Category Archive: Preservation News
-
Bedford Springs is bubbling – Mountain resort to reopen July 1 after luxurious restoration
Sunday, June 17, 2007
By Marylynne Pitz,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteBEDFORD — Here at the lush Bedford Springs Resort, the Allegheny Mountains echo with the sounds of hammers, drills and buzzing saws. This cacophony of power tools is punctuated by regular grunts from an army of carpenters, electricians, landscapers and men laying elegant carpet in the Eisenhower Room or shimmering blue tile in the Eternal Springs Spa.
As the opening day of July 1 looms, this mountain retreat nestled in a narrow valley on 185 acres looks like a convention of contractors with workers laboring feverishly to finish a $120 million restoration and public spaces, such as an outdoor swimming pool. On a hill that affords a sweeping view of the resort, carpenters are building an open-air wedding chapel that resembles a Greek temple.
Inside the five guest houses that make up this national historic landmark, long scraps of colorful carpet snake across floors. Blueprints are spread out on stainless-steel kitchen counters. Many ornate lighting fixtures are still swathed in plastic.
“It’s a race to the end. It always is. This has been a marathon but we can see the end in sight,” said Keith P. Evans of Dallas, one of 10 investors from Bedford Resort Partners Ltd.
The 203-year-old Bedford Springs, which closed in 1990, is being restored to its 1905 splendor, including a robin’s egg shade called Bedford Blue that symbolizes the resort’s reputation as a font of seven mineral springs. In its recreational glory days, the hotel hosted Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Samuel Wanamaker, Nathaniel Hawthorne and seven U.S. presidents, including its most ardent fan, James Buchanan, who used it as his summer White House from 1857 to 1861.
Today, the frenzy of preparations so resembles an extreme makeover that a casual observer might wonder if a sitting president or a reigning queen was due to arrive. Or, at the very least, Helen Mirren in an ermine robe.
“Most of what’s being done right now is finalizing furniture, fixtures and equipment,” said Mr. Evans in a telephone interview from Texas. He plans to spend eight days on the site later this month.
Guests are already booked for July; weddings are scheduled in July and August. Utility lawyers and pharmaceutical industry representatives are booked for the fall.
Long before the resort started accepting reservations, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation directed its workers to blow up a mountain and reroute Route 220 so it would pass behind the resort instead of in front of it. That cost $11 million, just part of the total $40 million the state of Pennsylvania spent to revive this leisure attraction.
“An average of 750 trucks would pass in front of the hotel daily. By rerouting the road, we were able to create a more relaxing environment,” said Todd Gillespie, the resort’s marketing director.
Not to mention the elimination of all those noxious exhaust fumes, which might interfere with taking the waters, inhaling spruce-scented breezes or relaxing on the front porch — attractions that drew Aaron Burr and his ailing grandson here in 1806.
Even after two centuries, this place is all about its seven gushing natural springs. American Indians drank from the springs long before they were discovered in the late 1700s by Nicholas Shouffler, a gold prospector.
The magnesia spring is reportedly good for your stomach; the iron spring, a tonic for your blood. Locals regularly fill jugs with crystal spring water. The limestone spring lies just beyond a gold medal trout stream called Shober’s Run while the sulphur and sweet springs are closer to the hotel on Sweet Root Road.
A black spring that produces 400,000 to 500,000 gallons daily feeds Red Oak Lake, a scenic spot built in 1941 by the Navy, which converted the hotel into a radio communication training facility. After the military left, the lake became a popular spot for locals. Now, it’s being cleared of vegetation, fallen logs and a collapsed dock. By next year, a large gazebo and new dock will rise along its shore.
After restoration began in the fall of 2005, crews found an eighth spring that produces 20 gallons per minute. That water is diverted into two large holding tanks installed near the indoor pool and feeds a 30,000-square-foot spa with 14 treatment rooms.
Guests can soak in the Bedford Bath, where water is heated to 105 degrees, shock themselves with a plunge in 55-degree water, then return to warmer water. This primes you for a steam shower, massage and other treatments.
Once you dry off and dress, there’s a choice of five restaurants, including the fancy 1796 or the cozy Frontier Tavern. In addition to a couple that offer informal fare, the sentimental favorite is the formal Crystal Dining room, which has new crystal chandeliers imported from England.
Hanging chandeliers is no sweat compared to restoration engineering feats. Any time you update a 203-year-old hotel, there are structural surprises, and the Colonnade Ballroom in the former Colonial Building snarled the schedule. Cables suspended in the hotel’s attic held up the corners of the large wooden floor, but wooden trusses that supported the second-floor ballroom had weakened and new wooden trusses had to be installed.
“We pulled the roof off and reworked the structural supports … and basically abandoned the cable system,” Mr. Evans said, adding that the National Parks Service and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission had to approve the work, which also took time.
Once the roof was removed, heavy-duty air conditioning and sound technology were installed in the building’s ceiling. Now, the ballroom, which seats 350, is covered in a carpet of blue, green, gold, brown and pink.
David Rau, a design architect from 3 North in Virginia, said the transformation is remarkable.
When he saw the hotel near summer’s end in 2004, it was “an uncontrolled mess,” he said. “Parts of the building had no roof. The lobby had no floor because a flood had washed it away. You couldn’t walk into the lobby because it was a mud pit. There was water dripping down and plaster falling from the ceilings. Paint everywhere was peeled. It was like a movie set for a horror movie.”
Bonnie Wilkinson Mark, a historical architect from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, remembered the air in the Colonial Building, one of five guest houses that stand side by side.
“It had a smell to it that was not pleasant — the smell of mold. This building backs up to the hill behind it. There is so much water coming out of the hill, it was literally coming right into the building,” she said.
Besides controlling and channeling the water, the major challenge was maintaining the buildings’ historic authenticity while restoring them and installing 21st-century modernity — air conditioning, telephones, flat-screen TVs, Internet connections and elevators. Between 1826 and 1842, the hotel was continually upgraded, but the “last major historic upgrade occurred in 1905,” Ms. Mark said.
Known to locals as “the springs,” the hotel has employed generations of Bedford County residents, and a job fair at the end of last month attracted 1,100 potential applicants for 100 positions.
You can walk or ride on the golf course, designed in 1895 by Spencer Oldham and the home of blue herons. In 1911, another prominent course designer, A.W. Tillinghast, for unknown reasons, altered the course to nine holes. He created a storied hole called Tiny Tim, now hole No. 14.
“He backed up Shober’s Run to create a pond in front of the hole, and he placed six sand bunkers in the back of the green. In between each of the bunkers, he placed these series of mounds, which he called alps. He loved that hole so much that he devoted an entire chapter to it in a book he wrote about course design. He tried to replicate that hole on the additional 150 golf courses he went on to design,” Mr. Gillespie said.
In 1923, Donald Ross expanded the course to 18 holes; all the holes north of Shober’s Run were designed by him. Mr. Ross created a tough challenge, too — a par three Volcano Hole where players must shoot 233 yards uphill.
Whatever your golf score, you can recuperate from a hard day of swinging clubs in one of the 216 rooms. On the beds, linens are made of first run Egyptian cotton. Liquid crystal display TVs are tucked in armoires. There are full-length mirrors, sterling silver lamps, bathrooms with Italian marble laid in a herringbone pattern and a vanity.
A 19th-century visitor called the resort “a palace in the wilderness.”
Now, after a glorious restoration that description still fits.
Bedford Springs: Through the years
The rise, decline and rebirth of Bedford Springs Resort parallels the political, social and architectural changes in America for more than two centuries. Here are some significant dates in the retreat’s rich history.
1796
Dr. John Anderson buys 2,200 acres in Bedford County. A medical doctor and entrepreneur, he transformed the property into a mineral springs resort by creating a restaurant, hotel, laundry, servants’ quarters and entertainment.1806
Builder Solomon Filler completes the Stone Inn using teams of oxen to carry the stone and broad axes to cut the wood. Four other guest houses, the Colonial, Evitt, Swiss Cottage and Anderson House, were built between 1806 and 1905.1857-1861
The hotel serves as the summer White House for U.S. President James Buchanan, the only native of Pennsylvania to occupy the Oval Office. In 1858, he receives the first trans-Atlantic cable ever sent in the hotel’s lobby; it was from England’s Queen Victoria.1920s
Dr. William E. Fitch, an authority on mineral waters and the hotel’s medical director, prescribes the doctor-supervised, three-week Bedford Cure for guests.1942-1944
The U.S. Navy takes over the hotel and uses it to train more than 6,000 sailors as radio operators.1945
Between August and November, the U.S. government interns 180 high-level Japanese diplomats and embassy staff captured in Germany near the end of World War II.1983
Flooding inflicts $1 million worth of damage, and water courses through the hotel’s lobby.1984
The U.S. Department of the Interior designates the resort as a National Historic Landmark, hailing it as one of the best examples of “springs resort architecture.”1988
The hotel goes into bankruptcy.1990
The hotel closes.1998
Bedford Resort Partners Ltd., made up of 10 investors, buys the 2,200-acre property for $8 million.2004-07
The hotel and golf course are restored; a new spa wing is built. The resort will reopen July 1.If you go: Bedford Springs Resort
Overview: Bedford Springs Resort, at 2138 Business Route 220 in Bedford, offers 216 guest rooms and suites. There are 90 king-sized rooms, 44 queen guest rooms and 81 double rooms.
Rooms: Many rooms feature open-air porches with rocking chairs and a commanding view of the grounds. All rooms offer flat-screen televisions, wireless high-speed Internet access, dual line phones and voice-mail message systems.
Amenities: Amenities include indoor and outdoor pools, an 18-hole golf course, a fitness center, spa with 14 treatment rooms, and 10 meeting rooms for conferences. Among the activities are rafting on the Juniata River, a gold medal trout stream for fly fishing, 25 miles of hiking and biking trails and horseback riding. Red Oak Lake will offer paddle boats, fishing and a beach with picnic areas.
Rates: From Sundays to Thursdays, mountain view rooms start at $249 per night. On Fridays and Saturdays, all room rates start at $299. The resort also offers special accommodation packages.
Information: Visit the hotel’s Web site, www.bedfordspringsresort.com, or call 1-814-623-8100.
— Marylynne Pitz
(Marylynne Pitz can be reached at mpitz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1648. )
-
Duncan House ‘Wright’ fit for Acme park
By Richard Robbins
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, June 15, 2007A house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was unveiled Wednesday in Mt. Pleasant Township, a transplant from Illinois that joins two nearby Wright designs, Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob.
Duncan House, a prefab from Wright’s Usonia period of the 1950s, is typical Wright: a low-slung, linear affair with a spacious interior open to nature.The house, which arrived unassembled in Westmoreland County in three tractor-trailers a year ago, is slated to become a guest house at $385 a night. Its owner and CEO, Thomas Papinchak, of Greensburg, and his sister, Laura Nesmith, of Unity, are opening the house to weekend tours as well.
It is especially hoped Fallingwater visitors, 72 percent of whom need overnight lodging, will rent Duncan House as a way of enhancing their Wright “experience.”
Fallingwater director Lynda Waggoner, who attended yesterday’s ribbon-cutting, said that was an excellent possibility. Waggoner gave Duncan House a thumbs-up, saying the setting, deep in country woods about four miles from Route 31, was perfect.
“I don’t think a better setting could be found,” Waggoner said. “It will be terrific for the 135,000 (annual) visitors to Fallingwater.”Duncan House was originally constructed in a Chicago suburb in 1957 for Donald and Elizabeth Duncan. Wright hoped to create housing for middle-income Americans. It didn’t work out that way, said Tom Schmidt, of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy in Chicago.
Schmidt, who lives in Pittsburgh, said yesterday that Wright could not control costs and his dream of affordable, durable yet superior housing was never realized.
At the same time, the Duncans dwelled in their Wright-designed house for four decades. With the Duncans dead and the house in decline, it looked as though their home — one of only 11 remaining prefabricated Wright-designed structures in the nation — would fall to the wrecking ball.
It was then that the Conservancy came to the rescue along with Tim Baacke, of Johnstown. But Baacke’s plan to reassemble Duncan House in Johnstown never materialized. Papinchak stepped forward at that point, with financing help from the state and The Progress Fund, a nonprofit lender.
Papinchak said he sank a lot of his own money in Duncan House. A custom-design Greensburg contractor, Papinchak said putting Duncan House back together was no harder than working a jigsaw puzzle.
“It took us a year, I thought it would take six to eight months,” he said yesterday.
Duncan House is the centerpiece of Polymath Park Resort, a 125-acre spread near Acme that contains two Wright-inspired homes by Wright apprentice Peter Berndtson. Berndstson, Papinchak said, laid the groundwork for a 24-house development in the 1960s. Only the Balter and the Blum Houses were built.
More than a few Wright aficionados attended yesterday’s event. One was Karen Rich Douglas of Greensburg.
“I like the clean lines (of the house),” Douglas said. “I like its setting in nature. I like the way it nestles among the trees.”
A friend, Nina Lewis, of Greensburg, said she travels the nation to view Wright designs.
“I like the art deco stuff,” she said by way of explanation, “and the simplicity.”
Richard Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@tribweb.com or (724) 836-5660.
-
McKees Rocks photo contest promotes community, history
By Melanie Donahoo
Thursday, June 14, 2007McKees Rocks promoters want everyone to explore the architecture of the borough’s historic buildings with a photo hunt contest sponsored by the McKees Rocks Community Development Corp. and architect John Baverso.
Participants can find a close-up photo of a local building’s architectural feature every other Friday on the Internet at www.mckeesrocks.com. Everyone who correctly identifies the building in an e-mail is entered in a drawing for a Nintendo Wii video game system in October.
Sandy Saban, 55, a lifelong McKees Rocks resident and editor of the community Web site, said she got the idea for the contest when she was taking a walk and noticed the ornate architectural details of some structures.
“I started to look at the buildings, and I started to see all of this brickwork and this fancy stuff,” Saban said. “You just don’t see that anymore.”
Saban said she was surprised that she had not noticed the features sooner and wanted to give others an incentive to discover it.
“I never saw this stuff. I never paid attention to it,” Saban said. “And it’s been here all this time. What a shame that other people probably were like me and just never looked up at these buildings.”Saban took her idea to Taris Vrcek, the executive director of the community development corporation, and they developed the contest. In addition to the grand prize, the first person to send in a correct answer every two weeks will receive a gift certificate to a local restaurant or business, Vrcek said.
Baverso, the architect for the Sto-Rox Cultural Center being developed in McKees Rocks, donated the prizes.
“One of our greatest assets is our historic architecture,” said Vrcek, of McKees Rocks. “We have such a wealth of it, and a lot of it is undiscovered by people.”
The photos are being posted on Fridays so people have the weekend to walk around and look for the buildings, Vrcek said. They have two weeks to e-mail their answers. The contest is open to everyone, regardless of where they live. The answers to the previous week’s clues will be posted on the site.
Saban said she photographed the decorative features of public and commercial buildings in every part of the community.
“I hope people get a better appreciation of the buildings here and the care and the artistry of the people who built these buildings,” she said.
-
Officials looking beyond new housing to rejuvenate Mon Valley communities
Thursday, June 14, 2007
By Karamagi Rujumba,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteFor Mon Valley residents and officials, almost every time Dan Onorato visits their old steel-mill towns these days is a happy occasion.
In May and June alone, Mr. Onorato, a consortium of community groups and certain Pennsylvania departments launched new housing and refurbishment projects in Rankin, Braddock, and North Braddock.
All told, the projects will cost well over $17 million and give more than 150 families in the region a chance to live in new or refurbished houses or apartments.
But while such projects have been received with open arms in these communities, which have been yearning for a face-lift for the last couple of decades, they haven’t yet significantly changed the quality of life, says Bob Grom, president of the Heritage Health Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization in Braddock.
Mr. Grom would know, because his nonprofit was one of the first groups to build new homes it considered “affordable housing” for low-income residents in Braddock two years ago.
The four homes built by Heritage, all located near UPMC Braddock, were priced between $60,000 and $63,000, and were unoccupied until recently because no one could afford to buy them.
“We were a little naive going into this project,” Mr. Grom said, noting that his organization is now in the process of finalizing the sale of two of the houses.
“We didn’t understand the breadth of what we needed to understand at the time,” he said. “We can build all kinds of houses, but if the people in the community don’t have jobs or health care, how can they afford the houses?”
That, Mr. Grom said, is an elemental question that state, county and community officials ought to have some answer to if they really want to wholly transform communities like Braddock, North Braddock and Rankin.
On his part, Mr. Onorato recognizes this. He is often quick to note that community reinvestment can never be a one-pronged approach.
He regularly talks about how his office wants to see the redevelopment of the Carrie Furnace site complement neighborhood revitalization in Mon Valley communities.
And that, said Mr. Grom is “music to my ears.”
“We now live in an era of huge development opportunities — especially the potential of Carrie Furnace,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves, given all this possible investment, what kind of jobs, education systems, training programs will allow the residents of these communities to participate in this development?”
(Karamagi Rujumba can be reached at krujumba@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1719. )
-
Dormont gets grant to fund pool repairs
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Post GazetteDormont has received a $250,000 matching grant from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources to use toward pool repairs, said John Maggio, president of Friends of Dormont Pool, a fund-raising group.
He is confident fund-raising efforts will result in matching that $250,000, with $67,000 already raised. Coupled with the $312,000 the borough has set aside for the pool, the town is well on its way to the approximately $800,000 to $1.1 million needed to make all the repairs to the landmark 1920s-era pool.
The pool is open for summer.
-
Landmarks Awards Four Scholarships to College-Bound Students
PHLF
June 14, 2007
For the ninth consecutive year, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has sponsored a scholarship program for students in Allegheny County who are interested in the history, architecture, and landscape design of the Pittsburgh region. Four students––out of 35 applicants––were awarded $4,000 scholarships on June 12, 2007:• Jacob W. Beatty of North Allegheny Senior High School, who will be attending Carnegie Mellon University to study engineering;
• Caroline L. Mack of Schenley High School, who will be attending Drexel University to study civil engineering;
• Breanna M. Smith of Penn Hills Senior High School, who will be attending Washington & Jefferson College to study English; and
• Paul J. Steidl of Taylor Allderdice High School, who will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to study architecture and urban planning.
David Brashear, the trustee at Landmarks who sponsors the scholarship program, noted that: “We have selected four promising young students as this year’s scholarship winners who share a love of Pittsburgh and an understanding of the cultural, social, and economic value of historic preservation. As they achieve their educational and professional goals, we feel confident that they will remember their hometown with gratitude—and be in a position some day to give back to their community.”
Since the inception of the scholarship program in 1999, the Brashear Family Named Fund of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation and several trustees have committed $100,000 to fund a total of 25 scholarships. Scholarship recipients have attended (or are attending) Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham College, Columbia University, Cornell University, Drexel University, George Washington University, Howard University, Kent State University, Syracuse University, Temple University, University of Cincinnati, University of Pittsburgh, University of Virginia, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Washington & Jefferson College.
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Scholarship Program is offered each year. Applications for the 2007-08 school year will be available in Jan. 2008. Applicants must:
• be a resident of Allegheny County;
• be a high school senior who has been accepted at a college or university;
• have a cumulative Quality Point Average at the end of the first semester senior year of 3.25 or greater; and
• write an essay on a certain topic, complete an application, and submit a letter of recommendation.OVER
2007 Landmarks Scholarship Recipients: Student Profiles
Photos are available by contacting Greg Pytlik: greg@pytlikdesign.comJacob W. Beatty
A graduate of North Allegheny Senior High School, Jacob will be attending Carnegie Mellon University to study engineering.
Jacob received the James R. Wall Humanitarian Scholarship Award 2004-05 and participated in Landmarks’ Architecture Apprenticeship program in 2006. He has participated in many extracurricular activities and clubs, including a church youth group and Boy Scouts. For his Eagle Scout Project, Jacob worked on a project that would benefit a retreat center for children at risk of abuse and their families. Jacob also completed multiple renovation projects to benefit the elderly and disabled.
Jacob explains in his scholarship essay how important Pittsburgh––and specifically the former offices of the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, known as the “Castle”––have been to his family, the community, and the United States. “The Westinghouse Museum, of which I am currently a student member, is important to me personally since my great-grandfather and all of his sons were employed by Mr. Westinghouse their entire lives. But it is important to our entire nation because nowhere else within a span of such a few miles was more done to make lives of everyone safer, easier and more pleasant. The museum allows its visitors to experience history in the very place that it occurred.”
Caroline L. Mack
A graduate of Schenley High School, Caroline will be attending Drexel University to study civil engineering. She also plans on studying architecture as a minor or as a second major. Caroline is the first scholarship recipient to have participated in Landmarks’ school programs as an elementary school student.
Caroline received the Distinguished Youths of Western PA Award (American Cancer Society). She was a member of Students Taking Action Now: Darfur, Amnesty International, ACLU, and the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council of Pittsburgh. She is a volunteer with Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Habitat for Humanity, Global Links, and Pittsburgh Cares.
Caroline’s scholarship essay explains her fascination and love of old buildings, and her ambition to pursue a career that would allow her to be involved in historic restoration. She discusses how her school, Schenley High School, was nearly sold or torn down. “Immediately [I], along with numerous other students from my school, started a petition against the possible demolition of the school we loved. We spoke at City Council meetings, and got nearly six-hundred signatures on our petition.”
Breanna M. Smith
A graduate of Penn Hills Senior High School, Breanna will be attending Washington & Jefferson College to study English.
Breanna received the Excellence in Civics Award in ninth grade. During High School, she was a member of Key Club and SADD. Through these clubs Breanna participated in teaching “stranger danger” to kindergarteners, adopt-a-highway, adopt-a-spot (which targets an area for beautification), and helped organize Frisbee tournaments to raise money for charity.
In her scholarship essay, Breanna relates the personal connection that she has felt to Pittsburgh since she was a young girl and describes how the history of her family intertwines with that of the city. “Whenever I pass a steel mill today, I feel pride in knowing the hard work my family did there. The steel mills serve as a reminder to me to be thankful for what I have. My family members wanted a better life for themselves and for their children and worked hard to improve their status. I know that going to college is an opportunity they never had, but one they desperately wanted for their children and grandchildren.”
Paul J. Steidl
A graduate of Taylor Allderdice High School, Paul will be attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to study architecture. He plans on earning a minor in urban planning.
Paul was a member of the Environmental Club and a participant in the National Youth Leadership Forum on Technology in 2005 and in the Pre-college Architecture Program at Carnegie Mellon University in 2002. He has volunteered for E-fest Community Festival, Young Writers Institute, and Conductive Education Summer Camp.
Paul’s scholarship essay reveals how important growing-up in Pittsburgh has been to developing his passion for architecture. Paul completed a documentary, “Living in the East End,” about neighborhoods in the East End. “I believe that people should not restrict themselves to their own neighborhoods––they should be aware of the unique people, places and events that are in every area of the city. My goal for the film was to show students in my school all of the great things that Pittsburgh neighborhoods have to offer, both architecturally and culturally.”
_____________________________________________________________________
Founded in 1964, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is a non-profit membership organization working to identify and save architectural landmarks, revitalize historic neighborhoods, and instill community pride through educational programs.
-
Old Hanna’s Town gets $1 million boost
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
By Judy Laurinatis,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteIt took 30 years of planning and two years of fund raising, but a long-anticipated education center for Old Hanna’s Town historic site in Hempfield may soon be a reality.
Last week, Lisa Hayes, executive director of the Westmoreland County Historical Society, accepted a check for $1 million from county commissioners to help fund the new center, to be built on the grounds of what was once Westmoreland’s county seat. Ground-breaking is set for next spring.
The historical society has been raising funds for several years and is near its $7.5 million goal.
“Right now we have a lot of stuff in storage with no place to exhibit it,” Ms. Hayes told commissioners.
The center, expected to cost $5 million with an additional $2.5 million endowment to keep it going, will house classrooms, offices, artifacts dug at the site which are now stored all over the county and an archeological lab.
Historical societies throughout Westmoreland County will be invited to provide changing exhibits.
Ms. Hayes said Hanna’s Town was important to the development of Western Pennsylvania and the country because it was one of the earliest settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains.
It was founded in 1773, named for founder Robert Hanna and housed the first English court on the western frontier.
In 1782, the town was attacked and burned in one of the final battles of the Revolutionary War.
The county seat was then moved three miles south, to Greensburg.
The center will be built on what Ms. Hayes described as an “empty” plot of ground. The area has been studied for any archaeologically important artifacts and none has been found, she said.
She said the entire Hanna’s Town site was farmland for 130 years. so 20th-century historians found a wealth of items on the site, from intact pottery and china to toys and tools.
The village tourists can visit today consists of a reconstructed Hanna Tavern and Courthouse, three reconstructed 18th-century log houses and a Revolutionary War era fort as well as a blockhouse and wagon shed.
The new center will have massive glass panels which overlook the main historic site to its rear.
It is being designed by the Lettrich Group of Greensburg.
(Judy Laurinatis can be reached at jlaurinatis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1228. )
-
Artists bring flourish to Penn Avenue
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
By Diana Nelson Jones,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteNine years ago, two nonprofits designated a 12-block stretch of Penn Avenue through Bloomfield, Garfield and Friendship as a destination for artists. Some local residents ridiculed the idea. The corridor was pestilent.
Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. and Friendship Development Associates teamed up to pitch empty storefronts to artists. They attached big colorful banners over doorways between Mathilda Street and Negley Avenue in a 16-building strategy. Vandals and several seasons of weather had their way with the banners for a few years.
Fast forward to the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater at 5941 Penn Ave., where at 6 p.m. tomorrow, the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative will throw a release party for its new 20-minute video that documents the turn of events since 2001. The event, celebrating “Electric Avenue,” is free and open to the public and will include live music, refreshments and art for sale.
Despite many ills remaining, the nonprofits feel vindicated. Nearly a dozen arts groups have clustered along the corridor in the past six years, many of whom perform and offer classes, including the Pittsburgh Glass Center, Dance Alloy and Attack Theatre. More than a dozen arts-related businesses and individual artists who live upstairs and work downstairs also have invested in the corridor, as did two architecture studios, Edge Architects in 2003 and Loysen + Kreuthmeier in 2005. Some of the artists and arts groups offer workshops and classes to all age groups.
Garfield Artworks was the lone gallery, and Dance Alloy had just moved into the neighborhood when artist Jeffrey Dorsey began volunteering with the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative. It started in 1998 as a joint project of Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. and Friendship Development Associates. Both are nonprofits that provide neighborhood services and develop real estate. They compiled a database of more than 400 artists in three immediate ZIP codes.
Mr. Dorsey served on the steering committee to get the initiative on its feet, then was hired the next year to run it. He was instrumental in establishing the Unblurred event that draws the public to artist spaces the first Friday evening of every month and is now executive director of FDA.
“Artists were interested” in the corridor early on, he said, but it took a few years for momentum to build. “We would have an artist ready to buy, and then there would be trouble with financing, or a contractor and the artist at the last minute decided not to buy.” On two buildings in particular, “the banners were up way too long, but we got a lot of response.”
On the new video, the second the arts initiative has made to document its progress, Mr. Dorsey said artists were the target to jump-start revitalization “because artists are connectors.”
A revival of Penn Avenue is radiating to some of its troubled side streets. Recently, two new homeowners relocated here from other cities, one a young family, the other a young couple, and bought blighted, abandoned homes to renovate and live in north of Penn, said Becky Mingo, real estate specialist for Friendship Development.
Aggie Brose, deputy director of Bloomfield-Garfield, said BGC has sold 22 of 23 new single-family homes of a 50-house plan that will occupy a four-by-four block area. Eight more are being built now, and 19 will be started next summer, she said.
The BGC also owns seven homes being rehabbed this and next year on North Fairmount.
The arts initiative has had “minimal impact on the sale of new houses in Garfield,” she said, “but I’m hoping that unconsciously, all the excitement on Penn Avenue in general fed into buyers’ decisions.”
She said the BGC and FDA “labored for years” to fill small storefronts that continued to lie dormant until the groups met with Artists in Cities, an organization that was finishing construction of the Spinning Plate Artists Lofts and Galleries on Friendship Avenue in 1998.
“They had a waiting list,” said Ms. Brose. “So Rob Stephany, [commercial real estate specialist for East Liberty Development, who was then on the BGC staff] jumped in and said, ‘We have places on Penn Avenue. Let me take you on a tour.’ That’s how the Arts Initiative was born, and a movement started.”
(Diana Nelson Jones can be reached at djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626. )
