Category Archive: Preservation News
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PNC is anxious for progress in Fifth-Forbes revival
By Stephanie Franken
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, November 13, 2002PNC Financial Services Group is anxious for progress in the city’s efforts to redevelop the Fifth and Forbes corridor.
“We’d like to see a new Fifth Avenue,” said Gary Saulson, director of corporate real estate for PNC’s Realty Services Division. “From that standpoint, we might be a little disappointed.”PNC has a large stake in Downtown, with about 7,000 employees and 2.5 million square feet of office space.
The company has 12 properties between Market and Wood streets on Fifth Avenue, making it one of the biggest players in the redevelopment of the corridor.
Saulson said he doesn’t blame the city for the delay, and he appreciates that the city is making an effort to redevelop the area in a manner that is more sensitive to existing businesses.
Saulson was a member of Mayor Tom Murphy’s so-called Plan C task force that crafted the latest redevelopment plan in March, after previous, more elaborate Murphy plans collapsed. Plan C, unlike earlier plans, calls for preserving and renovating some buildings, rather than clearing the corridor for redevelopment.
Saulson remains optimistic that the area near PNC’s headquarters buildings on Fifth and Liberty avenues can be much more than it is today.
“Fifth and Forbes is never going to be Michigan Avenue,” Saulson said, referring to Chicago’s vibrant downtown office, retail and residential corridor. “But there’s no reason it can’t be a smaller version.”
Craig Kwiecinksi, spokesman for Mayor Murphy, said the redevelopment project “is a very important but difficult transaction. We are working to identify a private development partner for the revitalization of the corridor. While we are committed to the project, we cannot move forward until we have identified a private development partner.”
Don Hunter, the consultant who led the Plan C task force, said large property owners such as PNC or Saks Fifth Avenue are understandably reluctant to redevelop their own properties when a larger plan for the area is looming.
“Not much has really happened that’s visible in the past year, which is frustrating,” Hunter said. “We had some momentum as of this time last year through January. I’m not sure what the problem is.”
Hunter has said he would like to take a leadership role in the redevelopment project, but has not heard whether he’ll be selected.
PNC’s Saulson said numerous factors have led to the slowdown: an “underwhelming response” from developers, a weak economy, and a lack of public and private money.
Moreover, other developments — The Waterfront in Homestead, Station Square, the SouthSide Works and even the plans for the North Shore — are drawing attention away from Downtown, Saulson said.
Mulugetta Birru, executive director of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority, has said that Plan C could take more time than many had expected. The city URA, also a major property owner in the Fifth-Forbes corridor, cannot afford to do more than buy a few buildings at a time until it amasses enough property to turn over to a developer. Most recently, the city bought the G.C. Murphy buildings near Market Square, which are across the street from PNC’s properties.
PNC does not plan to take on the role of a redeveloper, Saulson said. “We’re not interested in building speculative space, whether it’s office space or retail space or whatever,” he said.
Saulson said PNC hasn’t ruled out selling its properties to a developer.
Some of PNC’s buildings on Fifth Avenue near its headquarters, are occupied. Among the tenants are a General Nutrition Center, Bradley’s Book Center, Mo-Gear, and Penn Wigs & Fashions. But several are vacant, including the storefronts formerly occupied by Kidsburgh, Cyrus Beauty Supplies, and Fifth and Wood Men’s Shop
Downtown has assets to build on, Saulson said, including large numbers of offices and Downtown workers, a vibrant cultural district, and a good transit system.
“I’m fairly optimistic that Downtown will be developed,” he said. “The question remains as to the time frame.”
Like PNC, Saks Fifth Avenue is bullish on Pittsburgh, but wants to be part of a larger effort before it starts an expansion project Downtown, said Alison Strieder Mayher, vice president and general manager for the Pittsburgh Saks at Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street.
“I think you could say that we are excited and optimistic about the city,” Mayher said. “We certainly are planning, down the road, to do a renovation — and the outcome of the Fifth and Forbes corridor depends upon all of us together just putting our heads together and doing it.
“That will be a few years down the line, I’m sure. But Saks is actively working on it.”
Stephanie Franken can be reached at sfranken@tribweb.com.
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Ross historian still determined to save structure
Thursday, November 07, 2002
By Jonathan Barnes
John Vlah has spent hours trying to reconstruct a log building in Ross Community Park, but he believes his efforts may have been in vain.
Amateur historian Sandy Brown and others, however, are convinced the building is part of the community’s heritage and are planning to continue the effort to save it.
At the heart of the issue is thehistoric purpose of the structure, now sitting in the park on Evergreen Road. Some press accounts have followed the lead of the last resident of the farm, Robert Schlag, and called it a granary, a building for storing grain.
Brown believes that’s undervaluing the building, which she calls a cabin, based on her belief that it was built as a residence, albeit a small, crude, windowless one. She contends granaries were structured differently.
“I would never have tried to save a granary,” she said. “I would not lift a finger for a granary.”
Brown said residents interested in saving the building have enough money themselves to finish work on it.
The work is important, she said, because the building is the last vestige of the old Schlag farm. The farm on Sangree Road in the Berkeley Hills neighborhood is being developed for new housing.
The farmhouse, leveled months ago, was historically significant, Brown said. She said architect James Van Trump, the founder of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, called the house “one of the five finest Greek revival-style homes in the county.
Brown said township officials are expecting a $5,000 state grant, which will be used for the log building.
But since Vlah began reconstructing the building this summer, he found that several of the original logs were too deteriorated to use. He has spent many hours dismantling the building and salvaging hundreds of concrete blocks and tons of stone to use as its foundation and believes the task was nearly hopeless.
But Brown isn’t giving up, noting that Van Trump’s book recognized the old farm’s rarity. She quoted the book as saying it “is certainly worthy of preservation.”
The farm won’t be preserved, but the old log building still might.
Jonathan Barnes is a free-lance writer.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Demolition is not always the answer
by Brian O’Neill
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, November 07, 2002The speaker was described as “way smart” and a “truly great urbanist” in his introduction, and he came as advertised, but he didn’t say much that was new to this crowd of 150 true believers in city life.
Donovan D. Rypkema was preaching to the choir Monday afternoon in a big room in the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland-Pittsburgh Branch. Anyone coming to one of these Making Cities Work lectures, which are periodically offered by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, doesn’t need to be sold on “diversity” or “sustainability” or “community.” Rypkema offered the basics to a crowd that was more than ready for an advanced lesson.
“Think as far into the future as the age of the oldest public building still in use. . . . A city that has a rotten core is ultimately a rotten city. . . . It is the differentiated product that demands a monetary return.”
We’ve heard stuff like this before, and we believe it, and we can be even more passionate than Rypkema about the importance of preserving what’s unique about cities, this one in particular.
As a leader of sort of a civic pep rally, Rypkema was fine. As Fred Seifried of Lawrenceville said when the speech was over, “I want to know where to buy incense for this gentleman’s altar.”
But as a citizen of a city still dribbling away its populace, a city where the mayor can’t knock down vacant buildings fast enough to satisfy those who live near them, I wanted this man from Washington, D.C. to deal with this local reality: Some of our crumbling buildings weren’t any great shakes when new, and when abandoned they too often become havens for rats, crackheads and — that great oxymoron of the modern age — graffiti artists.
The major reason to preserve old neighborhoods, Rypkema says, is to provide an inventory of affordable housing. Even a city with a high-tech strategy will need child-care workers, waiters, janitors, security guards and others who won’t be able to afford the McMansions or the townhouses that developers build.
Beyond that, he says, throwing away buildings is plain wasteful. More than a quarter of everything dumped in the landfill is construction debris. Every building that goes down is like tossing away more than a million aluminum cans.
Our city may knock down more than 600 buildings this year, and Mayor Tom Murphy has his sights set on 1,000 more, but that’s hardly unique in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia plans to tear down 14,000 buildings over the next five years. Seven of our eastern communities — Braddock, Wilkinsburg, McKeesport, Pitcairn, Rankin, Wall and Wilmerding — have vacant housing rates above the national average of 9 percent. Braddock began the year with a vacancy rate of 28.5 percent, and would knock down 200 or more of its 1,600 residential structures if county money were available.
“I’d like to make it simple and it’s not,” Rykema conceded when I presented this picture. “But never in the history of the universe did a house ever sell drugs. And I defy somebody to give me an example of a neighborhood that got better tearing down more stuff.”
Rykema’s point is simple: Demolition should be a strategy of last resort, not the first choice. What it will take to save more buildings is simple enough, too: More people.
In the neighborhoods that have bounced back through redevelopment — the South Side, the Mexican War Streets, Friendship, Lawrenceville and Observatory Hill, to name a few — thousands have gotten a whole lot of house for their money. But it’s tough to continue that trend without more folks.
Pittsburgh has been largely bypassed by recent immigrants, and we don’t get enough native-born moving here either. According to a recent Duquesne University study, the region may face a shortage of as many as 125,000 workers by 2010.
If we get all the neighbors we need, we won’t be tearing down many more buildings. Meantime, there are some pretty good deals for those of us who want to live in a place that doesn’t look like everywhere else, a someplace rather than an anyplace, a place with heft and history.
Depopulation isn’t all bad.
Brian O’Neill can be reached at boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947.
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City gets some tips on getting a leg up on others
By Patricia Lowry,
Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 05, 2002Real estate and economic development consultant Donovan Rypkema thinks he knows what it takes to be a competitive city in the 21st century, and it has a lot to do with creating a distinctive sense of place.
“In economics it is the differentiated product that attracts a premium,” Rypkema told 144 people gathered for lunch yesterday in the newly restored auditorium and former banking hall of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland on Grant Street.
Rypkema, who heads Washington, D.C.-based Place Economics, has consulted for state and local governments as well as nonprofits like the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s National Main Street Center.
Cities with an edge, Rypkema said, will be cities that develop the five senses — sense of place, ownership, identity, community and evolution or history.
“Begin with a sense of place and find ways to be public that fits that place,” he said.
Rypkema, who has traveled to cities in 48 states, described his own special talent as that of note-taker and list-maker, “seeing what works in communities.”
The list in progress he shared yesterday, titled “The Qualities of the Competitive Place in the 21st Century,” included:
Economic globalization. “Your competitors will not be Boston, Mass., but Bilbao, Spain.”
Continuing education for adults. People who haven’t been in a classroom for the past 24 months, he said, are falling behind.
* An understanding that economic growth and population growth are not necessarily the same.
* Human diversity.
* Arts and cultural activities.
* An inventory of affordable housing for people working in the millions of new, lower paying service jobs that will be created in the next 10 years.
* Partnerships: “More and more issues will be addressed locally through partnerships.”
* A vision and a long-term perspective: “We should think as far into the future as the age of the oldest building still in use.”
* A strong, healthy, vital downtown: “A city that has a rotten core will ultimately become a rotten city.”
* Restored and renovated historic buildings, especially downtown.
* A local culture that is valued.
Rypkema’s audience comprised developers, architects, representatives of community and preservation groups, and municipal government leaders and staffers, including 48 people from Fairmount, W. Va. The event was sponsored by Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
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 -
Author recalls greatness of forgotten Pittsburgh designer
By Bob Karlovits
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 19, 2002Henry Hornbostel’s legacy climbs along the hills of the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Oakland to the peak of the Grant Building, Downtown.
It provides a theater for politics at the City-County Building, a resting spot for tired visitors at the Webster Hall hotel in Oakland and a home for families from Squirrel Hill to Monroeville.
“Henry Hornbostel is a man you don’t want to forget,” says Walter C. Kidney, architectural historian from the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and author of the first book on the architect (1867-1961).
He is the author of the new “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch” (published by the foundation in cooperation with Roberts Rinehart Publishers, $49.95).
The 272-page volume is the impetus for tours and book signings that will draw attention to the work of an architect whose buildings are Pittsburgh landmarks. It contains 470 illustrations, including 200 color photographs.
Although Hornbostel created buildings and other architectural works throughout the United States, no other city has the same “critical mass” of works by him, says Martin Aurand, architectural archivist at Carnegie Mellon.
His 110 works in this area are about half of his total output, Kidney says in the book.
The Carnegie Mellon archives, which includes 17,000 drawings, has the largest collection of Hornbostel documentation because of his work in designing the Oakland campus, Aurand says.
It has 560 of the Brooklyn native’s drawings, along with sketch pads from before his education in at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. It also has an unfinished autobiography, “which I’m sure everybody wishes would go a lot further,” Aurand says.
David J. Vater, a Mt. Washington architect, author and collaborator on the book, says he regrets that Hornbostel isn’t as well known as artists such as H.H. Richardson, known for the Allegheny County Courthouse.
“People don’t know Hornbostel or even know he was a Pittsburgh architect,” he says of the craftsman who settled in Oakland in 1920 after working on local projects for more than a decade.
He lived here until he retired to Connecticut in 1939.
“Hornbostel is an architect who was well liked in his day, but since then has seemed to have fallen through the cracks,” says Charles L. Rosenblum, architectural historian and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon.
He, Kidney and Vater all agree the reason for that is the rise of modernism in the 1940s and ?50s.
“Modernists did not want to deal with anyone who was not part of their movement,” Rosenblum says.
“It was only in the ?70s, when post-modernism came into play that there was renewed interest in Hornbostel’s life,” Vater says.
Eclectic for the ages
While the name Hornbostel might not carry the weight of Frank Lloyd Wright’s, his work carries a style that establishes itself.
Kidney points out how Hornbostel is “eclectic” in his use of styles, using elements that hint sometimes at modernism as well as shades of Renaissance or Grecian influences.
In Pittsburgh, that mixture creates its own image in buildings such as Oakland’s Webster Hall, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial, the Carnegie Mellon campus and Rodef Shalom Temple, Downtown’s Grant Building or additions to the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin.
He also designed homes that bear gabled ornateness in Squirrel Hill or a chateau-like rural nature in Monroeville.
From 1936 to ?39, he was Allegheny County’s Director of Parks and contributed commonly used buildings such as the Boathouse in North Park and the Golf Clubhouse in South Park.
As for Hornbostel’s works in other areas of the United States, one can note that:
He designed the Williamsburg and Queensborough bridges in New York City.
Twenty-two of his structures are on the National Registry of Historic Places.
He also designed city halls in Oakland, Calif., and Hartford, Conn.
He contributed a large number of buildings to what is now Emery University in Atlanta.
His work on Carnegie Mellon University’s campus gives the school an appearance that has, more or less, been upkept over the years, Vater and Aurand say.When he was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to design the school in 1904, it was at a time that was rather interesting ? a time when “universities were being designed from scratch.”
Although there are buildings at Carnegie Mellon that are modern and unlike Hornbostel’s work, the university frequently as tried to maintain his theme, Vater says.
Wean Hall, for instance, is a modern-looking, angular building, but is similar to Hornbostel’s work in its color and even the slope of his roof, he points out.
Vater also mention the blends of artistry and practicality in Hornbostel’s designs. In Baker Hall, for example, a cantilevered, circular staircase is a striking bit of design at the center of the building.
Yet, Hornbostel also incorporated a sloping, stone hallway through the building so pieces of heavy equipment could be moved from room to room in the building that was being used for technical study.
Vater also points out that his use of light-colored brick at the campus creates “variations on a theme of white” that differ greatly from the red-brick buildings of Ivy League schools.
Kidney says he became interested in Hornbostel almost as soon as he became curious about architecture, when he was 14. Not only did he appreciate the work of the designer, he liked the name.
“It seemed like the right name for the grand gesture,” he says with a faint smile.
He also has an appreciation for the character Hornbostel was. When he was a teenager, Kidney writes, he rode a high-wheeled bicycle from New York City to Buffalo ? and back again.
He also was well known for being able to eat or drink with anyone, he says.
Aurand points out a Hornbostel-designed rental brochure for the Grant Building. On it, the building is a behemoth towering over a city of buildings ? all designed by Hornbostel.
“Only he would have the ego to pull that off,” Aurand says.
While Hornbostel’s eclecticism can carry his works different ways, Kidney points out, the “Hornsbostelian” elements show up in forms that are like one another. For instance, he says, the sweeping arches of the City-County Building are strikingly close to those of the Hartford City Hall.
Those elements sometimes can be “pompous and rhetorical,” he says, far different from the modern styles of Wright or Walter Gropius.
Yet, few other architects have contributed as much to the image of this city as Hornbostel, says Kidney. D.H. Burnham (1842-1912), designer of the Oliver and Frick buildings, Frederick G. Scheibler Jr. (1872-1959) or Benno Janssen (1874-1964) come close, but don’t rival him ? if only in numbers.
That is why Kidney decided, in 1991, to write a book about Hornbostel.
Rosenblum sees that as a step that was much needed.
“There is a lot more that can be said than in one volume,” he says, “but this is a way to begin the discussion.”
Tours
Henry Hornbostel’s works spread across the Pittsburgh area like autumn leaves on a tree-filled lawn.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has scheduled three tours to examine the variety of the architect’s buildings and homes.
Walter C. Kidney will be present at all three tours, and copies of his biography “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch” will be available for autograph and purchase. Light refreshments will be served at each.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Original Campus
2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, beginning at Hunt Library, Oakland.
Tour leaders: Martin Aurand, archivist of Carnegie Mellon’s Architectural Archives; Charles L. Rosenblum, architectural historian and adjunct professor at the university; Paul Tellers, university architect.
The tour will look at the buildings as well as some of Hornbostel’s original drawings. Tellers will discuss recent building at Carnegie Mellon.
$15; $10 for foundation members, university faculty or alumni; $7 for students.
Hornbostel in Downtown PittsburghNoon to 1:30 p.m. Friday, beginning at City-County Building.
Tour leaders: Lu Donnelly, architectural historian; Rosenblum; David J. Vater, author and architect.
The tour will look at executed and unexecuted works Downtown, including the City-County Building and the Grant Building.
$10, $8 for foundation members and Smithfield United Church members; $5 for students.
Hornbostel in the East End2 to 6 p.m. Oct. 27, main lobby of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ National Military Museum and Memorial, Oakland.
Tour leaders: Ronald S. Gancas, vice president of Soldiers’ and Sailors’; Donnelly; Rosenblum; Vater.
The tour will travel by bus to places such as Thaw Hall at the University of Pittsburgh and Webster Hall in Oakland to two private homes.
Fee: $55, $45 for foundation members and University Club members; $40 for students.
In addition, a reception and tour will be at the Hornbostel-designed Rodef Shalom Temple, Oakland, 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday.Besides tours of the temple, the event will included remarks by Phillip B. Hallen, chairman, and Louise Sturgess, executive director of the foundation.
Arthur Ziegler, president of History and Landmarks, will unveil a plaque honoring the temple and Hornbostel.
Cost: $10 for landmark members and temple members; $15 for nonmembers.
Reservations for each event: (412) 471-5808, ext. 527.
? Bob Karlovits
Bob Karlovits can be reached at bkarlovits@tribweb.com or (412) 320 7852.This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © The Tribune-Review Publishing Co
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Author documents Henry Hornbostel’s architectural legacy
Friday, October 18, 2002
Henry Hornbostel’s legacy climbs along the hills of the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Oakland to the peak of the Grant Building, Downtown. It provides a theater for politics at the City-County Building, a resting spot for tired visitors at the Webster Hall hotel in Oakland and a home for families from Squirrel Hill to Monroeville.
“Henry Hornbostel is a man you don’t want to forget,” says Walter C. Kidney, architectural historian from the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, and author of the first book on the architect (1867-1961), titled “Henry Hornbostel: An Architect’s Master Touch” (published by the foundation in cooperation with Roberts Rinehart Publishers, $49.95).
The 272-page volume is the impetus for tours and book signings that will draw attention to the work of an architect whose buildings are Pittsburgh landmarks. It contains 470 illustrations, including 200 color photographs.
Although Hornbostel created buildings and other architectural works throughout the United States, no other city has the same “critical mass” of works by him, says Martin Aurand, architectural archivist at Carnegie Mellon.
According to Kidney, Hornbostel’s 110 works in this area are about half of his total output.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © The Tribune-Review Publishing Co
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Longtime TV personality led high-flying career ‘with humor and grace’
By Dimitri Vassilaros
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, October 5, 2002The air is Don Riggs’ second home. Whether it’s his lifelong passion of flying and building planes, his teenage stint as an aerial circus performer or his most notable achievements — on the air as a personality at a number of Pittsburgh television stations — Riggs can look back over his 74 years with a certain measure of satisfaction.
Take-offs and safe landings are second nature to Riggs.ON-THE-AIR CAREER
Riggs was on the air in Columbus before moving to Pittsburgh in 1960 to co-host “Daybreak” with Marcy Lynn and musician Johnny Costa. The morning magazine talk show aired from 7 to 8 a.m. on KDKA (Channel 2). Their popularity soared as 67 percent of available Pittsburgh television viewers started their day with them, according to Riggs. The viewers’ children liked him, too.
“Bwana Don,” his Saturday morning alter ego, hosted “Safari.” Dressed in Banana Republic-esque khakis, he introduced wide-eyed kids to exotic wildlife and old Tarzan films. Younger viewers looked at each other in amazement when Riggs gazed into the camera and told them he saw they were wearing pajamas.
The low-budget set was decorated with zebra skins, spears and bamboo. It looked as if it were partially furnished by Pier One Imports instead of Horne’s department store. But it might not have been low-budget enough for management.
Corporate cost-cutting cut short his KDKA career in 1967, but he landed on his feet in Indianapolis as a news anchor. After 18 months, Riggs was lured back here to produce specials and documentaries for WQED (Channel 13). After two years, a $3,000 pay raise enticed him to take a position as Community Affairs Secretary to WIIC (Channel 11), which eventually became WPXI. He was there 20 years before he retired.
“He was one of my most important mentors,” says Mary Robb Jackson, KDKA reporter. “Uncompromising about his work and ethics. He is the original flyboy.”
“He does it with humor and grace,” says Adam Lynch, former news anchor. “I love the man.”
EARLY ANGST
Riggs’ first job, at age 15, paid $40 a month. That was during the summer he left his hometown of Newark, Ohio, running off to join the circus.
Riggs is not sure why he left his family after 11th grade without telling them.
“Somehow, I wanted to get even,” he says. “I don’t know why.” His family — mom, dad and his younger brother and sister — finally learned what happened to the 15-year-old when a hospital called telling them he survived emergency surgery for a burst appendix. They got him back safe at home in time for his senior year in high school.
Riggs’ twin wasn’t as fortunate in his life. Carl was dropped on his head at birth and was never right. Neither was the remorseful doctor who delivered him and, a year later, committed suicide. Carl could not walk or take care of himself. He was so spastic that he made teeth marks on the spoon his parents used to feed him. It seemed as if Carl demanded their all for five exhausting years. Carl also received all the attention at his funeral — while his jealous 5-year-old twin played with the cat.
Riggs got his parents’ attention when he was 10 years old, trying to protect the family property. Even though they owned both sides of the creek by their home, someone set trout-lines from bank to bank to help himself to their fish. When his parents discovered their son had destroyed the trespasser’s equipment, they said Riggs’ act was an embarrassment.
“I’ll be damned if I protect our property again,” Riggs vowed.
He says he thinks that was the defining moment of his childhood — why he wanted to “get even.”
Five years later, he did just that — going up, up and away in the hot-air balloon act at the circus. His job was to cling to the side of the balloon as it rose 1,000 feet in the air. It wasn’t the last time he touched the sky.
AT YOUR SERVICE
The old biplane “Miss Pittsburgh” became something more than the subject of a Riggs documentary video, independently produced in 1993. The historic plane had made the first airmail flight in U.S. history — at noon April 21, 1927 — from McKeesport to Cleveland to Youngstown.
Riggs worked behind the scenes to have her soar forever above travelers in its permanent position hanging in Pittsburgh International Airport. He helped raise $11,000 for the restoration, then raised additional money for the purchase price of the plane. The blue-and silver mail plane was set in place in 1994.
Riggs’ interest in aviation transcends such projects. As a pilot, he has logged 2,500 hours in nine aircraft and is a life member of the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 45. “I no longer fly, because my left knee won’t bend enough to operate the left rudder,” he says.
A pair of 16-foot airplane wings in his basement is testament to his desire to soar above the clouds. The project — building an airplane — a Pamsey’s Flying Bathtub — is unfinished due to his painful arthritis-twisted knuckles and fingers.
On the earthbound side of life, Riggs was one of the driving forces behind “Presents for Patients.” The program, started in 1984 by William V. Day, now president of St. Barnabas Health System, is kind of a geriatric version of Toys for Tots.
It encourages people to buy gifts — and deliver them — to senior citizens in assisted-living facilities. More than 200 institutions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, New York and Missouri are involved. About 20,000 gifts were purchased for the residents last year — nearly 500,000 since its start, according to an appreciative Day.
“Without Don Riggs’ willingness, it would not have happened,” Day says. “He opened up his heart and his arms to me. It tells about the character of the man. It’s more than what you see on the screen or at air shows.”
Riggs continues to help train organizations for the program. Every cent goes for the gifts.
“When different people need help, he reaches out and helps them,” says Patricia Buck, executive director of the Myasthenia Gravis Association of Western Pennsylvania.
“The five telethons he set up raised $750,000 for the Duquesne University Tamburitzans,” says Pat French, president of the Bulgarian Cultural Center. “He never is too busy to talk or help.”
But Riggs doesn’t take much credit for his success — he wants others to have their moment in the sun. Ask John DeSantis.
DeSantis is executive director of the Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, which Riggs covered on the air for several years. “Don Riggs leaves his fingerprints on nothing but touches everything,” DeSantis says. Riggs once told DeSantis you can accomplish anything if you don’t care who gets the credit.
Other documentaries Riggs produced inspired more than television credits.
“Let Me Be Brave,” hosted by former Pittsburgh Steeler Rocky Bleier, featured five mentally retarded athletes who advanced to the national competition at the Special Olympics in Louisiana. It was so moving that the Special Olympics used it for years to help tell its story. Tapes were sent overseas to inspire others to start their own chapters.
Rick Minutello was Riggs’ cameraman for that and other projects. “Don Riggs could make a one-hour documentary on laying asphalt and make it entertaining,” he says.
“His secret is that he cares about the subjects,” says By Williams, former WIIC news director.
“Riggs is a continuing spirit,” says Arthur Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Louise Sturgess, executive director of History & Landmarks, agrees. “He is a craftsman,” she says.
“Riggs is a pro,” Minutello says. “In this business, that is high praise.”
High praise indeed, considering Riggs sometimes walks around with a duck.
WILLIE THE DUCK
“Willie the Duck” is a takeoff on Donald Duck. The rubber puppet of a large duck head made its first appearance on Columbus WBNS-TV in 1956, along with Hugo Hippo. They traveled with Riggs to KDKA. Willie became a trademark of Riggs, but Hugo was forgotten along that way.
Willie reappeared during a newspaper strike in the early 70s. “Willie” read the comics on the Channel 11 newscast. The irreverent duck always called news anchor Ray Tannehill “Mr. Tannenbaum.” Tannehill would break up as the ratings went up. Drawings by art director Bob Johnston — but supposedly by “Willie” — were the gimmick justifying the duck’s segment after the strike ended. A corporate executive decided the newscast would never be the most watched, because the staff was too happy. His new news director said Willie’s goose was cooked.
“I felt we were going to miss something valuable, especially for kids who had begun to watch our news,” Riggs says. The ratings declined after that.
Today, Minutello vividly pictures Riggs leaving the studio when he retired in May of 1990, as reporter Jack Etzel gave his regards to the duck.
Willie was in a box with a hole in the bottom for Riggs’ hand. As the two were leaving hand-in-head, Riggs said, “It’s time to say good-bye.”
HOMEFRONT
The air Riggs breathes these days includes medical oxygen. “Emphysema sneaks up on you,” he says.
At 74, Riggs lives in Mt. Lebanon with his wife of 51 years, Joan — pronounced Jo Ann — a retired nurse.
His interest in aviation apparently rubbed off on his two sons, Eric and Carl; both are graduates of the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics and work in the airline industry. His daughters, Amy Baker and Kathleen Prince, followed their mother’s footsteps and became nurses. Four grandchildren complete the family.
“Joan, his wife, has a job and a half,” DeSantis says. “She goes with him everywhere and always laughs at his punch lines. Their marriage is one that other married people should study.
The Don Riggs file
Full name: Donald Seasholes Riggs.
Age: 74; born Nov. 19, 1927, in Newark, Ohio.
Residence: Mt Lebanon.
Wife: Joan Striker Riggs, retired cardiac care/rehab nurse.
Children: Amy Baker, Kathleen Prince, Eric Riggs and Carl Riggs.
Grandchildren: Allie, Emily, Carla and Walter.
Education: 1945 graduate, Hebron High School in Hebron, Ohio; 1952 graduate, Capitol University in Columbus, Ohio, with a B.S. in Education, Speech and Music.
Military: Supply sergeant; honorable discharge from the 359th and 362nd Army Service Forces Bands.
Broadcast career:
1952-54: WHKC radio, Columbus, Ohio, as announcer and newscaster.
1954-60: WBNS-TV, Columbus, Ohio, as singer, announcer, puppeteer, movie host, weatherman, music writer for TV specials and Santa Claus.
1960-67: KDKA-TV, Pittsburgh, as host and principle performer of “Daybreak,” magazine-style show, and host of “Safari” children’s Saturday morning program.
1967-68: WLWI-TV, Indianapolis, as news anchor.
1968-70: WQED-TV, Pittsburgh, as producer and program host.
1970-90: WIIC-TV, as weatherman, public affairs writer/producer, telethon host, emcee for air shows in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Colorado, and the Three Rivers Regatta.
Other interests: Aviation (Riggs has 2,500 hours in nine aircraft and is a life member of Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 45); carpentry (Riggs made his dining room table and chairs); historic preservation (member of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation); community service (St. Barnabas Charitable Foundation “Presents for Patients” program co-chairman); toastmaster and emcee.
Favorite film: “Bridge Over the River Kwai.”
Favorite book: “Worlds in Collision,” by Immanuel Velikovsky.
Favorite composer: Benjamin Britten.
Favorite TV show: “The Honeymooners.”
People would be surprised to know: “I am basically shy.”
People also would be surprised to know: “I’m not as secure as I seem to be.”
Proudest accomplishment: “I lasted a long time. I wore well.”
Dimitri Vassilaros can be reached at dvassilaros@tribweb.com or 412-380-5637.
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Fixing hole where rain gets in only half the job
By Robert Baird
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, September 30, 2002Gone are the initials scratched by street gang members and others into the paint on window sills at Henry Hobson Richardson’s landmark Allegheny County Courthouse.
New paint covers the window ledges and walls, vintage lights gleam down the center of the hallways and a handsome wooden bench, donated by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, adorns the fifth floor of the stately 114-year-old masterpiece.
In July, just after county workers put the finishing touches on the painting and plastering, a roof leak during a heavy rain sent water cascading down the walls at the Ross Street end of the building, staining and buckling ceiling tiles.
As a late-night jury deliberated the fate of a homicide defendant, acoustical tiles in the hallway filled with water, then burst like mini-dams, splashing rainwater in the hallway.
Since the damage, the water leak has never recurred.
But the gaping holes in the ceiling tiles remain as silent testimony to what can sometimes happen to the best-laid plans of mice and men.
Visitors to the building might think the unrepaired tiles in an otherwise spotless white ceiling are evidence of neglect.
“It looks terrible,” said Common Pleas Judge Lawrence O’Toole, who was presiding in his nearby courtroom at the homicide trial on the night the rainwater broke through the ceiling in the hall.
He said county workers are probably “waiting to see if it rains again.”
The judge had no idea his speculation was correct.
Margaret Philbin, county spokeswoman, said the public works department fixed the roof shortly after the leak and was waiting for the first heavy, steady rain, which occurred last Thursday and Friday.
“They went up Thursday night and Friday and checked, and found no leak,” she said. “The tiles will be fixed this week according to Tom Donatelli, director of public works.”
The unrepaired tiles on the fifth floor spoiled the effect of the many improvements recently made in the courthouse’s appearance.
Workers have been busy completing a new courtroom on the fifth floor for the summary appeals section, with chambers for Common Pleas Judge Robert Gallo, and offices for other staff members.
While there are other missing ceiling tiles in the building, they appear to have been taken down for “work in progress.”
Meanwhile, just one flight down on the fourth floor near the electrical shop, a stack of used ceiling tiles rests against a wall, alongside an electrical hoist used in replacing the tiles and burned-out lights.
Some courthouse observers suggested that the less-than-perfect tiles could have been used as replacements until the roof leak was checked out. Then, the new tiles could have been used without much chance of further damage.
Robert Baird can be reached at (412) 391-8650.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © The Tribune-Review Publishing Co