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  1. Plan C task force has initial meeting-Members still debating if public can attend

    By Gregor McGavin

    TRIBUNE-REVIEW 01/05/2001

    The first order of business Thursday for a task force formed to forge a compromise between competing visions for Downtown was to open the doors to the public – sort of.

    The 11 members of the Plan C task force appointed by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy met for the first time yesterday at the Oakland offices of Bally Design, the company hired to organize the meetings.

    The panel includes Downtown merchants and property owners who were vocal critics of the mayor’s failed Market Place at Fifth & Forbes plan, which they said suffered from a lack of openness and public input.

    The task force is permitting the media to attend the meetings, said Frank Garrity, president of Bally.

    “I wouldn’t go if (the meeting) was closed,” said Arthur Ziegler, a task force member and executive director of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.

    What they did not work out was whether to allow members of the public to attend, said Wendy Dodd, task force member and marketing director for the Downtown Pittsburgh Partnership.

    That came as a surprise to task force member Patty Maloney, who owns a Forbes Avenue gift shop and heads the Golden Triangle Community Development Corp., one of the groups that opposed Murphy’s plan.

    Maloney said she had understood the first meeting would focus on organization and general operation of the panel and would be closed to the public and the media. The task force plans to schedule separate public hearings, Dodd said.

    “There seems to be some kind of confusion, with me being part of the confused,” Maloney said. “The decision was the meetings are going to be open to the press … I would assume it would be the same thing with the public.”

    More importantly, Dodd said, panelists decided that Bally should conduct interviews with Downtown stakeholders, including property owners and arts organizations, to be sure any plan accurately reflects the will of people living and working in the area.

    The group also scheduled meetings every Thursday morning through mid-February. The next meeting also will be at Bally Design, 424 N. Craig St., Oakland. The locations of the other meetings haven’t been determined.

    Task force members hope to synthesize previous plans from the Downtown Planning Collaborative, the Golden Triangle CDC and other groups into a single plan that pleases all concerned, Dodd said.

    “There’s still quite a bit of work that this group will have to do, and it’s only just begun,” she said.

    – Gregor McGavin can be reached at gmcgavin@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7844.

    This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review

  2. Former foes meet to develop plans for Downtown

    Friday, January 05, 2001

    By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

    It wasn’t exactly like the Arabs and the Israelis sitting down for Middle East peace talks, but it was close.

    Mayor Tom Murphy and his top advisers met yesterday for the first time with former Fifth and Forbes project opponents to discuss how best to revitalize Downtown’s commercial core.

    “Three big things are needed: housing, transportation and parking,” said Jeff Joyce, owner of the 1902 Tavern in Market Square and a member of Murphy’s Plan C Task Force on Fifth and Forbes renewal.

    “We have plenty of people here in the daytime,” he said. “We have to keep them here after work.”

    He listed issues that must be resolved: “How do people get into and out of Downtown? How do they get around once they’re here? How do we make Downtown living affordable?”

    About a dozen people attended yesterday’s two-hour session. They said the meeting went well even though little came out of it in concrete terms. Additional weekly meetings will be held in the Oakland offices of Bally Design, which is coordinating the renewal effort.

    Murphy brought his top aide, Tom Cox, plus city Planning Director Susan Golomb and press aide Doug Root.

    Murphy himself “will be there next week and the week after,” Root said. “It shows his seriousness about this.”

    Bernie Lynch, former director of the Market Square Association and an opponent of Murphy’s now-abandoned Market Place at Fifth and Forbes plan, said the geographic area to be improved might end up being larger than just Fifth and Forbes avenues.

    Another opponent of Market Place, Arthur Ziegler of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said the group wanted to get a good idea of what the present and future base of customers is for Downtown in terms of shopping, housing and entertainment.

    Once the customer base is determined, the city can decide what shops, restaurants and clubs can be added to the current mix to attract more people, he said.

    He and Lynch said previous studies on how to revitalize Downtown would be used in this new effort. Those include a plan done for the foundation by New York City architect Stan Eckstut, and a months-long collaborative effort last year headed by city Councilman Sala Udin.

    Root said he’s hoping the group, by spring, will come up with the outline of “a workable plan that everybody can embrace.”

    This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette

  3. Parking woes plagues downtown – Survey finds shoppers attracted to area malls because of free parking

    By Dave Copeland

    TRIBUNE-REVIEW 01/01/2001

    Had it been approved, the failed $522.4 million Market Place at Fifth & Forbes redevelopment plan for downtown Pittsburgh would have done little to draw shoppers to the city, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review poll shows.

    “I would just never think of going down there,” said Joe Kuhner of Wilkins Township as he shopped at the Monroeville Mall recently. “I have no reason to go down there. It’s just easier to stay out here and go to the mall.”

    Only 10 percent of the respondents to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Poll said they would be “very likely” to shop Downtown if the Fifth-Forbes retail corridor was redeveloped. Forty-two percent said they would not shop Downtown even if the corridor was redeveloped.

    Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy had wanted to create the Market Place at Fifth & Forbes by demolishing 62 buildings along Fifth and Forbes avenues. Urban Retail Properties Co., the project’s lead developer that bowed out when Nordstrom Inc. declined an offer to anchor the development, had promised an upscale retail district that they believed would have drawn shoppers from throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.

    The main reason respondents gave for not shopping Downtown is the often hectic hunt for a parking spot.

    Forty-three percent of the respondents said cheaper parking would make them more likely to shop Downtown, and another 18 percent said they might consider Downtown shopping more often if there was better public transportation to get them there.

    “We can park for free here,” Kuhner said of the Monroeville Mall.

    In November, Pittsburgh City Council voted against diverting money from the Market Place at Fifth & Forbes project to pay for free parking during the holiday season, upgrades to Grant Street and facade improvements for Downtown businesses.

    The proposal had been pushed by Councilman Jim Ferlo, but Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Mulugetta Birru said it would be illegal for the city to use the tax-increment financing money for anything other than what it was designated.

    Murphy’s thinking for redeveloping Downtown wasn’t completely flawed, according to poll respondents. Seventeen percent said they would be more likely to shop Downtown if there were more department stores. Since being elected in 1994, Murphy has given tax subsidies to build a Lazarus and a Lord & Taylor department store to join the existing Kaufmann’s and Saks Fifth Avenue stores, making Pittsburgh one of the few major cities with four Downtown department stores.

    “I don’t go down there now. If it was different than a regular mall, I might go down,” said Shannon Mahoney of Murrysville, Westmoreland County. “The only reason I probably would go down was for shopping, or maybe a concert.”

    While 59 percent of the poll respondents said they never shop Downtown, only 4 percent said they shop there on a weekly basis. Those people are more than likely people who work Downtown or live in the city, said Patty Maloney, owner of the Card Center on Wood Street.

    “That’s why there are different places to shop – so people can choose where they shop,” Maloney said. “All you have to do is look at our transactions and you can see that people do shop here. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be in business.”

    Another criticism of Murphy’s plan was the lack of residential development that could have provided a customer base for the envisioned “24-hour Market Place.”

    Shadyside resident Karen McClellan said she prefers to shop at the stores on Walnut Street, within walking distance from her apartment.

    “It’s so much easier to walk down the street. That’s where I do most of my shopping,” McClellan said. “I haven’t been to a mall since I moved here, and I’ve never shopped Downtown.”

    With Murphy’s plan in shambles, he is looking to his former opponents to help develop a new Downtown revitalization program based partly on the National Trust For Historic Preservation’s Main Street program.

    Murphy has tapped the Golden Triangle Community Development Corp. and the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation – two key critics of his original proposal – to work on “Plan C, for compromise.”

    Main Street has been used throughout the country to revitalize business districts while preserving historic buildings. In addition to revitalizing buildings and fostering existing businesses, Main Street relies heavily on promoting the district as a destination for shoppers and tourists. Pittsburgh’s South Side was one of the first urban areas to adopt a Main Street program.

    Dave Copeland can be reached at dcopeland@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.

  4. The Controversial Spelling of “Pittsburgh”, or Why The “H”?

    by James Van Trump

    Nowadays problems and uncertain prospects abound in the city of Man, to say nothing of our particular city here where the rivers join. There is scarcely a day when the most pressing of questions are not asked, questions having to do with our life and our survival, many of which seem to have no easy answers.

    Sometimes it is a relief to turn from these large riddles to smaller, more genteel queries-relative to the shortest route to downtown or the park, or “Why is Pittsburgh – in a country where ‘burgs’ abound – so uniquely spelled? Why the h?”

    Perhaps no question in the city is asked more often. Local libraries are familiar with it; the present writer has been besieged with it at his office and at dinner parties. The never-ceasing recurrence of the query has induced me to write an account in final answer, at least in the interest of sparing myself constant verbal repetition. Printed accounts already exist, but everyone questioned is entitled to his own answer and this is mine.

    There are Pittsburgs in California and Kansas, Illinois and Texas – a tribute to the distances to which the Pennsylvania Pittsburghers have wandered. But none of these distant followers has the “h”. A Pittsboro occurs in North Carolina and one in Indiana – a name which follows the original Scottish pronunciation. In Ohio, there is a Pitsburg, another interesting variation of spelling.

    Of course, many questioners remember that there was a time when our Pittsburgh did not have the “h”, but when did it and when did it not? There are still many non-Pittsburghers who in addressing letters leave the name “h” – less, but they are obviously not in the know. Even after everything is said and written, many will still eschew the “h”, but at least I have done my bit to set the record straight.

    I must begin straight off by saying that the name of Pittsburgh has always had the “h” since the very beginning, and the “h” was official. Therefore it was always “received opinion” locally, except for a time at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries when officially the “h” was dropped.

    “Except for that brief period,” as George Swetnam’s Press article points out, (Oct. 17, 1971)” ‘Pittsburgh’ was always the official spelling – even before Pittsburgh was founded. The name was given to Fort Ligonier for a period of several weeks in 1758 when General John Forbes didn’t think he was going to be able to capture Fort Duquesne.” (Every writer on Pittsburgh is indebted to George Swetnam, and the present article is a case in point.)

    This, of course, refers to the chief actor in the climactic and crucial event in the bitter struggle of the French and English for control of the land beyond the mountains – the expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758. General John Forbes, a Scot, had been appointed by the Prime Minister of England, William Pitt, as leader of the British and Colonial forces against the French.

    Forbes was mortally ill and much beset by dissension within his ranks, but by early autumn of that year his army had reached Raystown and Loyalhanna and was preparing to advance on Fort Duquesne. The French, apparently alarmed by reports of the superior English forces, abandoned and burned the fort leaving the English to assume control of the land at the Forks without a struggle on 26 November.

    In his letter to William Pitt dated “Pittsbourgh, 27th November, 1758”, acquainting the Prime Minister with his conquest of the area, Forbes says in part – “I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Du Quesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that makes us Masters of the place . . . “. The letter is not in Forbes’ own hand, but in that of one of his clerks; but the General would have been cognizant of this form.

    “Burgh” and “bourgh”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, are variants of “borough”, obsolete in ordinary English use since the 17th century but continued in Scotland – for example, Edinburgh. Forbes being a Scot would have used this form, probably pronouncing it “Pittsburro”, just as Edinburgh is “Edin-burro”.

    In 1768, the descendants of William Penn purchased from the Indian tribes known as the Six Nations, lands situated in the western part of the province and including the land on which Pittsburgh now stands. In 1769 a survey was made of the site of the future city, which the Penns had reserved for their own use, and which they called their “Manor of Pittsburgh”.

    In 1784, the laying out of the “Town of Pittsburgh” was completed by Thomas Vickroy and John Woods and approved by the attorney of the Penns in Philadelphia.

    The Act of 5 March, 1804, which amended the old charter of the Borough of Pittsburgh in 1794, refers throughout to the “Borough of Pittsburgh.” The terminal “h” was thus continued from the earlier document.

    Pittsburgh was incorporated as a city by an Act of Legislature of 18 March, 1816. Through a printer’s error the ‘h” was omitted from the name, but the original charter included it. Unfortunately the original was burned when the second Allegheny County Court House was destroyed by fire in 1882.

    Throughout the 19th century, in directories and newspapers an occasional use of “Pittsburg” will be found but the predominant usage was “Pittsburgh”. Municipal documents always used the latter spelling.

    Consonant with the rise of the modern technological age, a gradual tendency toward standardization appeared. In accordance with this trend, the United States Board of Geographic Names was appointed in an effort to standardize the orthography of American place names. Pittsburgh officially lost its “h” when the Board’s report was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on 23 December, 1891.

    To quote Swetnam again – “The decision was two-fold: the Board ruled that in general, place names pronounced ‘berg’ should be spelled ‘burg’ and those with the sound of ‘thorough’ should be written ‘boro’. ”

    Perhaps because some Pittsburghers may have objected to the change, or to forestall such objections, the Board caused a special listing to be inserted on page 34 of the Report – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The city was chartered in 1816, its name being spelled without the ‘h’and its official form is still ‘Pittsburg’. The ‘h’ appears to have been added by the Post Office Department and through that action, local usage appears to have become divided. While the majority of local newspapers print it without the ‘h’, certain others use the final ‘h’.

    Thus was error compounded from the original printer’s error. The Board’s research was certainly faulty to say the least. The ordinance for the organization of the city of Pittsburgh after the passage of the Act of 1816, and recorded in Ordinance Book, with the seat of the city of Pittsburgh attached, is uniform in the use of the “h “.

    So did Pittsburgh lose the “h”, but there were local citizens who desired that justice be done.

    According to Swetnam, “One of the most determined of these was William Hamilton Davis, a young man at the time of the decision, but later a prominent leader in National Guard affairs. He won the rank of major in the Spanish American War and was appointed Postmaster in 1906.

    “He immediately began a campaign for the restoration of the missing letter, being strongly backed by the Education Committee of the Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, Senator George T. Oliver joined in the fight and finally secured a special meeting of the Board (whose name had been changed) at which complete evidence was presented.”

    At the conclusion of the meeting a brief announcement was made that was embodied in a letter to Senator Oliver and which was printed in the Pittsburgh Gazette Times of 22 July, 1911.

    Hon. George T. Oliver
    United States Senate

    Sir:
    At a special meeting of the United States Geographic Board held on July 19, 1911 the previous decision with regard to the spelling of Pittsburgh without the final H was reconsidered and the form below was adopted:
    Pittsburgh, a city in Pennsylvania (not Pittsburg).
    Very respectfully,
    G.S. Sloan, Secretary

    Swetnam again has the final word in the story. “Although the decision was effective immediately, it took time for it to be completely implemented. And it was on October 1, 1911 that canceling machines in the main office and branches here were changed to include the new-old spelling.”

    There were some diehards like the Pittsburgh Press that held out for almost twenty years against the restored letter, and there will continue to be those who, through either ignorance or carelessness will leave us “h” less, but generally Pittsburghers rejoice in the “h”. It symbolizes our individuality, our special quality as a city.

    This article originally appeared as an article in QED Renaissance, the journal of WQED educational television, and was printed in “The Stones of Pittsburgh, Number 8”.

  5. New Clemente Bridge lighting ready to glow

    By Tom Barnes,
    Post-Gazette Staff Writer
    Wednesday, November 20, 2002

    Downtown Pittsburgh is about to get significantly brighter, as new lighting bursts onto the scene tomorrow and Friday nights.

    For 10 minutes starting at 6:45 p.m. tomorrow, fireworks will explode from the Roberto Clemente Bridge, marking the debut of the long-anticipated lighting of the span that links Sixth Street with PNC Park.

    The bridge will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians starting at 10 a.m. tomorrow. It won’t reopen until midnight. The span will be closed so workers from Zambelli Internationale can set up the fireworks display. Motorists and pedestrians are advised to use the Seventh or Ninth street bridges.

    The lighting project, which has been in the planning stage for a year, is being funded by a $500,000 grant from Duquesne Light Co. It covers the cost of electricity and includes $50,000 for ongoing maintenance and replacement of light fixtures.

    Installation of the lighting started in August and includes five types of fixtures, most with white globes accented by blue lamps that echo those at PNC Park.

    There will be four new “portal” light fixtures, two on each end of the bridge. Each fixture contains five large white globes 13 feet above a stone pier.

    There will be 32 fixtures, each with a single white globe on top, stretching down each side of the bridge.

    There will be 74 smaller blue lamps attached to the curving upper portions of the bridge structure to outline the top of the bridge.

    Floodlights will illuminate the vertical cables and towers. Floodlights also will shine on the piers.

    Tomorrow night’s ceremony includes speeches by government and Duquesne Light officials, beginning at 6:15 p.m and leading up to the fireworks.

    Speakers include Gov.-elect Ed Rendell; Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey; City Councilman Sala Udin; Tom Cox, Mayor Tom Murphy’s executive secretary; Morgan O’Brien, chief executive officer of DQE, parent company of Duquesne Light; John Craig, Post-Gazette editor and co-chairman of the Riverlife Task Force, a privately funded group that seeks to beautify and enliven city waterfronts; and Arthur Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, which lit the Smithfield Street Bridge in 1984.

    The Clemente Bridge lights will be turned on right after the fireworks display.

    The bridge, built in 1924, was called the Sixth Street Bridge until a year ago. It will be lit from dusk to dawn, 365 days a year.

    Officials from the city and the Riverlife Task Force are hoping that corporate sponsors can be found to light other bridges, especially the Clemente Bridge’s two sister spans, the Seventh and Ninth street bridges.

    The lighting extravaganza will continue Friday with daytime and nighttime activities that are part of the annual Light Up Night, marking the start of the Christmas holiday shopping season.

    Downtown buildings will keep their lights on and newly installed “snowflakes,” 5-foot-wide fixtures containing small white lights, will decorate streets in the commercial core Downtown, including Fifth Avenue, Wood Street and Market Square. The snowflakes, which will be turned on at 5:10 p.m., are also sponsored by Duquesne Light.

    Murphy will return from a trip to China in time to light a 48-foot decorated holiday tree at the Grant Street entrance of the City-County Building. The lighting is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Friday.

    Duquesne Light will also sponsor its annual tree of lights near the fountain in Point State Park.

    Another fireworks display will mark Light Up Night at 9 p.m. A complete list of activities is available at the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership’s Web site, downtownpittsburgh.com.

    The Port Authority said it will expand service Friday evening for Light Up Night activities. Extra light-rail vehicles and buses will be in service and shuttle buses will be added between the upper and lower stations of the Monongahela Incline.

    Port Authority officials noted some Downtown street closures Friday night that will affect bus routes, beginning as early as 8 p.m. Routes affected will include those on Liberty, Forbes, Penn and Fifth avenues and Stanwix and Smithfield streets.

  6. Rebuilding needs input, not secrecy

    Wednesday, October 06, 1999
    By Sally Kalson
    Pittsburgh Post Gazette

    There’s never been any question that something must be done about Pittsburgh’s Forbes-Fifth corridor, a grim expanse with too many indications of a center-city in decline.

    But now we’re seeing what happens when the plan for “something” is hatched in secret, by a few people, with no input from those most directly affected, and without consulting any of the myriad local experts who could have helped shape the project and build community support.

    Without that kind of participation, Mayor Murphy’s newly unveiled plan for Market Place at Fifth and Forbes feels like it’s being done more TO us than WITH us. And that’s a shame.

    I, for one, would love to get behind a major Downtown revitalization project. But as it stands, this one gives me the willies.

    It feels out of balance, both too much and not enough — too much demolition, not enough preservation; too much commercial development, not enough residential (none, actually); too much emphasis on national chains, not enough on retaining homegrown business; too much telling how it’s GOING to be, not enough conferring on how it OUGHT to be.

    The plan has its merits, to be sure. Of the $480.5 million package, about 89 percent will come from the private developer, Urban Retail Properties of Chicago, and the prospective tenants. The buildings are to be in scale with Downtown’s current proportions, and all the stores are to have street entrances instead of inward-facing, mall-type corridors.

    But — and this is a very big but — the plan calls for the city to acquire 64 buildings and demolish 62 of them. Only 10 facades are to be saved and incorporated into the new designs.

    That’s not revitalization; it’s clear-cutting. And even if the new buildings that take their place are nicely designed, will there be anything distinct about them? Anything that says Pittsburgh, as opposed to Cleveland, Denver, Atlanta or Fort Worth?

    How many structures that are worth saving could have been kept in the picture if Murphy and his point man on the project, Deputy Mayor Tom Cox, had invited Pittsburgh History and Landmarks and Preservation Pittsburgh into the process, instead of holding them off?

    Having been excluded, they’re now working on alternative plans of their own. How much time, energy and expense could have been saved if they’d all worked together from the get-go?

    And how many Downtown business owners could have been won over, fired up or, at the very least, assuaged if the mayor’s office had found a way to include them? Now they’re angry as hornets, vowing to dig in and hold out, threatening lawsuits.

    It was all so predictable, and so unnecessary. Sure, some opposition is inevitable in a project of this scale. All the more reason to accept the help of potential allies when it’s offered instead of shutting them out.

    Arthur Ziegler of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks summed it up, saying he was “most disappointed that the city has ignored all those people and organizations that want to help. There was an opportunity here to encourage terrific local community energy and commitment through broad participation.”

    This, I think, is one of the most unfortunate characteristics of Murphy’s tenure. I believe he loves this city and cares deeply about its future. If only he could recognize that other people do, too.

    Sally Kalson’s e-mail is:skalson@post-gazette.com

  7. Urban writer scoffs at corridor plan

    By Jeff Stacklin
    TRIBUNE-REVIEW
    October 6, 1998

    By redeveloping the Fifth and Forbes corridor with national retailers and restaurants, city planners will blow an opportunity to “do something interesting and innovative that won’t bankrupt the city,” an urban critic said Wednesday.

    Instead of investing in a national developer, city leaders should assist local businesses by helping them market their wares and by government-funded programs to improve roads and buildings, said Roberta Brandes Gratz, a journalist, author and critic from New York City.

    Gratz, author of “Cities Back from the Edge, New Life for Downtown,” spoke as part of the Making Cities Work lecture series. The lecture was sponsored by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Pittsburgh Branch.

    With slides, Gratz showed redevelopment projects that have worked in other U.S. cities and some that have not. She made a distinction between the reborn and rebuilt city – and favors the reborn city.

    A rebuilt city is one where buildings are razed and replaced with new structures. A reborn city utilizes what’s already in place.

    She scoffed at the proposed overhaul of Fifth and Forbes avenues as a rebuilding project that won’t work and will cost too much.

    The plan, which has not been finalized, tentatively calls for the city to buy the properties lining the corridor, and then sell them to Urban Retail Properties, a Chicago-based firm.

    The firm, which did not return phone calls yesterday, promises to attract an All-Star Cafe, a Planet Hollywood with a 24-screen movie theater and several national retailers.

    The project is also expected to get plenty of tax dollars. Already, Gov. Tom Ridge has pledged $10 million in state grants. Mayor Tom Murphy has said he wants to provide $7 million in taxes reaped from a new Mellon Bank operations center. The project, which Urban Retail Properties brochures have called the Market Place at Fifth and Forbes, has been estimated to cost $170 million.

    The developer and the city have yet to disclose how much of that cost will be underwritten by private sources.

    Although many people can relate to the national chains, Gratz said her studies of other cities show they won’t attract more people Downtown.

    “Why would someone come Downtown to a store they can find in a mall in the suburbs?” she asked.

    The Fifth and Forbes corridor already is loaded with unique stores that offer a distinct flavor. It’s an area that can be reborn, Gratz said.

    She suggested the city catalog existing businesses and what they sell. With that information, the city should launch an advertising campaign to market the area. She’s betting that within a year more people will come Downtown to patronize the stores.

    “I don’t think people know how many local businesses will be displaced” by the redevelopment, Gratz said. “Local businesses should be treasured, not replaced.”

    After her lecture, Gratz toured the Fifth and Forbes corridor, and stumbled upon The Headgear hat shop on Fifth Avenue. From cowboys hats to baseball caps, the store sells all styles and fashions of hats. It’s in a building that will be razed if the city’s plan is carried out.

    “This goes?” she asked, shaking her head in dismay. The plan “makes less sense seeing it on the street than it did when I just heard about it.”

    City Councilman Sala Udin is confident that the unique stores, such as the hat shop, will be relocated into the new development – although he could not guarantee that every wig shop and manicurist along the corridor would survive.

    “Efforts are being made by the mayor’s office and the Urban Redevelopment Authority to find local businesses that contribute a progressive urban character and keep them in business and keep them in the mix,” Udin said.

    Margaret McCormick Barron, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said that some businesses might be temporarily relocated while construction is taking place. She said “it’s premature” to say what businesses, if any, would be forced out of their buildings because of the development.

    Udin said he appreciated many conclusions drawn by Gratz. However, the final plan for the Fifth and Forbes corridor has not been completed.

    “The jury is still out on it,” Udin said. “What the final configuration of the Downtown ownership will look like is still to be determined.”

    Barron said that the city’s new Downtown Plan includes market research that supports the Fifth and Forbes plan, and concludes that the national retailers and restaurants will draw customers.

    “We stand by the plan,” she said. Gratz’s remarks suggested that “she seems to think we’re building a mall.” That’s not the case, Barron said.

    Meanwhile, the mayor’s office said last night that Murphy planned an important economic development announcement this afternoon at Mellon Square, Downtown.

  8. Preservation grants aid 20 churches

    By The Tribune-Review
    October 1, 1998

    The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has awarded nearly $50,000 to 20 area churches.

    “No community is any kind of community without church in it,” said Howard B. Slaughter Jr., director of preservation services at the foundation. Slaughter said the grants announced Monday help the churches to remain “alive, vibrant, and healthy.”

    Many of the grants were given for repair of stained-glass windows.

    Twenty-seven churches applied for funding.

    The grants, ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, will be used for restoration of the historic buildings. Each church is required to match the grants and many of the churches double or triple the investment made by the foundation.

    The recipients are:

    Bellefield Presbyterian Church, Oakland, $2,000; Brown Chapel AME Church, North Side, $3,000; Calvary Episcopal Church, Shadyside/East Liberty, $3,000; Calvary United Methodist Church, North Side, $2,100; Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, Wilkinsburg, $3,000; Epiphany Roman Catholic Church, Hill District, $3,000; Episcopal Church of the Nativity, Crafton, $3,000.

    Also, First Presbyterian Church, Downtown, $1,500; First United Methodist Church, Shadyside, $3,000; Glenshaw Valley Presbyterian Church, $2,500; Missionary Temple Church of God in Christ, East Liberty, $2,500; Old St. Luke Church, Carnegie, $3,000; The Presbyterian Church of Sewickley, $3,000; St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Oakland, $2,215.

    And, St. Benedict the Moor Church, Hill District, $3,000; St. Mary of the Mount Church, Mt. Washington, $1,500; St. Nicholas Croation Church, Millvale, $2,850; St. Paul Baptist Church, Point Breeze, $3,000; Second Baptist Church, Penn Hills, $1,000; West End AME Zion Church, $3,000.

Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation

100 West Station Square Drive, Suite 450

Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Phone: 412-471-5808  |  Fax: 412-471-1633