Find the money!

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov. 20

I read the CMU Heinz School report that gave ballast to the library system's proposal to close the West End, Lawrenceville, Beechview and Hazelwood branches and combine Carrick's and Knoxville's into one.

It didn't put me to sleep like some reports. It made me think.

Mainly, it made me realize a lot of factors go into decisions the library's administration has made. The information about volume, cost per patron, geographic considerations - i.e., if we close this one, how much trouble will it cause people to get to the next closest one - can't be taken as big rectangular blocks that stand on their own. All the pieces are shaped differently and interdependent. This is true in all large-system decisions, and even when they are made wisely and painstakingly, they still make people mad because we aren't privy to the volume of information that has to be considered.

Maybe if we were privy, we could see the picture is bigger than our ‘hood and that the effort really was wise and painstaking. Or we might be confirmed that people who have power to decide things really do dump on people who have already been dumped on under the guise of economics.

I tried to imagine having to close a few libraries and justify why this and not that one.

I tried the proximity test as a consideration and decided that Hazelwood would definitely stay open, as would the West End. You can't walk to another library from either place, at least not with enough daylight left to get back.  Beechview is a trolley ride from Downtown but so is South Park. You can take a bus to Morgantown to get to a library, too... this issue is about neighborhood. I have a mental image of Ron Baraff walking his kids to the library in Beechview. Yeah, they're just a trolley ride from the Downtown branch, but ... c'mon. What else does Beechview have to encourage people to move there, the Huddle?

As someone who pulls for the underdog, I naturally feel for the people in these neighborhoods. It's hard not to feel their pain at the prospect of losing one of their last good places -- free, safe and supportive of self-improvement.

Hazelwood, for instance. Go ahead. All the schools are gone, the pool is gone, the grocer left, why not just go ahead and take the library. Want the street lights, too? Of what importance are our lives, huh?

Yet, for all the hurt, there is some balance. Lawrenceville's hipness and increasing real-estate prices aren't saving its branch. Luckless Sheraden gets to keep its branch, and the Hill, after decades of being dumped on, has a brand new one.

But for the sake of them all, couldn't some tiny portion of the staggering waste and duplication of money -- both private and public -- be somehow sifted into a bigger pot to keep them all open? Of all the questions the report left me with, I can answer that one: YES.

Whole Fools

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 19

Whole Foods - that so-called "green" biz based in Austin, Texas that has had a rip-roaring success in S'Liberty - has decided to put its next Pittsburgh-area store in the ‘no-car-no-luck' zone - the ex-urb of Wexford.

This proves that the ‘burbs aren't dead yet, contrary to dozens of articles being written about the upswing in the fortunes of cities and the decline of suburbia - based mainly on the rate of foreclosures and construction stagnation.

Sprawl may not be what it used to be, but it's obviously very hard to kill.

In fact, we in the ‘burgh know that the ‘burbs are the reason we hang onto our reputation of being a "big city." Most big cities have annexed their suburbs by now, but oh my, let's not do that. It might be too progressive.

Anyhoo... we were talking about Whole Foods and its non-green decision to locate where you can't walk to shop - even if you live really close to the future store - unless you want to get hit walking on the side of the road carrying your canvas shopping tote.

We admit that here at Walkabout we were hoping Whole Foods would see the wisdom in locating a store in the Allegheny Center Mall on the North Side or, for the good of the most people, downtown. Surely there would have been some incentives, like tax credits and even some other goodies from the city? Don't tens of thousands of people who work downtown and have already got their wheels stashed somewhere rate as potential shoppers after work or on the lunch hour, especially when cars are refrigerators on wheels during the winter?

Walkers, too, and bus riders would welcome a place downtown to shop before heading home in the evening. But noooo. Another corporate vote for the suburbs, which will probably last awhile longer. 

Council's "Oops!" moment

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 18

It's interesting that, after eons of City Council hearings on historic building designations, one that's against the interests of UPMC hits the skids over a legal question. Just interesting is all ...

Council put off its scheduled hearing yesterday - with a dozen people on hand to testify, most wearing "Save the Paramount Film Exchange" T-shirts - because a tic in the law might require the five members who wrote letters of support for the Paramount's nomination to recuse themselves from voting. The nomination needs a super-majority of six votes; Council has nine members.

The Young Preservationists Association nominated the Paramount Film Exchange, a 1920s-era building at 1727 Boulevard of the Allies, Uptown, to be designated an historic property. A remaining vestige of what was called "film row," it was one of seven buildings owned by film studios from which films were distributed to local theaters and where theater managers could screen films before choosing to show them.

UPMC spokespeople have argued against historic nomination. Their client wants to tear the building down or to have that option. A New York developer is interested in turning it into a medical facility, but UPMC is not amused.
 
When an attorney representing UPMC informed Council he intended to cross-examine during the hearing, Councilman Douglas Shields said, "I thought, ‘Why would they do that? This is not a conditional use hearing.'"

Well....

The city's assistant solicitor Larry Baumiller, pointed out that this hearing might be a conditional use hearing, which is zoning speak for uh-oh, maybe we shouldn't have written those letters. The hearing body would be held to judicial standards, meaning the council members would not be immune from being personally sued.

Normally, Council doesn't expect to be held to an uber-legal standard, and if you attend many Council meetings, it's obvious. Members have written letters of support for historic nominations in the past and a challenge has never come up. Three council members who wrote letters were in their seats for the hearing.

At the urging of Patrick Dowd, the other four council members on hand - Tonya Payne, Darlene Harris, Theresa Smith and Shields - agreed to ease out of what could be a sticky legal situation and wait until a new council is seated in January.

A vote on the building's nomination must be taken by Jan. 28. Council will meet on Jan. 12 if not earlier to hear the case. In the meantime, they await a definitive legal opinion on how to proceed. Voters probably hope it will be a meritable and uninfluenced opinion.

"We have had some tough historic nominations but nothing like this," Councilman Shields said as he apologized "to everybody in the room."

If this is of any use whatsoever, the city's Web site, http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/cp/html/land_use_control_and_zoning.html, reports that:

There are four types of approval:
1. As of right (can be approved at the zoning counter if all code requirements are met).
2. An Administrator's Exception (exceptions listed in the code).
3. A Special Exception (approvable by the Zoning Board of Adjustment).
4. A Conditional Use Exception (approvable by City Council after a public hearing and consideration by the Planning Commission).

All historic nominations go first to the Historic Review Commission, then to the Planning Commission before meeting their final verdicts at City Council. That would seem to be conditional use... but we, too, will see what legal comes up with.

Do we hear tails thumping already?

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 18

On behalf of South Side dogs -- and in the spirit of city dogs in general -- Walkabout is happy to report that the city's budget, at least as it stands now, is holding place for $80,000 toward establishing an off-leash exercise area in South Side Park. If the allocation survives the city's budget rehab, a fence could be erected by spring.

In this case, a fence is deemed necessary and would cost about $80,000, said Ken Wolfe, chief of staff for Councilman Bruce Kraus.

Residents have been agitating for an off-leash area for more than a year. About 300 people signed a petition for one this summer. Roughly two acres of city-owned land would be dedicated to the fine cause of unleashing the energy of pent-up city pooches.

"It is very preliminary," Ken said, "but we're optimistic. Hopefully it will survive the budget process. If it does, [the] parks [department] is looking to move on this."

The fence is the biggest expense. It would have to be contracted, whereas another third of the $240,000 project would be absorbed by the city's public works crew and another third would be raised.

With a fence in place, the park at least could open. Landscaping and other effects could be added later.

Over the years, with no off-leash place to exercise, South Side dogs have been off-leash outlaws, playing where owners could find space and get away with it. But the use of neighborhood playgrounds and ball fields did raise residents' ire.

Ken said some people who have been pushing for this off-leash area have volunteered to pitch in to help establish it. Anyone who has ever walked an exhausted puppy home from an off-leash dog park knows why.

Some 'hoods got swag

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 17

Does your ‘hood have gear?

My ‘hood has loads of gear - Mexican War Streets T-shirts. calendars, a cookbook, mugs, greeting cards, house tour posters, even a special glass for "stoop" parties. (Pictured at right, it reads, in part, "Preservation... I'll drink to that.") You can visit the on-line store at  www.mexicanwarstreets.org.

Now it comes to light (it sometimes comes to light late here at Walkabout) that Polish Hill has gear. Not just T-shirts but a cookbook in its second printing, pierogi pins, postcards. You can check it out at http://blogski.phcapgh.org/?page_id=275.

On the cafepress.com website, we found another cool neighborhood T: "What happens in Lawrenceville stays in Lawrenceville." You can find more general Pittsburgh merchandise on the cafepress site, too. Another vendor, Neighborhood Teaze http://juliadinardo.com/teaze.php, makes neighborhood specific T-shirts.

Walkabout is not in the business of hyping merchandise, but we do wonder how many ‘hoods out there have their own gear. While I consider myself a neighbor of the world and my neighborhood a piece of a greater North Side, it's fun to show people where people have your back. There's another upside to gear.

This from Terry Doloughty, the dynamo behind the Polish Hill Civic Association:

"We have had fund raising success with our gear. It also gives our residents a chance to have some neighborhood pride. We have made sure Polish Hill gear appears on our website and in our newsletter. With tough economic times every thing we can sell helps to pay the bills and keep the doors open."
"We [also] have traditional fund raising items such as the Polish Hill cook book. Over the years it went into it's second printing. We also have a local artist, David Watts, who is the creator of the "Mr. D's" Pierogie pins. It feels right using as much local resources as we can for our community fund raisers. Between using Commonwealth Printing for our tee shirts, Lifeswork to produce our Newsletter and David Watts' pierogie pins we hold true to our grass roots efforts."

The PHCA has created its own store on Zazzle. You can use Pay Pal. The Zazzle link is http://www.zazzle.com/polish+hill+gifts. Not to be hyping swag or anything....

Underexposed and ready for action (updated)

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 17

Residents from five Hilltop neighborhoods convened last night to begin planning for a "one-stop shop" community center and an inventory of vacant land.

The group of about 125 people voted on ideas and chose those two to begin the unified effort known as the Hilltop Alliance to improve the southern neighborhoods' quality of life. Ten neighborhoods have been targeted: Allentown, Arlington, Arlington Heights, Beltzhoover, Bon Air, Carrick, Knoxville, Mount Oliver, Mount Oliver Borough and St. Clair. (See post below "Ten neighborhoods under new umbrella".)

Small groups have met over the past six weeks to wrangle a list of needs and ideas into a few do-able projects to start the long-term process of affiliation and community development. The gathering included police Chief Nate Harper, Councilman Bruce Kraus and Councilwoman-elect Natalia Rudiak.

The Hilltop neighborhoods represent 25,400 people. Together, they have a higher rate of owner-occupied housing than the city does - 64 percent compared to 52 percent. But they have faltered economically, lost population and been left with blighted properties and much higher crime levels than the city's overall. When it comes to crime, perception always outpaces reality, and most neighborhods still fight perception long after the problem has ebbed.

Leadership Pittsburgh has chosen the Hilltop neighborhoods as the focus of its next one-day blitz called "Pop Up Pittsburgh!" sometime in the spring of 2010. Leadership Pittsburgh chose Uptown this past May and helped its advocates stage a Pop Up event called "Uptown on the Move." More than 1,000 people turned out to experience Uptown through the eyes of people who champion it.

The Hilltop neighborhoods, like many that have slumped in recent decades, has good bones: good housing stock and long-time stalwarts who have a lot of good things to say about an area many Pittsburghers don't know at all. The group last night wants to create gardens and parklets on their vacant lots and to figure out how to market homes to young buyers. They want a place where the entire community can meet and recreate and leave their children safely during the day and train for jobs.

Jason Kottler of Mount Oliver Borough said his group's ideas were to form a communication team "to let everyone know about everything and help people who do not know how to have a voice have a voice." He suggested the Alliance's Web site address be posted at bus stops and in libraries: www.pghhilltopalliance.com.  His group also suggested the Alliance create a squad of homework helpers.

"A-pluses don't always matter," he said, "but the help of a strong community will."

Unifying is always a challenge. Agreeing to dissolve borders in the interest of the gerater group means that all the little top dogs have to share a yard. The Hilltop Alliance, with funding from the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development (PPND) and the city, is working to get more Hilltop groups to come together through the work of a paid community organizer, Sara Bennett, and two interns.

PPND is funding the Alliance and has held training sessions to help the group build know-how - which is caleld "capacity" in community development circles. Maureen Hogan, PPND's assistant director, said collaboration is critical to effective investments. A grant to 10 unified neighborhoods will have a lot more impact than 10 grants to groups working separately. PPND's investment so far is $75,000, which includes the training sessions to help people learn how to collaborate.

"We started working with the mayor's office to reach areas that we hadn't targeted before," she said. "Markets and public safety issues don't stop at neighborhood borders."

No cushioning this blow (updated with photos)

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 16

Fabric is a great metaphor in the neighborhood biz, used a lot, maybe overused, to signify the bonds of community.
Then there's the real stuff - the interwoven threads covering the cushions that hold the crumbs, the dog hairs and the overnight guests of our lives.

J.J. Peiger Co. has sold that fabric for 87 years on Market Street in the neighborhood known as Downtown. Today, its staff began selling in-stock items at 40 percent off wholesale prices with "going out of business" signs on the 19th century storefront.

"We've been fighting it the last couple of years," said Donna Helgert. "Business is poor. We decided we just can't do it anymore."

Donna said she is not the owner, "just an icon around here" after working for the company for 40 years.

She said the building is one of the three oldest in the city and would, when she had time, check the archives to see if she could prove it.

While she punched an adding machine totaling up sales to a retailer from Ohio, I looked around at the old-fashioned store, the likes of which are vanishing - the stamped-tin ceiling, wood floors, brawny floor-to-ceiling shelving, the old clock on the wall, like in an old school house. Rolls of fabric leaned against each other in big bins. The wholesale business has occupied 101-103, a double lot across from what used to be Froggy's, a restaurant that isn't there anymore either. The sale will run until everything is gone or the end of the year, whichever comes first.

"I'm gonna miss this," Donna said as she began bagging items for a customer.

"No you won't," said John Williams, the owner's son.

"I'm gonna miss all the wacky customers," she said.

The Ohio retailer, who didn't want to give his name, made the drive to Pittsburgh to close the circle: His father, who had a retail upholstery business before him, started buying from J.J.Peiger in 1962. "I wanted to see what they had left and to say goodbye."

He said fewer places still sell upholstery fabric. Then he hugged Donna long and hard before leaving.

All aboard!?

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 13

Several readers commented on a story I wrote on Nov. 2 for the Post-Gazette on Councilman Bill Peduto's proposal to establish a commuter line on existing railroad tracks from Hazelwood to Lawrenceville. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09306/1010111-53.stm

One reader said, "What a stupid idea! Who wants to go to Hazelwood?"

Well, once a commuter connection north-to-south between Hazelwood and Oakland is made, Hazelwood might be a dream site for corporations and institutions who can't expand in Oakland. Some large buildings sit vacant in Hazelwood. The Gladstone school and the old Hazelwood library are two. Then there are those enormous swaths of land between the Monongahela River and 2nd Avenue.

Several readers asked, "Where are these rail lines, anyway?"

I wanted to know the same thing. Rich Feder, of Whitman, Requardt & Associates, explained the route when he proposed the feasibility to City Council, but I couldn't get his words into a picture. I wanted to associate the lines as they relate to the neighborhoods they pass through.

This morning, at my request, Councilman Peduto gave me a tour of the rail line. He is on the board of the Southwest Pennsylvania Commission and has been following a masterplan that Carnegie Mellon University proposes to develop its campus toward the Carnegie museums.

He said the commuter railroad link that he imagines -- the Monongaheny -- would be just one rail mode (including light rail links) that someday would connect to each other and to bus routes, bike trails and park-and-ride lots for those people who have to drive.

At 2nd and Hazelwood Avenues, we walked the tracks awhile (you can sort of see them in the very shadowy photo I took, at left) before driving to Oakland and into Panther Hollow. The lines curve up to cut through the valley, parallel to Boundary Street. They pass right by the Collaborative Innovation Center, Carnegie Mellon's new hub for technology giants that include Apple and Intel. This is where the second stop would be, somewhere near the Panther Hollow bridge on Forbes Avenue.

When Boundary wiggles up from the hollow to become Neville Street, the rails branch into a very long tunnel that runs underground (you can almost make it out in the shadows of the  second photo, which might be on the right unless something screwy happens when i hit "publish"). It follows under Neville Street through Oakland before reemerging just past the bridge over Centre Avenue into a startlingly deep ravine. You can see the tunnel it comes out of if you cross Centre and walk down a little spur of Neville that disappears into woods. The third stop would be somewhere around there, "the most challenging one" since the ravine is so deep, the councilman said.

We wondered where that spur of Neville might once have gone, if it ever came out anywhere, then we drove to the last of four proposed stops.

The rails continue north under the Baum Boulevard bridge and wind around behind the Iron City Brewing Co., where a Norfolk Southern line and a stop on the Port Authority's busway all land within 150 feet of each other - the obvious last stop. Hey, there's Neville Street again! It is a little blip of street, truer to its connection to the rail lines than to any logic of street mapping. One end is a parking lot and the other is a dead end into Sassafras Street.

Meanwhile, the rails proceed north across Liberty on an overpass and cross the Allegheny River. The same lines also run south to Washington, Pa.

A man in Bloomfield who goes by the name of Shoe, stopped to talk while walking his dog. He said he likes the idea of a commuter line. Too many people are naysayers, he said, "because people love their cars too much."

Walkabout won't venture a guess as to why people oppose things. There are always good and bad reasons for proposing and opposing. But as someone who doesn't like cars much, it was fun to walk on railroad tracks again and imagine the day when society has more options for not needing cars, such as trains in all directions, of all types to every and all corners.

Local Zipster makes good (updated)

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 11

This just in: Zipcar has chosen one of Pittsburgh's own as its Zipster of the Month

Matt Mehalik, the November poster boy, is program manager for Sustainable Pittsburgh. http://www.sustainablepittsburgh.org.

"I've got to figure out what it means" to be Zipster of the Month, he said. But he has been a Zip car apostle among his business contacts. Part of his job is to connect businesses to environmentally sound services and businesses, of which Zipcar is one.

Zipcar (http://www.zipcar.com/)is a car-sharing service that Matt joined early in 2008.

"I mainly use it for meetings that take me from Downtown out into other parts of the city," he said. "It's a very economical solution."

He can use a Zipcar for two to three hours and save his employer on parking fees, gas and mileage.

Matt came to Sustainable Pittsburgh having previously been a visiting assistant professor in the University of Pittsburgh's Industrial Engineering Department and a research associate at the Learning Research and Development Center. He taught courses related to complex systems and the fundamentals of sustainable product innovation and design.

If he returns a call to Walkabout, we will find out how he is helping to sustain Pittsburgh and more juicy details, like his favorite ZIpcar if he has more than one option and where he likes to take it and how much money he saves, things like that.

He has been a Zipcar user since February 2008 and "helps spread the Gospel of Zip throughout Pittsburgh in both his personal and professional life," according to the Zipcopy writers.

Matt's prize is $50 in driving credit and a bag of Zipcar goodies.

For the uninitiated, Zipcar is a car sharing club whose cars you can rent by the hour from a number of locations. Some cars can be rented by the day. You get a Zipcard that you wave magically over a spot on the windshield to unlock the door at your appointed hour; the key is affixed inside. When you return it at the appointed time and wave the card to magically lock the door for the next user, the scan device tells Zipcar's computers that you were the user (because it knows you by your card number) and that you returned it on time. You absolutely positively cannot smoke in Zipcars and you should clean your kids' mushed french fries from the floor and remember to retrieve their My Little Pony and action figures. You can use your Zipcard to purchase gas, which you never have to pay for, and you don't have to buy car insurance, either. Zipcar covers you.

As a Zipcar user myself, I drive about two hours a week. With $50 in driving credits, you get roughly five and a half hours.

You could go to Detroit!!!

The hourly cost depends on the car, the time of day and the day itself. I always need a Zipcar on a weekend day, when it costs more.

My neighborhood now has two Mazdas but it used to have a Prius, which I loved driving enough to almost consider buying a car until I realized I would have to buy a Prius to continue loving driving but I couldn't afford a Prius... so one day the Prius that used to be parked back by the Mattress Factory was no longer an option.  I never have been able to find out why the Central Northside lost its Prius. Proably better for me, though. Now I am not tempted to go car shopping.

But enough about me... Congratulations Matt!

A new view might be nice (updated with image)

by Diana Nelson Jones/Nov 10

I sat in today's Planning Commission meeting - a standing-room-only event - thinking about the view I used to have up on Chatauqua Court in Perry South. I rented a three-story townhouse with a deck from which I could see the skyline in the distance. After eight years there, I became so used to seeing fireworks that I could walk nonchalantly up or down the stairs as they were exploding.

The view was sweet, and so I felt a strong empathy for the resident of William Street who spoke at the hearing, saying that the proposed One Grandview hotel-condo-retail development "will take a chunk out of my view. That's what I bought my property for."

One Grandview - as yet still just the magnificent design of a cascading 114-room hotel, 55-condo and retail development with a 200-foot-long plaza - would finally obliterate the Edge Restaurant as the "hello" visitors to Mount Washington now get as they round that corner from Wyoming Street onto Grandview and go "WOW!" Luckily, the view is so grand that the Edge might escape a visitor's notice.

But for residents, the Edge, 25 years vacant and covered with graffiti, is a reminder of the lack of development and that Grandview could be a lot grander.

The hotel-condo-retail proposal is undergoing city review now. The planning commission voted unanimously today to rezone the site and approved teh developers' preliminary plan. (The zoning had been a combination of three designations and will be rezoned as a planned urban district if City Council approves, too.

The issue for most opponents is the scale. A handful of people, while praising the intent and calling the design beautiful, said it is just too big.
Architect Luke Desmone, who first envisioned a gleaming landmark back in 2004 and has since teamed up with Chicago developer Steven Beemsterboer, said it would be a fitting "bookend" to the Trimont at the other end of Grandview.

As I listened to the testimony of people who worry about being in the shadow of the tower rising 19 stories above street level and about soil stability and stormwater management during construction, and to Harry Liller's particularly poignant plea to the commission that the neighborhood, and the city, needs the jobs and tax revenue this projects would generate, I couldn't help wondering what people might be saying five or 10 years from now:

"How much longer is One Grandview going to take?"

... or "I can't believe we're stuck with the Edge Restaurant after that other guy gave up."

... or maybe, "Can you believe we were once against this gorgeous place?"

...and just possibly, "I got over the view. There's more to being somewhere than what you can see in the distance."