Beechview Community Paint Day

On Saturday 9/20, Beechview community members came out to help paint Beechview’s newest mural at Sip N Spin Laundromat on Broadway Avenue. It was a fun event with a great turn-out.

Thanks to Ryder Henry for all of his artistic endeavors and patience and of course to Rep. Chelsea Wagner and her staff for all of their enthusiastic backing and coordination of the mural project.

Happenings Abound!!!!!!!!!!!

Seeing Pittsburgh @ The Bost Building
Now through January 31, 2009 In celebration of Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary, Rivers of Steel worked with 44 Pittsburgher's from eleven neighborhoods to produce the Seeing Pittsburgh project. Armed with cameras and instructions to show us what defines their community, these residents photographed the good, the bad, the new, the old, the physical, the emotional...everything that defines their neighborhood.
Visit http://www.riversofsteel.com/ for hours and directions.

Bring a copy of this email when you visit the exhibit in September and receive 10% off the Seeing Pittsburgh book.

Pittsburgh Project REMIX @ The Pump House
One weekend only! Thursday, September 18 - Saturday, September 20 @ 7:30 pm
Sunday, September 21 @ 3:00 pm A performance by award-winning director and playwright Megan Carney. Join us to hear stories about civic identity, changing neighborhoods, and the promise of the future in a new play performed by a ensemble of professional Pittsburgh actors. Each performance includes a community conversation with special guests and a chance to add your own story to the project.
For more information, visit http://www.mcarneyprojects.com/Pittsburgh_Project_REMIX.html.


Wheeling Through History @ Heinz History Center
Saturday, September 20 @ 9:00 am - Noon As part of the Young Preservationists Association's Pittsburgh Regional Youth Heritage Festival, Wheeling Through History Bike Tours feature Pittsburgh neighborhoods, history, and the progressive sport of cycling. Join Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area and Venture Outdoors for a bike tour of Pittsburgh's rich industrial history through the South Side and Four Mile Run.
Visit http://www.youngpreservationists.org/youth-heritage-festival for more information.


Pittsburgh Neighborhood Narratives Screening @ The Pump House
Friday, October 3 @ 7:30 pm Greetings from Pittsburgh: Neighborhood Narratives is a series of nine short films produced as part of the Pittsburgh 250 celebration. Each of the films takes place in a different neighborhood, offering a unique portrait of the culture, history and character of their setting.
For more information about the Narratives, please visit http://www.pghneighborhoodnarratives.com/.

Another review

From the Pitt News:

Neighborhoods shown in Homestead exhibit

Giles Howard

Contributing Editor

Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Updated: Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Located on Homestead’s Eighth Avenue is a national historic landmark operated by the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. Known as the Bost building, it was built as a hotel in the late 19th century and served as the headquarters of striking steelworkers during the Homestead Strike in 1892.

But today, it is home to a regional museum that recently opened a new exhibit entitled, “Seeing Pittsburgh.”

Since it opened to the public on July 9, Seeing Pittsburgh has featured photographs, artwork and audio recordings from 11 different Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

“This actually evolved over a number of years of really observing those small and very interesting and often topographically defined neighborhoods in the city,” said Ron Baraff, director of museum collections and archives at Rivers of Steel.

Baraff, along with co-organizer Tiffani Emig, said they thought about including Oakland in the exhibit, but it just didn’t work out.

“We picked certain types of communities that we really wanted, and once we were able to get into those communities, we had to follow that path,” he said.

They wanted to profile post-industrial and industrial neighborhoods, white-collar suburbs and blue-collar suburbs as well as neighborhoods that had remained “fairly constant” throughout the years, he said.

Once they decided on the 11 types of neighborhoods they wanted to profile, Baraff and Emig approached community groups in each neighborhood to find photographers.

“We didn’t want to pick the photographers, what we wanted to do was to have the community decide who should be involved,” said Baraff.

Stephen Grebinski, a Pitt senior living in Squirrel Hill, was one of the 44 photographers who contributed to the project.

Grebinski said he learned of Rivers of Steel in an architectural preservation class he was taking and started work on the project in February or March.

It took about three weeks of going through old photos and taking new ones for him to finish his part of the project.

“I just submitted some stuff., I wasn’t sure what they were looking for,” said Grebinski.

Grebinski, like the other photographers, had to fill out a log explaining his entries. This included what the photo was of and how it represented the photographer’s neighborhood.

Grebinski’s photo of a gate in a chain-link fence made it into the Squirrel Hill portion of the exhibit. He said the photo represents how people have such small yards in Squirrel Hill that they feel the need to put up a fence and cherish it.

“I wish it was deeper than that, but it’s not,” said Grebinski.

He said he’s participated in photo exhibitions before, but never in this way.

“I haven’t really collaborated with some giant group organization [before], and I kind of liked it.”

Admission to the Bost building is free to the public, and the Seeing Pittsburgh exhibit will remain there until Jan.31, but the Bost building is not its final stop. Baraff wants to take the exhibit around to different neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.

“What we hope is that this becomes much more of an open-ended project and that other communities want to be involved,” said Baraff.

A book is being released to coincide with the exhibit, and Rivers of Steel is also involved in creating a series of cellphone tours for neighborhoods in the Pittsburgh area.

“We want [Pittsburghers] to understand themselves a little better, to understand their neighbors a little better,” said Baraff.

Pittsburgh Sights

City Steps in 4-Mile Run


Entrance to Panther Hollow Trail


Barge on the Mon

Now for a bit of shameless promotion

Exhibit shows neighborhoods through neighbors' eyes

By Kurt Shaw
TRIBUNE-REVIEW ART CRITIC
Sunday, August 24, 2008

"Seeing Pittsburgh" is a photography exhibit like none before. It focuses on Pittsburgh and its neighborhoods, but from the perspective of everyday inhabitants -- in essence, making a few neighbors among many photojournalists for a day. story continues below


Forty-four in all were assigned the project of capturing the unique qualities of each specific locale. Some of the results among the nearly 100 images on display are historically significant, some cultural and others simply a slice of life. "We made a real attempt to find different types of Pittsburghers to participate -- children and senior citizens, those who have been in the community for their entire lives and those who have recently arrived," says Ron Baraff, director of Museum Collections and Archives. "The focus wasn't on who could take the best picture, but on how average residents view their neighborhood and their city." Case in point, Christine Bethea's grainy photographs of her Hill District neighborhood, eight in all, are nowhere near the high-quality prints one would expect to find in an art exhibit. But that's because they were all taken with her cell phone. Beautifully arranged, one atop the other in almost film-like fashion, they allow the eye to move from various vignettes captured in and around Bethea's neighborhood as if watching a documentary video: three boys on bicycles, a pit bull sleeping on a porch, a chained up security door. Although it was impossible to include all 90 Pittsburgh neighborhoods in the bordering suburban communities, the goal was to present a diverse sampling of the types of neighborhoods found in the region. Post-industrial neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and the South Side are represented in kitsch-like fashion. Lawrenceville is seen through candy-colored images, such as an interior shot of a shop selling tchochkes by Elise Deluca or a group of passionate priests, taken by fellow Father Don Ware. South Side is seen via vibrant snapshots of equally vibrant stops along Carson Street, taken by Joyce Baronett and Cyril Esser. Point Breeze is representative of the early "suburb within the city" for which it was known. Its identity is further emphasized with a fall shot of Frick Park by Julina Golze. Forest Hills, once a very working-class suburb, is set in a historical light via Sam Lee's foreboding photograph of the atom smasher at the former Westinghouse facility. Looking at the exhibit from a holistic perspective, some threads of consistency seem to rise above others. Some are basic, like the Belgium block streets that run through many Pittsburgh neighborhoods, presented here in images of both Lawrenceville and Beechview captured by Langston MacDiarmid and Max Hurwitz, respectively. Some are more complex, such as the inner workings of a successful community as seen in Sandy Saban's "Fire Truck Blessing," taken at a McKees Rocks firehouse. Here, a priest with piercing eyes makes for a compelling focal point among a few proud fire chiefs. A real standout among all the images on display are Terrence Murphy's photographs of the hard living and the semi-homeless life of a few folks on the North Side, mainly because they represent a different perspective of life on Pittsburgh's streets. In one, a young homeless man named "Dano" holds a cardboard sign on which he wrote "Hungry, Ugly, Broke. Anything Helps," offering both poignant commentary and a bit of wry wit. The exhibit itself is further enhanced by displays created by Ashley Hodder and Michelle Gregio that represent each of the neighborhoods presented. For example, photographs of McKees Rocks are surrounded by railroad tracks. Images of Squirrel Hill -- among which is a shot of a fruit stand by Melanie Groves -- are dispersed among a makeshift fruit stand made with fake fruit. All of the Beechview shots are tastefully arranged on a mock trolley, smaller than a real one, but rather sizable nonetheless. Interspersed among these various displays are supplemental video clips of interviews with the photographers. The interviews allow visitors to hear more about the photographers' ideas about Pittsburgh and their individual neighborhoods. "It's more of a sociological story than an art exhibit," says Tiffani Emig, curator of collections at Rivers of Steel. She, along with Baraff, put together a remarkable catalog for this exhibition that features nearly every photograph in the exhibition along with quotes by each of the amateur photographers. Their portraits and short bios are included. Available for $15.95 at the Bost Building or online, it's almost as good as this must-see exhibit, which will remain on view well past the holidays. Kurt Shaw can be reached at kshaw@tribweb.com.

Very Cool Post Gazette op-ed

What I learned in college

Absence makes the heart grow fonder for Pittsburgh

Saturday, August 23, 2008

By Sam Hornak

When I left Pittsburgh four short years ago for college in Washington, D.C., I could not wait to leave town. As a native Pittsburgher, I have always -- and will always -- love my hometown. But I was eager to see something different. I was hungry for something new.

As I drove to the nation's capital in a minivan full of clothes, kitchen appliances and two apprehensive parents, I had no idea what awaited me in a new city. I left home in search of a new perspective, and I learned many things about life and myself during my time at college. What I never expected was that in my four years in Washington, I would learn so much about Pittsburgh. For instance:

I learned that the Steelers are my team, win or lose.

After four years of riding the efficient and convenient Washington Metro, I learned that Pittsburgh's residents will never get anywhere, literally or metaphorically, until the region updates its transportation infrastructure.

I learned that salaries tend to be higher in the nation's capital, but there is no low-cost lifestyle like that of Pittsburgh. Eat'n Park is great because you do not have to pay an arm and a leg for a decent dinner out. Plus, there are no smiley cookies in Washington.

I learned during four years of class discussions that people from other parts of the country do not truly understand Pittsburgh. Their image is either a mistaken view of a city full of elderly people or a time-frozen portrait of a smoky steel town. Obviously they have seen neither Sidney Crosby's Penguins nor the South Side on a Friday night.

I learned that we as Pittsburghers do not do enough to market the truth about our city. In reality, marketing should be easy, because ...

I have learned that virtually everyone has an aunt, cousin or friend from Western Pennsylvania. I cannot describe how many people I have met who have a tangential relationship with our region. After a holiday visit to Pittsburgh, the most common refrain I hear from these individuals is, "Wow, I was really surprised to see how cool your city is ..."

I always thought that you needed to live in our city to love it. I have learned that a weekend in the 'Burgh is enough to convince many folks that it would be a great place to live.

I have learned that our city is peopled with ... well, great people. Having spent my whole life in the Steel City, I took it as a matter of course that you should smile at people on the street and hold the door for a stranger. I always learned that you must help someone if they drop their wallet, and you should actually care about the views of the person on the opposite side of a conversation. I thought these concepts were natural. But these kindnesses are not to be taken for granted -- they are the essence of Pittsburgh.

A lot of things about our town make me proud. But nothing makes me happier than hearing about what great people live in our city. That should make us all proud.

I have learned that for all the talk about a city that is aging and in decline, Pittsburgh has a lot of assets in its favor. I have learned that I want to move back to Pittsburgh and spend my life at home -- and I have learned that there are many more young Pittsburghers who feel the same way. I have learned that we have a lot of reasons to be proud of ourselves and our town. We just need to regain a sense of confidence in the future of our city.

I have learned that only time will tell whether Pittsburgh is really stagnating and facing decline, as so many of its critics contend. But I have learned that we live in an amazing place, and it is the duty of every Pittsburgher to make sure that the future of our city is bright.

---

Sam Hornak, who grew up in Upper St. Clair, graduated from Georgetown University in May with a history degree (sah44@georgetown.edu). He is entering University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

First published on August 23, 2008 at 12:00 am

Check out the happenings in Beechview

There are some doings in Beechview. To check them out, go to the following sites:

http://beechview.wordpress.com/

http://cleanupbeechview.blogspot.com/

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