two amusements parks nationwide included in the National Register of Historic Places.
1991: Kennywood adds the Steel Phantom, with a top speed of 80 miles per hour, then the world’s fastest coaster.
1995: The park’s largest expansion, Lost Kennywood, based on Oakland’s Luna amusement park, is built.
1999: The indoor roller coaster, the Exterminator, is added.
2000-01: The Steel Phantom is demolished to make room for the Phantom’s Revenge.
2005: Kennywood’s owners reveal they’ve acquired about 50 acres, increasing the park’s size to about 140 acres. A $60 million expansion plan, contingent on taxes and completion of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, would include a hotel and indoor water park, to be built across Kennywood Boulevard on the site of a former Kmart.
2007: Kennywood Entertainment announces agreement to sell its amusement park holdings, including Idlewild & SoakZone in Ligonier and Sandcastle Waterpark in West Homestead, to Parques Reunidos of Madrid.
Source: Tribune-Review research