Category Archive: Transportation
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Diocese has faith in preservation spirit
By Tony LaRussa
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 3, 2005When the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese agrees to close church buildings, the decision helps keep parishes from being saddled with buildings they can no longer afford to maintain.
But the closing of a church often raises a red flag for people who want to save historically or architecturally significant buildings from the wrecking ball.
In the future, local church officials will collaborate with the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation to find ways to serve the mission of both organizations.
An agreement announced recently by foundation President Arthur Ziegler Jr. calls for the diocese to give his organization first crack at buying a church that is closed. If the foundation passes on the purchase, it will assist in finding a new use for the building.
The foundation also will provide tax credits and other benefits if a historic designation helps the buyer of a church building adapt it for another use. The diocese also agreed to accept the plaques the Landmarks Foundation places on buildings with historic or architectural significance.
“This agreement is a realization that while we may have different missions, there is a shared goal that we can work together on,” said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese.
“Church buildings are closed for a number of reasons, such as the loss of population we’ve experienced in the region and shifts in where people are living,” Lengwin said. “Our first priority is to serve the needs of people, not put our resources in maintaining buildings we no longer need. At the same time, we are sensitive to the significance of historic religious properties.”
The diocese currently does not plan to close any churches that would be affected by this agreement, said Lengwin, who will serve as a consultant on the planning committee when the National Trust for Historic Preservation has its annual conference in Pittsburgh next year. Lengwin is expected to participate in a session on the challenges of reusing historic religious properties during that conference.
For its part, the Landmarks Foundation will agree not to nominate buildings owned by the diocese to either the National Register or the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission without the church’s consent.
In 2001, preservationists essentially prevented the diocese from selling St. Nicholas Church along Route 28 in the North Side to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for a highway-widening project by securing a historic designation from the city.
St. Nicholas, home to the first Croatian parish in the United States, was closed last year. The diocese is working with Croatian fraternal organizations to possibly use the building or convert the former church into a shrine. PennDOT has altered its design for Route 28 to avoid the need to raze the church.
In 2003, the diocese successfully lobbied the city to exclude all active churches from being nominated as historic structures by anyone except the owner. The change, however, does not apply to church buildings that are closed.
Being placed on the National Register affects the alterations the owner of a property can make to the exterior of a building when federal funding is involved.
But the Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission must approve all exterior changes to city-designated historic buildings and buildings located in one of a dozen city historic districts. The agreement between the Landmarks Foundation and the diocese does not prevent another preservation group or an individual from nominating a closed church building.
Ziegler praised the pact, saying it could serve as a model for historic preservation of religious buildings in other cities.
“This is perhaps the only such agreement between preservationists and the Roman Catholic Church, and we are pleased to have been part of it,” Ziegler said.
Collaborations between churches and historic preservationists are rare, said Jeannie McPherson, spokeswoman for the National Historic Trust.
“What’s happening in Pittsburgh is encouraging because many urban houses of worship are at risk around the country,” McPherson said. “It is important that we find ways to preserve these buildings, which, in addition to their architectural beauty, often are the anchors to a neighborhood. The way to make sure they are saved is for groups to work together.”
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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Duquesne Light Company Announces Bridge Lighting
December 10, 2001
Pittsburgh, Pa. . . . . Duquesne Light, the Electric Distribution Company for Pittsburgh, PA, USA, announced in November 2001 a major grant to INTA member Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation (Landmarks) to design and install a lighting system for the first of 13 downtown bridges, the Roberto Clemente Bridge. The Foundation will be working with Allegheny County (owner of the bridge), the Riverlife Task Force, the City of Pittsburgh, and many other organizations to develop and install a successful system.
In 1984 Landmarks successfully lit the oldest bridge in downtown Pittsburgh, the historic Smithfield Street Bridge, designed by Gustav Lindenthal and built in 1884; the celebration included a huge Roman Candle fireworks waterfall and the lighting has received much acclaim.
Efforts to illuminate Pittsburgh’s bridges dates back over 70 years. In 1929, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the invention of the Edison electric light bulb, the Duquesne Light Company strung the three sister bridges (6th, 7th and 9th Street) and the Manchester, Point, Smithfield, Panhandle and Liberty bridges with garlands of electric bulbs.Sixty years later, the Greater Pittsburgh Office of Promotion revived the idea with two nights of a demonstration lighting of the Fort Duquesne and Sixth Street Bridges in 1989 and Regatta weekend, a few years later, saw the West End Bridge lit in a demonstration culminating in another cascade of fireworks.
Now thanks to Duquesne Light’s generous contribution, the Roberto Clemente Bridge will be fitted with a state-of-the-art lighting system to showcase its strong architectural features. Once lit, the bridge will form a highly visible linkage between downtown and the Northside neighborhood, home to some of the cities most popular destinations including the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Science Center, PNC Park, and Heinz Field.
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation will oversee the project and spearhead the efforts to complete the lighting of as many as twelve other downtown bridges.
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Surface Transportation Policy Project and Zero Population Growth Testimony
Remarks of Ronald C. Yochum, Jr.
Assistant for Public Policy and C.I.O.
PHLF
August 18th, 1998My name is Ronald Yochum from Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. I am here today to thank the professionals at the Surface Transportation Policy Project and Zero Population Growth for their comprehensive and factual study on the Southern Expressway.
I would like to comment on the two premises of building this highway:
- The highway will bring development to the region.
- The highway will give better access to the region.
Quite frankly, the premises are flawed.
First, on development. No permanent or new jobs will be created in the City by this highway. For example, according to the Urban Land Institute, a typical metropolitan area in the United States, such as Cleveland, Ohio, may capture as little as 4 percent of new development within the city or older suburbs. The vast majority of new development (96%) is on farmland.
I see no concrete data on employment. I see no concrete data on companies that will relocate here from outside of our region. I see no concrete data on retaining a viable population in our city as opposed to populating our precious farmlands with thousands of cardboard-cutout houses. The only thing that I see here that is concrete is the highway.
The total $3 Billion, 200 Million dollar expenditure of this highway, if invested at a conservative rate, could employ over 2,600 high-skilled workers with an average salary of $42,000 a year from age 21 until retirement.
Where is the logic here? Highways are not generators of wealth for depressed communities. Highways bypass depressed communities to go where the money and the educated work-force is. Think of I-279 and Cranberry Township. Think of the economic wealth that is there. It wasn’t generated. It wasn’t created. It was transferred directly from the Pittsburgh Metropolitan area in a phenomenon called “urban flight”. Do you see any transfer to the North Side or East St. Valley? NO!
Stable communities south of Pittsburgh including Brentwood, Whitehall, Baldwin, Mt. Lebanon, will suffer population loss on a scale unprecedented in their history. As a result of the highway, there will be a vicious circle of diminished property values and higher taxes. Why? The most affluent residents will migrate to the new suburbs, new residents will choose not to live in dying communities, property values will decrease due to lack of demand, and property taxes will rise because there will be less tax revenue due to urban flight and the decrease in property values. After all, the public infrastructure does not shrink proportionally with the decline of population. Just ask the Mayor why he recently tried to create a special fee for garbage removal, a service that traditionally was paid for by your property and wage tax.
And the trail of destruction doesn’t just stop at the older suburbs. Just outside our County lies precious farmland. Thousands of acres of this farmland will be tilled under and planted with suburbs in place of crops while the heart of our great city loses more if its lifeblood population. Fragmentation of our community will become more evident with greater distances between homes, work, recreation areas, schools, race, class and income. The highway’s impact is wholesale destruction disguised as progress. We are killing our city’s, we are killing our older suburbs, we are killing our farmland.
I’ve heard the comment that we cannot prosper in the world economy without good highway access. What does that mean? This region right here built our country. This region right here was responsible for supplying our soldiers and allies in the effort to defend our great country from tyranny in World War II. Today, our City is a leader in the high technology field and computers. Today, our City is one of the world’s premier medical center. All of this occurred without relying on the overabundance of highways that bypass our city. We have rivers, we have rail, we have air. And today we have many highways to service our city. We do not have to build more roads with the empty promise of more prosperity. In fact, San Francisco experienced a commercial and residential revival only after the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down! This flies directly in the face of the current philosophy. Our infrastructure is in place, but it is in need of extensive reinvestment. We must improve and maintain our existing roads which over 36% of are considered in “poor” condition. Improvements in alternative transportation methods, such as light rail to the East End, would alleviate much of the need to build “traffic-reducing” superhighways.
Hand in hand with improvements to our infrastructure, we must improve the overall competitiveness of our City by working with companies that are located here. We must find creative ways to keep existing businesses from leaving while bringing in new businesses. We have acres of undeveloped land right here in our City. Redeveloping existing abandoned industrial sites such as the former J&L site on the South Side, the Metal Source site in Manchester, the Strip District, and other commercial areas should be priority # 1. We should be focusing our resources on restoring our neighborhoods and vitality to our cities and older suburbs.
We need to spend $3.2 billion on education, skill training, infrastructure enhancement, neighborhood restoration, and tax reduction instead of new, unnecessary highways. That will make us healthy and prosper.
We must invest our limited resources intelligently.