Jul 31 2009
Anytime I hear about other people's "walkabouts," I feel duty-bound to let the rest of you know.
On Sunday, District 8 Councilman Bill Peduto and an entourage of conservation folks will be in Schenley Park for a "City Parks Walkabout" and discussion. If you want to join them, sign up at http://www.ventureoutdoors.org/Activities.aspx?id=54042 to register.
The walk, rated as easy, is from 1-4 p.m., starting from the Schenley Park Visitors Center (across from Phipps Conservatory). It costs $10 for Venture Outdoors members, $14 for everyone else.
This is the last session of the "Pedal, Paddle, Peduto" series. Walkabout wrote about it when it kicked off in the spring, and you can view a video on that posting: May 20, headline "Head Outdoors With Bill This Summer."
The series was to get people out onto bike paths, the rivers and parks to explore and learn about who's doing what to save and enhance our natural amenities. Representatives from organizations that focus on biking, kayaking, rivers, trails, parks, trees -- all things green and healthy -- have served as guides.
"It's been great," Bill said. "The comments from people who have participated have been to expand it. Next year, we will probably do it May through September.
"We had a goal of 25 for each trip and exceeded every one. We had 42 on the kayak trip. We had 32 people on the biking trip. There was a lot of conversation on the biking trip because it was easier to converse. A lot more activity and exercise on the kayaking trip" but not as much talking because members of the flotilla didn't stay together. "But when we got to Herr's Island, Jeremy Smith from Riverlife jumped out and stood knee-deep in the water and gave a lecture."
"We had a lot of suburban people, people from Fayette County, Mercer County, Beaver, Butler, Somerset, Armstrong, Westmoreland. Of 42 kayakers, 10 or 12 were from the city."
Bill's guests this session will be Marijke Hecht from TreeVitalize at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Danielle Crumrine from Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest and Phil Gruszka from Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy - dedicated environmentalists, all.
If you participate, or have aprticipated in any of the P3 series, let me know how it went at djones@post-gazette.com and I will share it as a post.
Jul 29 2009
The Park Place neighborhood blog has put out a call for volunteers to clean up storm damage in the Nine Mile Run watershed this Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.
Nine Mile Run, which runs through Frick Park, is still suffering from the near-apocalyptic storm on the evening of June 17, and recent storms haven't helped.
"I was down there in the rain today," said Lisa Brown, outreach coordinator for the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association. "There's quite a bit of erosion. The drainage pipes into the upper park are clogged with sediment and debris and with the continual litter."
You don't have to live in one of Nine Mile Run's neighborhoods to care about it. All watersheds are related, and our lives depend on them.
From a spiritual standpoint, you can never put a price on a watershed, but if you prefer statistics, the state Department of Environmental Protection, the city and the Army Corps of Engineers spent $7.7 million between 2004 and 2006 to clean up our messes and waste to restore this aquatic ecosystem.
If you're free Saturday morning, wear long pants and sturdy boots or shoes and meet the others in the lower Frick Park soccer field using the Lancaster Avenue entrance. Tents will be up. You will get a light breakfast and refreshments, including water. PennDOT is supplying gloves, safety vests and bags.
But wait! Register first by contacting Lisa Brown, outreach coordinator, at 412.371.8779 ext. 15.
To find out more about the watershed association's work, including its rain barrel project, visit www.ninemilerun.org. You can also check out what's happening in Park Place at http://info@parkplaceblog.com.
Jul 28 2009
The city's planning department is taking a big step toward encouraging bicyclists to commute, both Downtown and to jobs in other neighborhoods.
Staff has initiated a plan to require of large-scale development a certain amount of secured bike parking.
Planners Stephen Patchan and Corey Layman laid out the proposal at a recent planning commission meeting; the commission will vote at some point whether to recommend it to city council. Keep an eye on the planning commission agenda at http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/.
It's a modest proposal - one space every 20,000 square feet - and flexible enough to allow the developer to put the spaces outside the development and/or in the right-of-way, as long as the right-of-way allows for safe and accessible passage of all citizens. The legislation will go through more tweaking and more fretting (on behalf of cars) before it is finished.
Mr. Layman tried to sell the idea with this understatement: "Because of the research being done in other cities, we're comfortable that this is a national trend." He added, "If it's a big enough investment, there should be a parking component for bikes."
Pittsburgh has been priding itself lately on being green and sustainable, but we are behind other cities in this country on taking bicycling seriously as a transportation option, and the most advanced cities in this country are behind cities in countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark, where the esteemed bicycle culture is backed by policy and public works infrastructure that puts to shame the fact that Pittsburgh has just three bicycle lanes - part of Beechwood Boulevard, part of Liberty Avenue and part of East Liberty Boulevard.
Still, Pittsburgh is getting on the radar of national groups and we are making national lists that rank cities for green and sustainable practices, including bicycling.
Bicycle parking is the next step in a country where people steal bikes. In some countries, bikes are free for the taking: People ride them to their stops and leave them for the next person. Until we become a more civil society, bicyclists need the assurance that their wheels will be there when they return. Fearing someone will steal my lousy bicycle is one reason I don't leave it locked to a pole for any length of time.
Planning staff have reviewed practices in other cities and are following the Philadelphia and San Franciso models. The Philly model requires two parking units for every 7,501-20,000 square feet of new commercial property. For every property larger than 20,000 square feet, a biking space must be provided every 10,000 square feet. The ordinance passed earlier this year. It can be viewed at http://webapps.phila.gov/council/attachments/6125.pdf
Frisco's plan is all about incentives, including making bicycling travel safer and enforcing laws to bring both cars and bikes into alignment. Read more at http://www.sfgov.org/site/bac_index.asp?id=11525.
The common refrain I hear from Pittsburgh drivers is that cyclists don't follow the rules of the road. I see a lot of bikes darting through intersections instead of stopping with the cars behind them. It's a violation I have committed, pedaling my little heart out to get ahead of what I perceive to be bullies who want to knock me off. Most violators I see, though, look highly confident on their bikes, If everyone would steer like good boys and girls, people muight also stop driving on sidewalks, another violation.
Mr. Patchan, the city's bicycle/pedestrian coordinator, told the commission the proposed legislation is in keeping with the mayor's interest in a sustainable future, "to give more residents a choice" beyond driving alone in their cars. It includes an incentive to any developer, small or large, to swap out up to 30 percent of the car-parking spaces required by zoning in favor of bicycles. The thinking here is that "the person riding a bike is one less person driving a car," said Mr. Layman.
One of the commissioners said 30 percent seems like a lot. Here's hoping the other commissioners weren't thinking the same thing.
(* (see headline) a quote attributable to Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," a film based on the escapades of the late-19th century outlaws.)
Jul 24 2009
Though I wrote for tomorrow's paper that this is Iron City's last day in Pittsburgh, it's not really true. Tomorrow, the next day, the next, etc., you can find Iron City at your local beer distributor, which is where you really want it... if you want Iron City.
My two favorite drinks are water and beer, but I like them in separate glasses. Yet Iron City is an icon, and when I was at a Steelers bar in Tulsa for the Steelers-Broncos playoff game in January 2006, I tipped back Ahrns. It just seemed right.
The Pittsburgh Brewing Co. ceased operations today and has already begun operations at the former Latrobe Brewing Co., which is going to turn out 1 million barrels a year, compared to the 170,000 barrels the plant in Lawrenceville has turned out each year.
In today's paper, my colleague Bill Toland wrote that Ahrn is the unofficial beer of the Pittsburgh Diaspora, an unofficial fact the company is hoping to bank on as it pumps up its marketing department from the measley $1.5 million it has spent every year while being strapped in a gigundous 9-acre campus that looks as if a Victorian-era community college was left to vandals years ago.
The Iron City property is a funky place that was perfect for the Pittsburgh Blues Festival the few years it sampled the site, far better than Hartwood Acres, where I expect singers in hippie skirts and fiddlers. But I digress...
I'm sad about Iron City's move to Latrobe because the city will get $100,000 less in property taxes a year and 51 workers are losing their jobs. The scenario is too much like the reasons for the Pittsburgh Diaspora.
It's good that a company wants to keep a Pittsburgh brand alive, even if it's not in Pittsburgh anymore. The next step is to anticipate what the Iron City campus might be someday.
"THIS IS CITY LIVING" say the wheel-less trailers parked in the rubbly lot surrounded by 468,000 square feet of outmoded factory space.
Tim Hickman, CEO and president of Iron City, said today that he has talked to people who are interested in developing the properties to be residential. Whenever I hear about new lofts and condos, I always wonder how much housing we can fill without population growth.
I also wonder when 100 jobs will come in to replace every 51 lost and whether the errant members of our Nation - living in fake cities such as Phoenix and Charlotte - will ever return.
It's a burden wondering about so many heavy topics... but it's five o'clock somewhere.
Jul 23 2009
Finally, a contest tailor-made for my love of the ‘burgh... if only I could focus.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and Fireman's Fund Insurance are asking us to send them photos in a contest they call "This Place Matters."
Of all the cities in which I have lived, Pittsburgh has the fiercest home love, and for good reason. We live in the nest from which America sprang loose. We were the gateway to the West. We are at the junction of so many pasts and futures. (OK, most places are in some way, but bear with me.)
Pittsburgh knocks your socks off; it's that simple. And it's not just the "HOLEH MOLEH!" of coming through the Fort Pitt tunnels, or one of the most awe-inspiring views on the planet or the little finiculars climbing half-way to the stars to take you to it
The Trust wants the grand and the small -- the corner store your uncle took you to to buy bread for the ducks in the lake; the diner where your family celebrated Sundays; the grand old corner building that told you you were almost home on your walk from school.
In the first 32 years of my life, I only visited Pittsburgh. The place that mattered most to me as a kid here was Forbes Field. Go to that place and see a couple of bland things from the ‘70s.
I can think of a few more than way too many places in Pittsburgh that matter to me because of my love of architecture and history. So many places that mattered became the rubble of 1950s-60s crap, if you'll pardon my language. Many new buildings look as if they were made to lift off into space. In 2150, they will be venerable -- if their materials last that long.
Here's a smidgen of my long list:
Downtown: the Frick Building, the Buhl Building, the Granite Building, the Century Building, the Arrott Building, the County Courthouse, the Pennsylvanian, the Art Institute, the Duquesne Club, the Koppers building, the Gulf building, all the old churches and beautiful buildings whose names I don't know, notably the green building between the Boulevard of the Allies and 1st Avenue on Market Street.
Oakland: the Cathedral of Learning, the Pitt student union, the Pittsburgh Athletic Club and the remnant of the old Forbes Field wall.
The Hill: the Centre Avenue YMCA, the buildings etched in Hebrew, August Wilson's boyhood home, the Granada Theater, the Crawford Grill.
Manchester: Almost all of what's still standing.
The Mexican War Streets.
East Carson Street and the South Side Market House.
The beautiful old homes of Homewood and Lemington, Highland Park and Brighton Heights, Squirrel Hill and Schenley Farms and the blue collar rows in Lawrenceville and Bloomfield.
The brickwork in the arched walkways between row houses all over the city. At one in Upper Lawrenceville, I stop just to marvel at the craftsmanship of the brick work and to be charmed by the idea of a shared pathway between buildings. Some lovely ones in California-Kirkbride I fear will fall to the wrecking ball soon. Polish Hill has a bunch.
All of these places matter to me because they are the likes of which we will never build again - ever. Their workmanship and materials matter. They tell us what we once had and once were. Over time, if people keep coming to Pittsburgh, it will be to see what they cannot see in most other cities in America.
I hope Pittsburgh is well represented in this contest, so get your batteries charged. The photos have to be digital. Here's some other information, and you can visit http://www.preservationnation.org/take-action/this-place-matters/terms-and-conditions.html for the rules.
The photo with the most on-line votes wins for its owner a Panasonic Lumix ZS3 digital camera.
The sponsors are very excited about this. In their press release, they used more exclamation points than a smitten 13-year-old. Read on:
To enter one (or more!) images, visit our This Place Matters website and use our free photo upload tool.
1. Download our This Place Matters sign -- or make one of your own!
2. Take your photo in front of a place that matters to you.
3. Add it to our pool of places that matter across the country!
You may enter as many digital photos as you wish between now and Tuesday, September 15, 2009. Ten photos will be selected as finalists, after which a public online vote will determine the final winners.
The top ten entries will be determined by the sponsors' judging panel and will be announced and posted online on Sept. 28. The public can then vote for the Grand Prize Winner and two semi-finalists for the next two weeks, and the winner will be announced Oct. 13.
Good luck, Pittsburgh!
Jul 22 2009
The Northside Old Timers seek a sponsor to fork over $1,500 so that 500 children can wear anti-violence T-shirts on a march to kick off the group's annual Unity Day celebration on Aug. 15.
The Old Timers is a group of mostly grandparents and great-grandparents who have lifelong ties to each other and nicknames such as Pookie and Scrappy. Their mission is to steer young children toward peaceful life goals. They have led groups of childern to ice skating rinks and other fun places they may never have been able to visit otherwise.
Unity Day is the Old Timers' tour de force, bringing thousands of people together in Allegheny Commons Park to reenact a togetherness they remember as kids, when everyone's parent was your parent and you got it when you got home if someone saw you acting up in public.
When the group first started forming in 2007, Fred "Pookie" Fortson told me that he feared the older kids were already lost; "our hope is with the little kids."
At the time, I resisted his assessment; it's not too late for anyone to get himself out of harm's way, to get set on a path away from destruction. Right? Now I wonder. It's been said that the life path is pretty much paved in grade school, maybe as early as 5. Most of the kids who march will be older than 5. Some will be wearing little football uniforms as members of the Children for Champions league.
The Old Timers invited me to join them at their first official meeting the night in August of 2007 that 19-year-old Damien Blackwell was killed in Observatory Hill. It was the third fatal shooting on the North Side in a little more than three weeks.
Fred "Scrappy" Bulls said at the time, "All the old timers remember the days when kids had respect, and when we speak about it, it's usually at a funeral.
"We decided to try to do something," as a group. "We're looking for a miracle."
The march starts at 11 a.m. on the 15th from the corner of Brighton Road and Charles Street. It will follow Brighton into Allegheny Commons Park, where thousands will gather for a day of live music, food, games and reminiscing.
If you or your group decides to be the T-shirt angel, you can e-mail me at djones@post-gazette.com or call call Pookie at 412.628.2936, Abbey at 412.728.0597, Will at 412.321.2774; Scrappy at 412.805.5473 or Reggie at 412.321.6568.
Jul 21 2009
ZipCar held its second Low-Car Diet Challenge in Pittsburgh recently, when 25 people handed over their car keys for a month. The turn-out last year was 17.
Lindsay Patross was one of this year's participants. She has been a ZipCar member for a year and has been thinking about giving up her car. "This was an opportunity for me to try it out."
Lindsay, 29, who lives in Shadyside and owns the blog www.iheartpgh.com, wanted to walk more and drive less, she said. She has had a few toe-in-the-water experiences without a car. She did without a car through much of college and, last January, lent her car to a family member in January and got along OK.
Greg Tanski, a fifth-year architecture student at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote this e-mail about his decision to go on the 'diet':
- "Coming to Pittsburgh in 2005, when I started at Carnegie Mellon,
I did not bring a car and found it easy to get around as I remained on
campus for most of my activities. However, over the past few years,
I've found that while PAT buses and my bike can get me most places,
it's difficult to make longer trips or to be able to make trips for
groceries or other shopping trips without a car. I've had a car in
Pittsburgh since the beginning of this summer, and have found that
aside from a couple of times a week, it mostly just stays parked. I've
had friends who have had Zipcar for the past year or so, and after
seeing advertisements for the Low Car Diet, thought it would be a great
opportunity to give it a try. I intend to return my car back to my
parents; house as soon as possible to avoid the hassle of dealing with
a car in the city and to rely on Zipcar whenever I'm in need of a
vehicle, which hopefully won't be often."
Others who took the challenge this year are Lindsay Baxter, the city's sustainability coordinator, Lou Fineberg, Bike Pittsburgh's Car-Free Fridays coordinator and Jason Kambitsis, a senior planner for the city.
ZipCar is a car sharing plan for people who do not own cars or who need a second-car option. When you join, you pick a plan best for you, pay a one-time or annual fee depending on the plan, get a ZipCard and a number with which you reserve cars near your home or work. (Visit www.zipcar.com.) Your key is your card swiped along the windshield. The device registers that it is indeed your card opening the door and your card swiping to lock it back at its home base at the appointed time.
All the participants got a free full-year membership in ZipCar and goodies from BikePittsburgh, CommuteInfo and Brueggers Bagels.
Last year's survey results indicate that 58% of the 300 participants in 12 cities planned to continue their lives without owning a car.
The survey results further showed that, after taking the challenge:
- Combined, participants reduced vehicle miles traveled (VMT) by 100,000 miles, driving 71% fewer miles than before the challenge.
- Combined, participants saved nearly 4,000 gallons of fuel and prevented more than 75,000 pounds of carbon emissions.
- Participants increased their miles walked by 85%, miles biked by more than 100% and public transit trips by 65%
- Forty percent of participants reported that the Low-Car Diet led them to lose weight, due to the increased amount of walking and biking.
- Respondents spent 61% less on costs associated with owning and using a car.
Jul 20 2009
Residents of Perry Hilltop have great views, but they feel a little hidden themselves.
Today, they invited the mayor up to see what they have to live with.
Perry Hilltop - the
popular name for a part of Perry South - is just the latest
neighborhood the mayor has walked through in his series of sweeps with
staff and building inspectors. The issues are the same everywhere
- ramshackle and boarded-up buildings, lots covered with weeds and
litter and complaints of drug dealing and vandalism.
A group of about 15
assembled in front of what long ago was the Atlas Theater on
Perrysville Avenue. It now has weeds growing from its facade. Mayor
Luke Ravenstahl arrived in his shirt-sleeves, listening to one after
another resident tell him about perennially scary places.
"We have concerns
about this intersection and we're trying to get on the radar of the
city," Sherman Culver, president of the Perry Hilltop Citizens' Council
told the mayor, who nodded solemnly.
Perry Hilltop is a
North Side neighborhood that rarely makes the news unless it's bad.
Even some good news reflects badly, such as the 2002 arrest of Oliver
Beasley, a prolific drug tycoon then of Penn Hills. He was a target in
the federal government's Operation Family Store sting in 2002, named
for the Family Store that Beasley ran as a front on Perrysville Avenue.
Getting him out of commission with a life sentence could be considered
good news, but that three buildings that were seized have sat empty and
derelict since is continuing bad news for the neighborhood.
The Citizens'
Council posted "U.S. Attorney controlled" signs on the buildings and
stopped the mayors entourage in front of them to make a point.
All along the
sidewalk, the neighborhood's main drag, it's hard to figure whether the
weeds are choking the litter or the litter is choking the weeds.
At the head of
Legion Street - an alley nearby - about 50 black lawn-and-leaf bags sat
heaped along the side of a building across from an empty lot that,
until a few days ago, was growing all the contents in them. The
clean-up was good news; the bags just added to the look.
As the group stolled
down Legion, stopping to look at tree-sized weeds that filled lots,
houses with gaping holes and open windows, garages open and filled with
branches, grabage bags and household debris, dogs barked from behind
fences along the way.
Most dogs defend
where they live fiercely, but such tenacity is left to a little knot of
people in uphill neighborhoods like Perry Hilltop. The citizens'
council is trying to get trash cans, signage and street trees to
advance what dogs know instinctively.
Jul 17 2009
The problem with children's books, if you're dusting each one, is that so many more of them fit on library shelves than do the tomes big people read. Skinny little spines promising skinny little stories about puppies, daddies, ponies, mean kids, the stars and Curious George, just to name a few subjects, take so much longer to clean off.
But it was onto the ceiling of the children's room that the humongous piece of stone fell from the tower of the Carnegie Library branch in Allegheny Center several years ago after a lightning strike that disabled the building for future library use.
"Thank goodness it was Carnegie steel" above the ceiling, said Mary Monaghan, assistant director for neighborhood branches. Between the steel beams, the plaster the stone hit rained down on the children's collection like fairy dust and fairy pebbles; the stone lodged above.
Walkabout found eight volunteers this morning wiping down books to help the library staff prepare for the big move to the new branch next week. They live all over the North Side's various neighborhoods and should be applauded -- clap-clap-clap -- for doing a tedious job to help a great institution.
Volunteers started trickling in around 10 a.m. and they came and went through the afternoon.
Trish Doyle of Allegheny West and Aime Weis of Observatory Hill worked in a corner together. Trish was Aime's age -- 16 -- when she got her first job at the Carrick library, "shelving books, reshelving books, straightening books, checking books out and helping with the children's program," she said.
Trish has been taking her children to the Woods Run branch since the old branch was closed. The new branch opens officially Aug. 29 on Federal Street.
As huge as the old building is, the new library will have 3,000 more square feet of public service space, which means that much of the old library was not used. But it will be home to the heritage collection for at least another year while staff culls it to determine how to best present it.
Jul 16 2009
Compared to the age of the game of bocce, the people playing it this morning in Greenfield are kids.
"You have to be over 60, and we're way over 60," said Marie Matthews, who was waiting her turn to play on a four-person team at the Greenfield Senior Community Center.
Bocce is an ancient sport in which, today, teams stand at each end of a strip of turf or grass or dirt and roll 2-pound, grapefruit-sized balls toward a small white ball, trying to get as close to it as possible. You can knock the other team's balls out of the way to do this. 
"Red!" someone called, and a scorekeeper bent from her seat on a bench to give red a score. Several minutes later, someone yelled "Green!" and the other scorekeeper bent over the scoreboard.
"OK, OK, don't get excited," someone said, responding to something I didn't catch.
When you start realizing you're getting older, you wonder what kind of old person you will be: one of those spry cuties winking with off-color zest? A grouch potato? Shaped like a question mark? Or somehow, miraculously, pretty much like you are now? An Access van pulls up in the alley behind my house most days and, when I see the neighbor who climbs on board, I wonder, Is that me someday?
The bocce players in Greenfield made me feel better about the prospects in general.
I watched awhile, cheered for some reason by exasperated sighs and the disappointed "Ohhh!" of fans everywhere. If I ever need a senior center, I hope it has a bocce court. It would be fun to knock people's balls out of the way, especially when you're old.
"Oh!" someone cried as her teammate's ball dockwalloped the rim at the far end, "You're getting carried away!"
Twelve teams play, from 9 a.m. to after 11 a.m.
The balls are red and green, although the red ones are more of an ox-blood color and the green are like night in the forest. According to ibocce.com, the white ball that everyone wants to get near is called a pallino, and that's what the Greenfield bocce players called it. Another reference on-line called it a jack or a boccino.
http://www.ibocce.com explains the rules, beginning with the coin toss by the capos, or captains:
"The winner of the coin flip may have the first toss of the pallino or choose the color of the balls.
"A player may toss the pallino any distance so long as the pallino passes the center line of the court and does not hit the back wall. If a player fails to validly toss the pallino after one attempt, the opposing team will have a chance to toss the pallino and put it in play. If the opposing team fails to toss the pallino past the center line the pallino reverts to the original team. In any case, when the pallino has been properly put in play, the first bocce ball will be thrown by the team who orginally tossed the pallino."
(Slate ran an article by a person who built his own bocce court. You can read it at http://www.slate.com/id/2146767/)
In front of the Greenfield senior center, the turfed bocce court stretches along the front of the building but way below street level, down a set of outdoor steps that also lead to the Magee Recreation Center pool and ball field. One end of the court is shaded, the other is blasted by the morning sun.
Along the length the scorekeepers occupy one bench. Marie and I are sitting on the other with Joe Mastriano.
"Do you know who got us this turf?" Marie asked, answering, "Bob O'Connor. The city put the benches in about a month ago."
"Put in your article that we need one more," Joe said.
The league, which exacts the age rule of 60-plus, has been around for "10, 15, 20 years," said Marie. Then she called out, "Hey Tony, how long has this league been here?" and Tony said, "At least two," and Marie said, "Naw, longer than that." She shot me a look. "Just say 10."
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