Category Archive: Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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University Club art to be auctioned
By Melissa Meinzer
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 25, 2004A venerable Oakland institution is on the way out – and so are all the treasures.
The University Club, the 114-year-old social club for university graduates, will cease operations on Nov. 15. Members decided to dissolve the club last week, due to low membership and money woes. So what’s to become of the club — displaced members, the impressive art collection, the beautiful eight-story building on University Drive?The city is pulling together around its fallen comrade, with many hands pitching in to help.
“We would welcome them to join our long, rich history of family and culture,” said Keith Zimmer, general manager of the Concordia Club, nearby on O’Hara Street. “They’re our neighbors. We’re sad to see them go.” The Concordia Club has been open for nearly 130 years.
The Concordia would accommodate parties or events that had already been booked at the University Club, if those dates were available at the Concordia, Zimmer said.
Jeanne Davis, general manager of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton Club, Downtown on William Penn Place, echoed Zimmer’s sentiments.
“We have extended an invitation to them to join if they’re interested,” Davis said. “We hope they will.”
The collection in the University Club – 60 paintings and 170 lots — will be auctioned off by Constantine & Mayer, Inc., of Oakmont on Nov. 20, in the Adams Room. The collection includes furniture, paintings and other art.
“It’s a world-class collection,” said Jeff Constantine of Constantine & Mayer, containing important Italian, English, and American works, many with ties to Pittsburgh.
He said that the club and the auction house agreed it was important to hold the auction in the city, despite national and international interest in the collection.
“We’re hoping that 80 percent stays in Pittsburgh,” Constantine said. “We know that a number of members are interested, as are some affluent Pittsburgh collectors.”
The fate of the building itself is unknown. Completed in 1923, it was designed by Henry Hornbostel, who also designed Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum & Memorial and much of the campus of Carnegie Mellon University.
“We understand the difficulty these clubs have these days,” said Arthur Zeigler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “We just hope that a new use can be found for the building.”
He said that the interior could easily be made functional for modern use, and that its strategic location made it an asset to the Oakland community. The Foundation would assist anyone looking to update and use the facility, he said.
“Architecturally, it is a handsome building,” he said. “We’d like to see it reused, not demolished. I’m optimistic.”
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A piece of this
Want to own a piece of history? Stop by the auction of the University Club’s art, artifacts and furniture on Nov. 20. The sale begins at 11 a.m. with previews Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the morning of the sale.
Call the auction house, Constantine & Mayer, at (412) 828-7015 for more details. Open up your piggy bank!Some of the paintings up for auction:
“Arch and the Sea, Venice 1927.” Beppi Ciardi. Italian. Estimated at $15,000 $20,000.
“Mignon, 1921.” Malcolm Stephens Parcell. Pittsburgh. Estimated at $10,000-$15,000.
“The Bath.” Claude Gaston De Latouche. French. Estimated at $20,000-$30,000.
“Spring Landscape.” Christian J. Walter. Pittsburgh. Estimated $8000-$10,000.
“Laurel Ridge.” William J. Hyett. Pittsburgh. Estimated $3000-$5000.
“Abraham Lincoln.” John Gutzon Mothe Borglum. American. Estimated $15,000-$20,000.
– Estimates courtesy Constantine & Mayer, IncMelissa Meinzer can be reached at mmeinzer@tribweb.com.
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Heinz factory conversion creates lofty living on North Side
By Alison Conte
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 9, 2004The transformation of the old H.J. Heinz factory on the North Side into luxury apartments could be called the new Industrial Revolution.
Heinz Lofts includes the Bean, Meat, Cereal and Reservoir buildings, which were named for the commodities that were produced or stored inside them. More than 150 of the planned 267 apartments will be available this month.Boasting great views of the Allegheny River, the Strip District and Downtown, the complex — which formerly housed manufacturing rooms, shipping docks and test kitchens — also will have a cafe, convenience store, community room and fitness center. The varied amenities will make Heinz Lofts “a town within a town,” says Debbie Roberts, property manager for Amore Management Co. of Monroeville, which handles leasing.
“This is precedent-setting in terms of the magnitude of the project,” says Arthur P. Ziegler Jr., president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “It is one of the most historically significant industrial complexes in Pittsburgh.”
Renovating challenges
This kind of industrial renovation and historic reuse is the specialty of the Ferchill Group of Cleveland, which is undertaking the $70 million project. Chief executive officer John Ferchill developed the Bridgeside Point Building at the Pittsburgh Technology Center and also is remodeling the Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee, Wis., into a residential and entertainment complex.
“We do a lot of renovations of old warehouses,” says Michael Wellman, project manager. His firm, Sandvick Architects of Cleveland, is familiar with the building codes that can be applied to older buildings and the challenges in historic preservation.
“The factory doesn’t naturally lend itself to a layout for housing,” says Jonathan Sandvick, principal of the firm. “We need to accommodate long, deep spaces and high ceilings.”
The challenge led to unusual floor plans. Because of the width of the building, each apartment has a long hallway leading in from the central corridor. In some units, the bedrooms, laundry and baths are off these hallways. Others feature a galley kitchen along the hall. Think of an ocean liner without interior cabins, where every stateroom has a porthole.
At the end of the halls, the living areas are saturated with natural light from the large square or semi-round arch windows that fill the exterior walls.
“We use borrowed light from these spaces, and interior windows to bring light to the bedrooms,” Wellman says.
This design leaves plenty of room for large living/dining areas with high ceilings, some of which include a fireplace, den or roof deck. For easy entertaining, many models have a kitchen and breakfast bar as part of the living rooms.
The architects faced a hefty challenge of working with the factory’s original equipment and structural elements such as pipes and columns, exposed brick, ductwork and steel beams.
“We celebrated these features, used them as sculpture in the spaces throughout,” Sandvick says. The 15-foot-high ceilings offered height to spare, so multiple levels with steps up or down to bedrooms have been incorporated.
Keeping the past intact
Because the Heinz factory is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the developer is eligible for a 20 percent tax credit if it follows certain conditions regarding reconstruction, Wellman says. This includes preserving the original exterior and one-third of the window frames.
Along with extensive cleaning of the masonry work, Roberts says, 2,000 new windows had to match the look and feel of the existing ones.
Two of the towers that the factory used will be brought back to serve as a gateway to the site. “We are also saving or reconstructing six of the bridges that connect all the buildings on the third, fourth or fifth floor,” Wellman says.
In the fifth-floor penthouse apartment of the Cereal Building, builders are using a window for a door. To get to their private roof deck, residents will mount a short staircase and duck through 4-foot-tall windows that have been converted to 4-foot-tall doors. The quirky arrangement is part of the charm.
Other remnants of the buildings’ past will be found in reconditioned stairwells, where the wood railings, terrazzo tile and ironwork are being cleaned and painted. To preserve the Heinz legacy, Sandvick says, some of the common areas will be decorated with Heinz 57 memorabilia and artifacts found during the construction.
Bridges that connect the buildings will allow residents to walk from one of the 500 garage parking spaces in Shipping, pick up mail and dry cleaning in Cereal, and stroll to their home in Reservoir, unencumbered by weather. Indoor parking is just one of the features drawing potential tenants to the site.
“People at all stages of life like the location, the amenities and the variety of floor plans,” Roberts says. “They can get public transportation to the city or walk over the bridge to the Strip.”
The Cereal building will be the “town square” for Heinz Lofts, where residents can gather in a community room with a kitchen, TV and fireplace. There also will be an indoor/outdoor cafe, mailboxes, convenience store, dry cleaning pickup and coin-operated laundry.
A business services center offers a conference room, fax, wireless Internet and conference call capabilities. Exercise equipment, a sauna, individual lap pool and hot tub are features of the fitness center.
For the ultimate Heinz Lofts living experience, one of the newly reconstructed towers will be part of a two-bedroom apartment. Another apartment will be incorporated into the rebuilt bridge and suspended three stories off the ground.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which has been involved in the factory restoration, further protected the buildings by accepting a facade and development rights easement from the Ferchill Group. Nothing can be built over or above them — the exterior must continue to look like the historical buildings of the factory. Landmarks has permanent control over any changes to the exterior, foundation President Ziegler says.
Because the easement restrictions diminished the value of the property, Ziegler says, John Ferchill was able to take a charitable contribution, obtaining substantial dollars in federal tax deductions that helped his funding needs.
“The factory will look the same — the fine arched windows and red brick,” Ziegler says. “But it is better because people will be living in it. It brings housing close to town, to the river and the North Side, helping development in all these areas.”
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Renowned architect designed Scaife Gallery
By Jerry Vondas
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, September 24, 2004Edward L. Barnes, who designed the Sarah M. Scaife Gallery at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, once said that most architectural ideas can be expressed on the back of an envelope.
“He was not terribly concerned about getting credit, just concerned about doing the job right, and he did do it right,” Carnegie Museum of Art board member James L. Winokur said in a magazine published by the Carnegie Museums.Edward Larrabee Barnes, of Cambridge, Mass., died from complications of a stroke on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2004, in Cupertino, Calif. He was 89.
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, called the Scaife Gallery, which opened in 1974, “a fine example of a contemporary, later 20th century design in Oakland.”
Richard M. Scaife, the son of Sarah M. Scaife and owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, praised Mr. Barnes’ talents.
“I was delighted that it turned out as well as it did,” he said of the gallery.
Mrs. Scaife died in 1965, and her family and the Scaife Foundation presented the gallery to Carnegie Institute in her memory.
“I had a lot of adventures with Ed Barnes, and I came to have great respect for him,” said Winokur, who visited the construction site several times a week in the early 1970s. “The Scaife building fell right into place. It couldn’t have been done at a better time, and it couldn’t have been done better.”
Richard Armstrong, Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, told the Carnegie magazine, “Of the many museums built in the 1970s, this is among the half-dozen best.”
“It receives people well, it functions very cleanly, and its greatest attribute is the incomparable light in the galleries. It’s not dated. It is truly very sophisticated architecture. It simplifies and elevates the Beaux-Arts ideals in the Alden and Harlow building next door.
“It expunges decoration and exalts the idea of the building as a container and a noble stage.
“Its strength, in fact, is evident in the graciousness with which it accommodates changing attitudes toward exhibiting works of art, a graciousness characteristic of the architect who created it.”
In the 50 years since the end of World War II and his discharge from the Navy, Mr. Barnes designed the IBM corporate building in Manhattan, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., among others.
His master plans also included work done at Williamsburg, Va., the New York and Chicago botanical gardens and the National University of Singapore.
Born in an Episcopal family in Chicago, Mr. Barnes was the son of Cecil Barnes, an attorney, and Margaret Helen Ayer Barnes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Years of Grace.”
He entered Harvard University in 1934 and studied English before focusing on art history and then the history of architecture.
After graduating, Mr. Barnes taught English at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, his alma mater. But his interest in the works of Walter Gropius, his mentor at Harvard, and Marcel Breuer convinced him that architecture was his true calling.
Mr. Barnes is survived by his wife, the former Mary Elizabeth Coss, an architect whom he married in 1944; a son, John Barnes, of Davenport, Calif.; and two granddaughters.
Jerry Vondas can be reached at jvondas@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7823.
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Historic designation on the books for local libraries
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, July 19, 2004Preservationists long have considered the libraries built by Andrew Carnegie in the late 1800s and early 1900s to be historic landmarks.
Pittsburgh City Council has made it official.Council recently voted unanimously to designate the branch library buildings in Mt. Washington, Homewood, the West End, Lawrenceville and Hazelwood as City Designated Historic Structures.
Cathy McCollom, executive director of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, believes the designation is an important step toward preserving Pittsburgh’s heritage.
“These buildings were built as centers of the community,” said McCollom, whose organization nominated the buildings for the designation. “They were beautifully constructed and should be treated as community assets.”
Designation by the city as a historic structure means a building cannot be demolished or have its exterior changed without approval of the Historic Review Commission of Pittsburgh. The designation does not affect what is done to the interior of a building.
While historic designation provides a building with a certain level of protection, it does not guarantee that it will be used for its original intent.
The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh abandoned the Hazelwood branch and handed it back to the city, which owns the property. The library was moved to a new commercial complex along Second Avenue, the neighborhood’s main artery.
On the other hand, library officials opted to spend about $3.5 million to restore the Homewood branch following federal guidelines for historic landmarks because it was in a convenient location, had sufficient parking and was accessible to public transportation.
Library officials neither lobbied for nor opposed the historic designation of the buildings they lease from the city.
“We have no problem with the designation since we respect these buildings, too,” said Herb Elish, the library’s executive director. “The designation will not influence our future course of actions. The decisions we will make will be in keeping with, and centered on, the best results for serving the community.”
Angelique Bamberg, the city’s historic preservation planner, said public buildings such as libraries, firehouses, police stations and government offices that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s often had highly stylized architectural features.
“There was a desire for such buildings to create a civic presence in the neighborhood, so they typically had more architectural expense lavished upon them than typical commercial and residential structures,” she said.
The library buildings were designed by prominent Pittsburgh architects Frank Alden and Alfred Harlow, who are best known for designing the Duquesne Club, Downtown.
The five buildings that recently received historic designation are among the nine original libraries Carnegie donated to the city. The main branch in Oakland, built in 1895, was followed by Lawrenceville, 1898; West End, 1899; Hill District, 1899; Hazelwood, 1900; Mt. Washington, 1900; East Liberty, 1905; South Side, 1909; and Homewood, 1911.
The South Side branch is protected because it is in the Carson Street Historic District. The original East Liberty branch was razed in the late 1960s as part of a sweeping urban renewal plan in that neighborhood. The original Hill District building no longer is used as a library.
Under Historic Review Commission guidelines, any alterations that were made to a building before receiving historic designation can be replaced with the same material, Bamberg said.
“For instance, if a building’s windows already were replaced with vinyl or aluminum windows, they can be replaced with the same type of windows,” she said. “It’s only when changes are proposed that the commission requires the design and materials match what originally existed.”
Bamberg said it is getting easier to do historic restoration because building material manufacturers increasingly are offering “off-the-shelf” products that match historic designs.
“We’re seeing more and more products such as vinyl and aluminum windows made with historic profiles and colors, and roofing material that matches the color and texture of slate,” she said.
Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com.
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Historic status for ex-factory site crumbling
By Sandra Tolliver
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, June 24, 2004The owner of the former Nabisco bakery in East Liberty has asked the city to withdraw a nomination to designate the building a historic site because the property owner was not party to the request.
The Historic Review Commission bylaws, however, say a nomination can be withdrawn only by the nominator, although a building’s owner has the right to speak at a public hearing.Both the Regional Industrial Development Corp. (RIDC), which owns the building, and the Young Preservationists, which nominated it for city historic status, will send representatives to the commission’s July 7 meeting.
Robert Stephenson, president of RIDC, said historian Lu Donnelly should have contacted his organization to discuss the idea before nominating the former Nabisco factory. Donnelly filed the nomination on behalf of the Young Preservationists as a member of the group’s advisory board.
“I think it’s very rude for people to take it upon themselves, without discussion, to go forth and make a nomination like that,” Stephenson said.
In a June 14 letter to the city’s Department of Planning, the RIDC president had asked the historic-preservation staff to withdraw the nomination.
“We certainly weren’t trying to ruffle anybody’s feathers,” said Deborah Gross, vice chair of the Young Preservationists.
She said the organization still believes the Nabisco plant is a valuable part of Pittsburgh’s history.
“It’s significant architecturally. It’s significant in terms of national industrial history,” Gross said. “It’s certainly a visual landmark and a real place-making piece of architecture for the East End.”
Nabisco built the factory in 1918 and operated it until 1998. A second operator, Bake-Line Group, reopened the plant as a bakery for four years but closed it in March.
RIDC — a private, nonprofit economic-development corporation — continues to evaluate proposals for the building’s re-use, Stephenson said.
“We’re trying to do something with the property, and it will be done in a first-class, quality fashion,” Stephenson said, declining to comment on specifics of any proposals. “The bakery concept is still being somewhat looked at.”
Historic designation by the city does not affect a building’s use but does require approval by the Historic Review Commission if a property owner wants to alter a building’s exterior, change signage or demolish a building.
Sandra Tolliver can be reached at stolliver@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7840.
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Historic status sought for Nabisco
By Sandra Tolliver
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, June 14, 2004As factories go, the Nabisco bakery in East Liberty was a trend-setter, built to advertise the quality of the packaged cookies and crackers that helped foster America’s fondness for convenience foods.
The brown brick building, with Mellon Park as its front lawn, dominates two blocks in East Liberty. It is a neighborhood landmark that provided thousands of Pittsburghers with careers before its closing by Nabisco in 1998 and, after a four-year revival by Bake-Line Group, again this spring.Now the Young Preservationists Association has nominated the building for historic designation by the city’s Historic Review Commission. The structure is part of Pittsburgh’s industrial past and stirs sentimental memories for residents who awoke to the smell of cookies baking, one group member said.
“When Nabisco was there, I’d walk out of my house in the mornings and go, ‘Wow, if only the whole city could smell like this,'” said Miriam Meislick, who lived a block away. “You’d walk around hungry all day.”
The designation must be approved by the city’s Historic Review Commission and Planning Department, along with city council. Though the nomination has just been filed, Maria Thomas Burgwin, of the Planning Department’s historic preservation staff, said the factory meets five of the 10 criteria for historic structures. It must meet only one in order to qualify for the designation. If the designation were approved, the Nabisco plant would join 68 other buildings designated as historic by the city.
“Most buildings like this are just overlooked. We take them for granted. When there’s been a lot of extra thought and detail put into a building like this, we should notice,” said Lu Donnelly, a historian and adviser to the Young Preservationists.
The Regional Industrial Development Corp. bought the building after Nabisco’s departure and does not want historic designation to limit its options for the site, said Bill Widdoes, project manager.
“If for some reason there’s a use or proposed use that comes in that requires the building to be demolished, it would prohibit that,” Widdoes said. “We don’t have any such plans now, but if that kind of use comes along, we couldn’t pursue that. Right now, we need all our options.”
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, said his organization supports the Nabisco nomination.
“It’s a handsome plant, in a prime location, and we are very much hoping that a new use will be found for it,” Ziegler said. “The listing would at least give us all a chance to comment on future plans and draw public attention to it.”
National Biscuit Company built its Pittsburgh plant in 1918 as part of a nationwide expansion that followed successful branding of its products. Nabisco hired an in-house architect because the company’s president, Adolphus Green, wanted his factories to have style and dignity that would inspire worker loyalty, Donnelly said.
Architect Albert G. Zimmermann’s Nabisco designs were featured in American Architect magazine in 1912 and 1916.
“If you think about factories at that time period, most of them were big, red brick mill buildings with no decorative style, just utilitarian,” Donnelly said.
The Nabisco plant had showers and locker rooms for employees, fireproof stairways, and large windows providing natural light. The original building stands seven stories, with two eight-story towers. Additions were built in 1928 and 1948.
The factory is among dozens of buildings in Western Pennsylvania identified by the Young Preservationists as potentially historic. The group, formed in 2002, has more than 50 members. Its vision is “a future in which young people are at the helm of historic preservation,” according to its Web site.
“It just seems like there’s so many people now who don’t really seem to care about saving our historic buildings, who say, ‘It looks kind of old. Let’s just demolish it and put up a subdivision,'” said Sean Capperis, an intern with the group. “I grew up in a subdivision, and it’s so sterile.”
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Criteria for historic designation
A building must meet at least one of 10 criteria to receive historic designation from the city:
1. Location at a significant historic or prehistoric site.2. Identification with one or more people who significantly contributed to the cultural, historic, architectural, archaeological or related aspects of the city, state, region or country.*
3. Exemplification of a distinguished or unique architectural type, style or design.*
4. Identification as the work of an architect, designer, engineer or builder whose work is historically significant.*
5. Exemplification of important planning and urban design techniques.
6. Location as a site of an important archaeological resource.
7. Association with important cultural or social aspects or events in history.*
8. Exemplification of neighborhood development or settlement significant to cultural history or traditions.
9. Representation of a cultural, historic, architectural, archaeological or related theme expressed through distinctive areas, properties, sites, structures or objects.
10. Unique location and distinctive physical appearance represents an established and familiar visual feature.*
* Criteria touted for Nabisco plant
Source: City of Pittsburgh Department of Planning
Sandra Tolliver can be reached at stolliver@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7840.
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Birru did his best under tough circumstances, some say
By Dave Copeland
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, May 28, 2004Whether the high-profile projects he led caused the city’s financial crisis will be debated for years, if not for decades.
But observers of outgoing Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Mulugetta Birru said Thursday that the city’s money woes might have played a role in his decision to leave for a new job with Wayne County Economic Development Corp. in Michigan. Detroit is the county seat.
“This could easily mean fewer deals to do and a lot of retrospection about the Downtown retail situation and, hopefully, some serious self-examination about the low level of commercial occupancy,” said Robert P. Strauss, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University’s H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy.
“In this sort of cutback environment, it’s entirely reasonable to expect somebody with Mulu’s energy level to seek another venue where he can build public-private partnerships,” Strauss said.
Birru, 57, wouldn’t give specific reasons for his departure yesterday, saying only the new post is a better opportunity that nearly doubles his current salary.
Under Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, Birru and a URA staff of more than 100 carried out one of the city’s most ambitious and controversial urban-renewal programs since Mayor David L. Lawrence’s Renaissance in the years following World War II.
One of Birru’s biggest proposals never came to fruition.
In the late 1990s, the Murphy administration pushed for a $520 million Downtown overhaul called Marketplace at Fifth & Forbes. The effort was turned back by a grassroots coalition of property-rights advocates and historic preservationists and a loose-knit group of young professionals, artists and city residents.
“That disappoints me a lot,” Birru said.
Murphy scrapped the plan in November 2000. Subsequent efforts to redevelop the Downtown retail corridor, dubbed Plan C, have stalled. Two department stores that Birru helped lure with a variety of subsidies also failed. The Downtown Lazarus-Macy’s closed earlier this month, and Lord & Taylor will close next year.
Birru defended the department-store deals, comparing them to the public investments by Westmoreland County in an auto-manufacturing plant that failed in 1988 but was converted into a Sony manufacturing plant in 1992.
“I honestly have no regrets about the Lazarus building or the Lord & Taylor building because now we have discussions with developers on those two buildings,” Birru said.
A co-founder of Ground Zero — an activist group formed in part to oppose the Marketplace plan — said the URA’s successes in housing and in using the Main Street redevelopment model in small, neighborhood business districts would be a good model for future efforts.
“With the director of the URA leaving, and against the backdrop of extremely substantial financial problems for our region, this would be a good time to re-examine the development tools and organizations we have at the city, county and regional levels,” said Ground Zero’s Pat Clark.
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation President Arthur Ziegler, who also opposed the Marketplace plan, described Birru as “congenial and forthright” in those and other discussions. Ziegler said he did not see Birru as the impetus for many of the Murphy administration’s redevelopment strategies, but as the person who carried them out.
“I always felt he was doing the best he could for the city within very restricted circumstances because I always assumed that the chairman of the authority (executive assistant Tom Cox) set the agenda and goals, rather than Mulu,” Ziegler said. “I feel he was sensitive to historic preservation, but I don’t think he was able to act on behalf of preservation as he might have wished — and certainly not as much as we might have wished.”
Former Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey echoed Ziegler’s comments, saying Birru had not been given the “right directives.”
“The efforts to put retail Downtown were doomed from the beginning,” Roddey said. “If they had assumed a strategy of putting all our resources into housing instead of retail, if they had found a way to get people living there, the private sector would have taken care of retail on its own.”
Until July 2000, Birru also headed Allegheny County’s economic-development department.
Roddey said yesterday he asked Birru to step down from the $82,800-a-year job because “economic development is too important to the county to have a part-time director.”
Before joining the URA in 1992, Birru, an Ethiopian immigrant, headed the Homewood-Brushton Revitalization Corp. He earned a doctorate in public and international affairs from the University of Pittsburgh in 1991 and has been an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz school.
Birru said his greatest legacy is in the “strong” URA staff he put together. He has complained in recent months that some of his best people have left the authority as it has come under increasing scrutiny by state lawmakers, who question its investments and want to sell off its assets.
“People in Pittsburgh are really spoiled,” Birru said. “They think these things happen easily.”
Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.
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End may be near for H. Samson
By Ron DaParma
TRIBUNE-REVIEW REAL ESTATE WRITER
Tuesday, April 27, 2004For 145 years, the H. Samson Funeral Home has served a Pittsburgh clientele that includes the city’s most prominent, historic and best-known families — Heinz, Mellon, Scaife, Hunt and Hillman, to name a few.
Soon, Samson itself could become history, if plans to sell the funeral home property are completed.Possible uses for the property, at 537 N. Neville St., Oakland, include housing, possibly condominiums.
A spokeswoman for Samson’s owner, the Cincinnati-based Alderwoods Group, confirmed Monday that a deal to sell the property is pending.
“The property currently is under a conditional contract at this time, but no deal has been finalized so we can’t disclose any terms,” said Tamara Malone.
The county values the property at $1.26 million.
If Samson does close, Malone said, its business will be transferred to Alderwoods’ two other local funeral homes: the more than 100-year-old H.P. Brandt Funeral Home in the Perrysville section of Ross and the Burton Hirsch Funeral Home in Squirrel Hill.
What is certain is the pedigree of the business, founded in 1859 by undertaker Hudson Samson, a Pulaski, N.Y., native who moved here at the age of 19.
“Hudson was an innovator who made strides to be in the forefront of the funeral service business,” said Heather Rady, the funeral director at Samson. “And the reason the funeral home became so prominent, I believe, was the caring, compassionate nature of the Samson family. They were very much involved in the community and established a rapport with many people.”
“In their heyday, they probably were the most prominent funeral home in the city,” said Kermit D. Dyer of Monroeville, who served as funeral director at Samson from 1954 to 1977. He recalls the names of such famous Pittsburgh personalities as Rosey Rowswell, who preceded Bob Prince as the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates; Hall of Fame Pirates third baseman Pie Traynor; and William Larimer Jones, of Jones & Laughlin Steel, among those whose funeral arrangements were handled there.
“I can still see people lined clear up Neville Street to see Rosey Rowswell,” said Dyer.
“They had a really good reputation of being the creme de la creme of funeral homes,” said Rose Carfagna Au of Ralph Schugar Chapel Inc., and a board member of the Allegheny County Funeral Directors Association.
According to the firm’s history, Samson’s original location was on the site of the old post office building at Smithfield Street in the heart of the city’s Golden Triangle. There, beginning in 1859, Samson ran a one-man operation, making his own coffins and then hitching up a horse to deliver them to homes or cemeteries.
After a short time operating at another location on Seventh Avenue, Samson eventually moved in 1884 to a new building at 433 Sixth Ave., which is believed to be the first structure in the United States built exclusively for a funeral home. It housed, among other things, the first crematory installed within a municipality in the nation, and a chapel, now a standard funeral home feature.
The three-story building “was the expression of remarkable imagination and foresight for the year 1884, and many architects and morticians from other cities came to Pittsburgh to examine the facilities and consult with the owner,” according to the company’s Internet site. “There were also living quarters for employees who remained on call 24 hours a day.”
After Samson’s death in 1902, the business was passed to his son, Harry G. Samson, who moved the funeral home to North Neville Street in 1922. The move to “an attractive residential area with the quiet of wide, tree-shaded lawns” was made to escape the growing congestion Downtown, the company said.
The property, which consists of two buildings connected by a glass-enclosed walkway, can be likened to a mid-Victorian Italian villa, according to Walter Kidney, historian for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Through most of its years, the business was in Samson family hands, with Harry’s son, Howard, taking control after Harry’s death in 1948. Howard’s wife, Elinor, assumed responsibility when he died in 1974.
Other innovations pioneered by the family included the first motorized funeral hearse to be used in Pittsburgh, in 1910. In later years, the business also owned a private plane that was used to transport the deceased from other locations back to Pittsburgh, Rady said.
Family involvement ended with Elinor’s death in 1995. The business was transferred to another family-owned funeral home organization, CMS West, owned by the Stoecklein family.
In 1997, Samson was among six funeral homes and about 35 cemeteries sold by CMS to the Loewen Group International of Canada. Loewen declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999 and in 2002 emerged as the reorganized company known as Alderwoods Group.
Alderwoods is the second-largest operator of funeral homes and cemeteries in North America, behind Service Corporation International of Houston. As of January, Alderwoods operated 730 funeral homes, 150 cemeteries and 60 combination funeral home-cemeteries in the United States and Canada.
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Mighty Samson
The H. Samson Funeral Home has handled funeral arrangements for the following families and individuals:
Heinz (H.J. Heinz Co.)Mellon (Mellon Bank)
Hunt (Alcoa Inc.)
Scaife (philanthropy)
Jones (Jones & Laughlin Steel)
Hillman (Hillman Co.)
Richard S. Caliguiri (Pittsburgh mayor)
Pie Traynor (Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman)
Rosey Rowswell (Pirates announcer)
Ron DaParma can be reached at rdaparma@tribweb.com or 412-320-7907.