Category Archive: Threatened Historic Resources
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College eyes pool
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, February 6, 2006One of the country’s first indoor swimming pools in a home, built for banking magnate Andrew Mellon, soon may become a lost relic.
Chatham College, which received the Tudor-styled Shadyside mansion as a gift from one of Mellon’s children, is considering other uses for the now empty pool, once a glamorous symbol of the wealth, power and excess enjoyed by Pittsburgh’s barons of banking and industry.“We’re working now to determine what those possible uses could be,” said Chatham spokesman Paul Kovach. A meeting room is one possibility.
In the meantime, the drained pool, housed in a vaulted room lined with pearl-like tile, lies covered with a blue tarp. The eight-lane, 75-foot-long Sigo Falk Natatorium in the college’s new Health and Fitness Center has made the old 60-foot-long pool obsolete.
Al Tannler, historical collections director for Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said he understands why the college would want to change the pool.
“Reuse is not a problem,” he said. “It’s a matter of it being a tasteful way, and Chatham has a good reputation for that.”A year ago, the college converted another icon of Mellon’s wealth — the mansion’s two-lane bowling alley — into a broadcasting studio.
The mansion, now Mellon Hall, the college’s administration building, has a storied history.
“We’ve always heard old stories from alumni about hearing the ghost of Mr. Mellon walking around the house,” Kovach said.
Located on Woodland Road just off Millionaires Row on Fifth Avenue, the house was built for George Laughlin Jr. in 1902. The mansion features at least 10 intricately carved wood and marble fireplaces, stone archways, wood paneling and pocket doors.
Mellon, the former U.S. secretary of treasury, bought the house in 1917. He hired the original architect, MacClure & Spahr, to expand his home. The expansion included the bowling alley and a 60-foot-long swimming pool with Guastazino tile, a material popular for its light weight, fireproof ability and good acoustics.
“People just loved it,” Tannler said of the tile. “They went nuts.”
However Chatham decides to use the pool, the Guastazino tile will stay put, Kovach assured.
Other Pittsburgh landmarks with that tile are the Allegheny County Courthouse, Buhl Planetarium and the vestibule of the City-County Building.
Tannler said there’s no way to know if the Mellon House was the first local home with an indoor swimming pool. In 1907, architect Grosvenor Atterbury designed the public Phipps Natatorium, now razed, Downtown.
Indoor swimming pools in homes were rare in those days, said Darren Poupore, curator of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., the largest private home in America with 250 rooms. Biltmore, built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt, grandson of industrialist Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, featured an indoor swimming pool with vaulted Guastazino tile. That pool is 53 feet long and 27 feet wide, with a maximum depth of about 9 1/2 feet.
Mellon never visited Biltmore, Poupore said, but Pittsburgh’s millionaires were familiar with the Vanderbilts. Coke and steel baron Henry Clay Frick rented George Vanderbilt’s home on Fifth Avenue in New York City after he left Pittsburgh.
There’s no way to know whether Andrew Mellon felt the urge to keep up with other millionaires when he added his pool.
“There definitely was a lot of one-upmanship, trying to outdo your colleagues and siblings,” Poupore said.
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7828.
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Preserving landmarks in the Hill
By Andrew Johnson
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 13, 2006To longtime Hill District residents, it looks as though bombs destroyed some of the buildings in their neighborhood.
“It’s like a war-torn country,” said Bedford Avenue resident Irene Herndon, now in her 70s.Where once the Roosevelt Theatre stood on Centre Avenue, now there is a parking lot. A smallish Subway restaurant and Cheap Tobacco & More have replaced the entertainment mecca.
One thing still standing in the Hill, left completely untouched, is August Wilson’s childhood home.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, who died in October, grew up at 1727 Bedford Ave.
Although Wilson prospered in New York, Seattle and St. Paul, Minn., his Pittsburgh roots remained strong. Of his 10 plays about 20th-century life for blacks in America, nine were based in Pittsburgh.
Wilson’s legacy has gotten more respect than his Pittsburgh landmark.
“I think it’s significant enough to be part of any planned tour of Pittsburgh,” said Wilson’s nephew, Paul A. Ellis Jr.
Early last year, Ellis bought the Bedford Avenue home for $25,300.
Ellis, 36, wonders how much interest exists in preserving his uncle’s neglected home.
The house sold for $3,000 in 1997.
Outside of the home is a sign: “No loafing please.” The street is typically empty. There is a phone booth but no phone, an empty grocer on the first floor and a vacant watch-repair store next door. “RIP Bug, Scrobb, Diggs, MiMi and Booky,” reads writing on the home’s door.
Any restoration is likely to be expensive.
Ellis said it cost him more than $70,000 to renovate his grandmother’s two-story Bedford Avenue home a couple blocks down.
Before Wilson’s death, there were discussions about preserving the house. So far, nothing has happened.
Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh chairman Dan Holland said the house is worth saving.
“We’re losing a lot of what makes our city unique,” Holland said.
The association, which sent Ellis a packet of information about preservation, gives advice but no money.
Laurence Glasco, who teaches a course about the city’s black history at the University of Pittsburgh, said he would like to see Wilson’s house saved. He said the building and watch store represent the scope of racial diversity in the old neighborhood.
Glasco said Italian immigrants ran the repair store, a Jewish family operated the grocery, and the Wilsons, a black family, lived upstairs.
“The house kind of symbolizes that racial diversity,” Glasco said.
Glasco said the Hill was the first residential area in the city, home to 19th-century immigrants who walked from the Hill to jobs Downtown.
Today, residents said they can’t find much of anything that properly reflects their history.
The Hill District has 11 recognized landmarks, said Frank Stroker, assistant archivist for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
Even when some Hill sites have been honored in the past, it has not changed their decayed state.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission placed a plaque outside the Crawford Grill, a famed jazz club, in 2001.
Today, there is a torn-up carpet in front of the closed club.
There are some homemade tributes to Wilson outside Centre Avenue’s New Granada Theatre.
“August, your work has ensured that we will never be forgotten,” reads one of the white signs posted on the building.
The New Granada itself sits abandoned, decades after it closed.
Snapshots from the Hill
Much of the Hill District’s rich history already has been lost, said Dan Holland, chairman of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh.
George Moses, 61, who lives on Centre Avenue, has a map of old churches, bars and other places he has pieced together. But that map hasn’t helped him find his childhood home.
Moses said he was born in the Lower Hill, but now, “I don’t even know what street I was on.” That’s how much the Hill changed when the Civic Arena — later renamed Mellon Arena — opened in 1961, he said. The arena replaced much of the Lower Hill when it was built.
Angelique Bamberg, historic-preservation planner for the city, said of the 75 “historic structures” in the city, only four are in the Hill District.
“There is not enough proportionally,” said Laurence Glasco, a University of Pittsburgh professor, who teaches about the city’s black history.
A City Historic Designation can be given to districts or individual buildings within the Pittsburgh city limits that are significant for architectural or historical reasons.
The designation helps protect old buildings from wrecking balls, provided they remain structurally sound, Bamberg said.
Public money does not help pay to maintain these buildings, she said.
To nominate a building, civic groups or individuals can submit a nomination to the Historic Review Commission. The HRC and the City Planning Commission review the nomination and make recommendations to City Council. Public hearings by the HRC and City Council are part of the process of reviewing nominations. City Council makes the final decision.
Frank Stroker, assistant archivist for the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, said the Hill District also has 11 historic landmarks.
To be considered a historic landmark in Allegheny County, a structure must be at least 50 years old and deemed architecturally significant. The Historic Plaque Designation Committee meets once a year to review nominations and recommend awards.
A historic-landmark designation provides no safeguard against demolition, Stroker said.
Preserving the Hill
The city has designated these Hill District buildings historic structures:
New Granada Theatre
John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church
Centre Avenue YMCA
Madison Elementary School
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has designated these sites as historic landmarks:William H. McKelvy Gifted Center
Weil Technology Institute
Herron Hill Park
St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church
Hill House Kaufmann Auditorium
Connelly Technical Institute
Church of the Epiphany
Church of St. Benedict the Moor
Letsche Education Center
Madison Elementary School
Miller African Centered Academy
Andrew Johnson can be reached at ajohnson@tribweb.com or 412-380-5632.
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Group lobbying to save Turtle Creek school building junior high
By Mike Scheinberg
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Thursday, December 15, 2005Members of the Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School are continuing a campaign to block plans to replace the 88-year-old landmark with a new junior high.
They spoke passionately at last week’s school board meeting in favor of renovating the old school, which is now East Junior High School, rather than building a new one.
“The building is sound and in excellent condition,” said Bob Mock, a spokesman for the committee. “We believe renovation of the building would be much more cost-effective. This building is a landmark. It is a slam dunk for national historic preservation.”
Another committee member, Connie Morenzi, said the Woodland Hills School District should not change the outside appearance of the school in any way.
“Turtle Creek residents can’t afford any more taxes,” said Kip Quinlan, a Turtle Creek businessman. “I went to the old Turtle Creek High School, and so did my kids. The district does not need a new building for only about 300 students.”
District officials said earlier that both new construction and renovation would cost between $17 million and $20 million.
However, school district Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Christopher Baker said yesterday it would cost $400,000 more to renovate East than it would for a new construction.
“That’s because architects’ fees are higher for renovation and any change orders would also be higher,” Mr. Baker said.
Speaking in favor of razing the old school, Valerie Pearson, of Braddock, said a new building would have a better environment for the students.
HHSDR Architects of Pittsburgh stated in an August report that the current overall condition of East Junior High is poor. They pointed to problems with the windows, exterior doors, science rooms, auditorium, swimming pool, and many other areas.
Two school board members are still not sold on renovating or building a new school in Turtle Creek.
“We need to take a look at our enrollment and our boundary lines,” said board member Robert Tomasic. “One possibility is to move all of the junior high kids to West [Junior High] and have six elementary buildings for grades K-six.”
Board colleague Fred Kuhn added, “West has a beautiful field, track, tennis courts and outdoor basketball courts, but East has nothing.
“I think we should look at other options.”
The board had considered moving East to the old Eastmont School site or to a site adjacent to Woodland Hills High School on Greensburg Pike, but both of those proposals failed to get the five needed votes.
Board member Randy Lott has supported keeping the school in Turtle Creek all along, saying the community needs a school.
The old Turtle Creek High School was built in 1917 and was renovated in 1978 at a cost of $4 million. In 1981, it merged into the Woodland Hills School District and later became a junior high.
“This building is very important to the community,” said Ronald Yochum, of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. “Sometimes new isn’t always better.”
“Would they tear down the Cathedral of Learning?” Mr. Mock asked of the landmark building on the University of Pittsburgh campus.
More discussion on the building plans is expected at the school board legislative meeting in January.
(Mike Scheinberg is a freelance writer.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Neighbors protest Walgreens sprawl
By Violet Law
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 11, 2005More than 20 people rallied at the proposed site of a new Walgreens Saturday afternoon to protest the pharmacy’s plan to raze three homes to make way for a driveway.
The protesters said although they welcome the convenience of having the store nearby, they object to the company’s plan to push beyond the existing commercial lot into a quiet residential area.Most of the protesters live in Park Place, a sliver of a neighborhood between Point Breeze and Regent Square. The Walgreens that is being planned at the southeast corner of Penn and South Braddock avenues is within a few blocks of their homes.
“Once you start moving the commercial line into residential property, that is a green light for more developers to come,” said Marisa Osorio, 38, who lives on South Braddock Avenue. “We want to avoid the commercial sprawl.”
Waving handmade cardboard signs and standing in ankle-deep snow that had piled up at the busy street corner yesterday, the residents maintained that they are not opposed to neighborhood development. They would be happy to live with a Walgreens that stays within the confines of what is now an Exxon gas station, they said.
The residents plan to take their objections to the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment when the proposal comes before the board Thursday.
Violet Law can be reached at vlaw@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7884.
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City historic group approves plan for crumbling Downtown building
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, December 08, 2005Pittsburgh’s Historic Review Commission cleared the way yesterday for the partial demolition of a crumbling four-story, city-owned building at 439 Market St., Downtown, amid fears that the failing structure is becoming increasingly unsafe.
“Time is of the essence. I can’t stress that enough,” said city Bureau of Building Inspection Chief Ron Graziano, a commission board member, before the vote.
The city proposal approved by the board involves the demolition of the building’s Graeme Street facade, gutting the interior, stabilizing some walls, and erecting a temporary enclosure to protect what remains from the elements. The plan, estimated to cost $100,000, would save the Market Street facade, which is considered to be more historically significant.
Still to be determined is who will pay for the work.
Last summer, the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation offered to lend the city up to $33,000 to fix the roof and clean up the building inside. The loan amount later was amended to a maximum of $75,000 in legislation that passed City Council. But foundation officials have received no formal notification on whether the offer has been accepted by the Murphy administration.
Preservation Pittsburgh has been trying to retain the Market Street facade and the rest of the building as part of a plan to develop a “transit cafe” at Fifth Avenue and Market.
(Mark Belko can be reached at mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.)
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Structure to be razed
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, December 8, 2005The Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission Wednesday agreed to allow part of a historic three-story building off Market Square to be demolished, though its unique facade will be preserved.
Although it is not known who designed the 130-year-old brick building at 439 Market St., it and an adjacent “twin” are the only structures remaining in the region that have decorative cast-iron window heads and sills, according to Cathy McCollom, chief program officer for the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
The commission voted unanimously to allow the city, which owns the Downtown building, to hire a contractor to tear down the structure’s buckling rear wall and gut the interior. Most of the roof already has collapsed, which caused it to become structurally unsound.
“From a building inspector’s perspective, I would recommend total demolition — it’s an accident waiting to happen,” said commission member Ron Graziano, who heads the city’s Bureau of Building Inspection.
Graziano and the rest of the seven-member board supported a proposal by the city’s engineering and construction department to shore up the building’s side walls with bracing and construct a temporary roof and rear wall that would be replaced once a development plan is in place for the area.
Graziano suggested that board members who raised concerns about the look of the temporary rear wall not be “too picky” since any permanent changes would have to be approved by the commission. The commission is responsible for approving exterior designs to any buildings in city historic districts that are visible from public rights of way. The rear of the building is along Graeme Street.
Landmarks and the historic preservation group, Preserve Pittsburgh, supported partial demolition of the building. Landmarks, which previously offered to take over a number of Market Square buildings so they can be preserved, recently offered the city a no-interest loan of up to $75,000 to help pay for the work.
That should be more than enough. Al Kovacik, of the city’s engineering and construction department, said the partial demolition and reinforcement work would cost between $29,000 and $42,000. The cost for tearing the whole building down is estimated at about $55,000.
“With the approval of this plan, the city can spare a historic facade and save money at the same time,” Kovacik said.
Tony LaRussa can be reached at tlarussa@tribweb.com or .
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review © Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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Can Braddock find a future in its rich historic and natural resources?
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Thursday, December 02, 2004From the lofty corner of Spring and Anderson streets, Braddock looks much as it did more than 60 years ago, when Thomas Bell imagined steelworker Dobie Dobrejcak living nearby, in the last house on what he called Summer Street.
From his front porch, Dobie had “as fine a view as one could want: Braddock and North Braddock spread out before one, the river, the hills, and on summer evenings the lights of Kennywood Park winking through the smoke above the blast furnaces” of the Edgar Thomson Works, Bell wrote in his 1941 book, “Out of This Furnace.”
On Braddock Avenue today, it is clear that the town Dobie, his father and grandfather knew is no more. While the mill is still there, transforming molten steel into slabs, it employs only about one-fifth of the 5,000 people who worked there during World War II.
There isn’t much left of the once-bustling main street it looms over, and by the end of the year there will be even less of it. Fifteen buildings on Braddock Avenue and nearby streets are slated for demolition, and eight more will be taken down as funding allows. More than 230 buildings in Braddock have been demolished since 1995, creating both loss and opportunity.
So many demolitions caused the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Bureau for Historic Preservation to determine earlier this year that Braddock is no longer eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The decision and its ramifications for Braddock and beyond are worth examining, as Braddock looks to the future and as historic buildings across the state continue to age and crumble.
While Braddock officials woo real estate developers and consider building a strip mall, grocery store and industrial park on Braddock Avenue, others envision a future built in part on the community’s historical and natural resources.
The county’s most recent strategy for Braddock and the rest of the Mon Valley will be rolled out tomorrow morning at a summit in McKeesport. The Mon Valley Economic Development Strategy, in the works for almost two years, will recommend focusing development around five hubs determined to have the highest potential, in Hazelwood, McKeesport, Duquesne, Clairton-Elizabeth and the Carrie Furnace site.
Braddock should be developed at the same time as the Carrie Furnace site, Dennis Davin, director of economic development, said yesterday. New businesses, streetscape improvements and a Main Street program on Braddock Avenue are the goals, along with mixed-income housing built around the hospital and other sites.
A storied past
While Braddock is no longer officially historic, the landscape holds international significance for the role it played in the French and Indian War. On July 9, 1755, on a hillside overlooking the Monongahela River, British Gen. Edward Braddock and about 1,400 men were defeated by almost 900 French and Indians sent out from Fort Duquesne. Braddock refused to let his men break rank and take cover, and for more than three hours they were easy targets for opponents who shot from behind trees.
Braddock’s reinforcements retreated to Philadelphia, leaving the frontier to be defended for the next three years by young George Washington, who took four bullets through his coat and had two horses shot out from under him at the Battle of Monongahela, but escaped–miraculously, some thought–without injury.
Almost 40 years later, on Aug. 1, 1794, about 6,000 Whiskey Rebels from the rural Western Pennsylvania townships rallied at Braddock’s Field with the intent of plundering Pittsburgh, symbol of the hated whiskey tax and the urban culture it represented. To escape the rebels’ wrath, Pittsburgh agreed to banish men that the rebels regarded as the worst offenders, then further won over the invaders by distributing casks of whiskey among them. Pittsburgh was spared.
“The rebels rallied at Braddock’s Field because everyone knew where it was,” said Robert Messner, an attorney who has raised more than $1 million toward construction of a Braddock’s Field museum at the corner of Sixth and Baldridge streets in North Braddock, where the battle is thought to have been joined. Messner, who believes history can be used to leverage economic development in the community, has acquired three acres of land and two commercial buildings, one of which will be the location next summer for programs commemorating the 250th anniversary of the battle.
Braddock’s eligibility for the National Register, however, owed not to its antique past but to the buildings associated with its rise as a steel town. It originated with the Allegheny County survey that Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation produced from 1979 to 1984, in preparation for its 1985 book, “Landmark Architecture: Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.”
Even in 1981, as the buildings were surveyed, many of the businesses were boarded up, abandoned and decaying, and there already were many vacant lots. Nevertheless, the borough requested historic status for part of Braddock Avenue in 1989, hoping the designation would help turn things around.
Four sections of Braddock were determined to be eligible for the National Register in 1991: a five-block stretch of Braddock Avenue; the Talbot Avenue residential district; the Maple and Wood streets residential pocket; and an institutional area comprising the library, post office and nearby residential streets.
But borough officials never commissioned the paperwork that would officially put it on the register and make it eligible for the 20 percent federal tax credit for rehabilitation. Instead, more and more buildings were abandoned by their owners and allowed to deteriorate.
Braddock borough administrator Ella Jones said she doesn’t know why the borough never pursued listing on the register, only that by the time she arrived four years ago, many buildings were too far gone for anything but demolition.
In 2003, the borough and the county economic development office hired preservation architect Charles Uhl to document the current condition of the buildings. Of the 75 buildings on Braddock Avenue that could be considered contributing to a historic district, Uhl found 23 to be “economically and structurally unsalvageable.” That leaves two-thirds of the remaining historic buildings standing — 52 buildings over a five-block area, an average of 10 buildings per block.
Uhl found the Talbot Avenue area “not an appealing residential district,” with most houses covered with artificial materials. Three large commercial buildings on Talbot have failed roofs and are condemned. In the Maple and Wood streets area, the 35 houses are mostly wood-frame, and all of those are covered with artificial siding. In the library-post office area, Uhl reports both of those structures are either individually listed on or eligible for the National Register, and the nearby housing artificially sided and/or interrupted by vacant lots.
The borough didn’t need the Bureau for Historic Preservation’s permission to demolish the buildings, but it wanted to use federal funds in the form of Community Development Block Grant money to do so, and that would have triggered a lengthy review process involving documentation through measurement and photography.
Uhl’s report and a site visit convinced the bureau to reverse itself. It has done so only once before, in 2002, reversing the 1992 eligibility ruling for Renovo, Clinton County, incorporated in 1866. Like Braddock’s historic district, Renovo’s had suffered a loss of integrity through demolitions.
“Although the history of Braddock and its contribution to the history of the steel industry in America is significant, the district no longer can reflect this significance due to a loss of integrity,” preservation bureau director Jean Cutler wrote to the county economic development office in January.
Demolition by neglect
“We understand the state and Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission have to follow standards and have criteria,” said Cathy McCollum, director of operations and marketing at Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. “Our concern is not that they declared it ineligible, but that it got to that point. It’s demolition by neglect.”
To Dan Holland, chair of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, the reversal “sets a dangerous precedent for historic districts and structures across the Commonwealth,” as he wrote in a letter of protest in February to PHMC director Barbara Franco. The letter also stated that the “unilateral decision to undo the designation of the Braddock Historic District without public input or comment reduces Braddock’s chances for revitalization.”
Municipalities should not be rewarded for allowing demolition by neglect and not enforcing codes, said Susan Shearer, president of the nonprofit advocacy group Preservation Pennsylvania, based in Lancaster. The message the reversal sends to other communities, she added, is that if they allow buildings to deteriorate to the point of no return, the eligibility can be lifted.
Jones acknowledged that over the years, building codes in Braddock were not always enforced “to the fullest degree.” But, she added, if property owners now don’t maintain their buildings, they’re taken to the magistrate. If they fail to comply, they face fines and the possibility of jail.
Preservationists agree that even when there is no immediate use for historic buildings, they should be stabilized and mothballed until new investors are found. But where will the money to do so come from?
“If the state was interested in keeping those buildings intact, I think the state had some responsibility in providing some funds so that those buildings could be maintained,” said Jones. “We would have preferred to restore, absolutely. Those buildings hold a lot of history.”
Braddock may be the most egregious example of demolition by neglect, but it’s far from the only one.
“You see it in every single county,” said Janet Milkman, president of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a statewide land use and conservation alliance. “Developers always say it’s so much easier to build out [of the city] or new than build in older communities, and in a lot of ways that’s true.
“The state policy has to be: Remove barriers and provide incentives” for rehabilitation.
The greening of Braddock
The Braddock historic district’s ineligibility for the National Register will have minimal impact on the Mon-Fayette Expressway project, because the Section 106 review triggered by the eligibility already has been performed. The Turnpike Commission will still provide photographic documentation of the buildings to be demolished and work with a citizens advisory committee to help integrate the highway and the community.
Designed to avoid Braddock Avenue, the highway would parallel it and be built mostly within a former railroad corridor. But it would remove 73 buildings — the same buildings the preservation bureau signed off on when they were considered to be contributing to the historic district.
To show the expressway’s impact on Braddock and to stimulate community dialogue, Lawrenceville architects Jonathan Kline and Christine Brill built a scale model of Braddock and North Braddock. The land and buildings taken for the highway, which would be elevated on a 25-foot-high berm, are expressed as a removable overlay.
“The berm is cheaper than [supporting it on concrete] piers,” Kline said. “But it will take up more land and be more of a barrier.”
Last June, the Lawrenceville couple and their scale model spent a month in Braddock as part of a team of artists commissioned by Carnegie Mellon University to look at ecological approaches to land-use planning and public space development in Braddock and North Braddock.
With many vacant lots returning to nature — usually through neglect and often in unsafe places — Kline and Brill suggest that when redevelopment does come to Braddock, some of those green spaces could be retained and incorporated in the plans. Parts of Tassey Hollow, a ravine separating North Braddock from Swissvale, could be made accessible, and the Sixth Street stream could be restored to a more natural condition to show proper storm water management.
Some of the vacant lots on Braddock Avenue could be used to interpret the borough’s history as a sort of outdoor museum, Brill said. Their ideas, still evolving, will be exhibited next year.
Jones said she would like to see “some greenery on Braddock Avenue, and well-designed street lights and a time clock in the center of town. I want it to have a sense of place, so people in this town will be proud to say they live in Braddock.”
Will it also, one wonders, be a place Dobie Dobrejcak would recognize?
(Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590.)
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City may demolish part of building in Market Square
By Mark Belko,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tuesday, November 29, 2005The city is proposing to partially demolish a crumbling four-story building it owns at 439 Market St. in Market Square that is viewed as a safety hazard by adjacent property owners but a candidate for restoration by preservationists.
City officials will seek permission from the Historic Review Commission next week to demolish the building’s rear facade on Graeme Street, to gut the interior, and to strip away what is left of the roof.
As part of the proposal, the city would keep the more historically significant Market Street facade intact and consider a temporary enclosure to protect the interior while more permanent improvements are determined, according to an application with the HRC.
Officials must seek HRC approval for the demolition because the building is part of the Market Square Historic District.
The structure has been a constant source of concern to adjacent property owners in Market Square, who have complained about the collapsed roof, a rat infestation, and bowed exterior walls that are in danger of falling.
Last summer, the attorney for the property owner next door at 435 Market, which houses the Ciao Baby restaurant, threatened to seek a court order to force repairs or the demolition of the building, declaring that a “public emergency” existed.
Court action was forestalled when the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation offered to lend the city up to $33,000 to repair the roof and clean up the inside of the building.
The loan amount later was increased to a maximum of $75,000 in legislation submitted to City Council. But no final determination has been made pending a more exact estimate on the cost of repairs.
At this point, the city doesn’t have the money to do the demolition or to repair the building, Public Works Director Guy Costa said.
He estimated the cost of tearing down the Graeme Street facade, gutting the interior and ripping away what is left of the roof at $29,000 to $42,000. But he said the cost could escalate to $75,000 if a temporary roof is added and the building is enclosed.
Mr. Costa said one option under consideration would be for the city’s Urban Redevelopment Authority to buy the building and fund the demolition and repairs. The URA owns two adjacent buildings at 441 Market and the old Regal Shoe Co. store at Market and Fifth Avenue. He said he plans to meet with the mayor’s office and the URA to discuss that possibility.
Rob Pfaffman, president of the Preservation Pittsburgh board of directors, said the rear facade is bowing “quite substantially” and is in danger of collapsing. He said removing it would allow the city to gut the interior and take out what is left of the roof.
Preservation Pittsburgh has plans to turn the Regal Shoe building at Market and Fifth into a “transit cafe.” It also is interested in the structures at 439 and 441 Market as part of the project. It has said that both have good Market Street facades that ought to be preserved.
The URA has been holding the Regal Shoe building and the one at 441 Market for a developer as part of a proposed Fifth and Forbes make-over.
(Mark Belko can be reached at mbelko@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262.)
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