Time For a Long Overdue Talk About Pittsburgh"s Waterfront Stadiums

No time to do a long post about this yet.

To a very large extent, the shift in my posts towards local planning and design issues reflects a disgust and foreboding about the impact of ant-urban policies. 

Pittsburgh as a small city, with specific geographic constraints simply can't afford to waste taxable property.

When I arrived 11 years ago,  the average city resident might have thought the city was lucky to have any development, or economic activity of any kind. Without our benevolent team owners, who would want to visit, work or live in our ugly, post industrial city. What is good for them, surely must be good for us? Um.... perhaps not.

With parking on North Shore in flux, developer gets extension on apartments

After two years, a developer might be allowed to build a 9 story 250 unit apartment building next to PNC Park IF They Replace 531 Parking Spaces Lost.

Which is more important to the teams, surface parking for occasional fans or actual taxable development?

"The stadium authority is required to replace parking under its option agreement with the Pirates, the Steelers and Continental to develop the land between the two sports facilities."

Meaning that taxpayers will likely have to pay for another huge expansion of another huge, hideous parking garage. 

No surprise that actual, livable residential construction is booming in the East End and other places far away from the stadiums.

Meanwhile the specter of gentrification becomes more visible.

Recent Penn Plaza evictions highlight East Liberty's severe lack of affordable housing 

Duh, who would have seen this coming? Certainly, not the new so called, progressive mayor who has so far kissed the ring of any and all team demands.

Pittsburgh task force on affordable housing to convene Thursday

“It’s critical because if we’re going to be an inclusive city and a city that allows for all income ranges to live here and prosper, you’re always going to need some affordable housing,” he said. “It’s really a conversation that is very timely, that is very needed.”

Followed by a call for the same kind of subsidies and policies that have helped make housing so affordable in New York, Boston and San Francisco.

How about  the city, state and federal government start by not helping sports teams turn the city into a parking lot for occasional fans. 

Restitution: Two Entities That Should Help Save The August Wilson Center

Can't say I didn't see the sad August Wilson Center Train wreck coming. Built on tax dollars and a few large (Including one from the RK Mellon Foundation) grants, just big enough to get it to the ribbon cutting ceremony and very little grass roots groundwork, in a city that has lost (forced out) most of its middle class black community, the Center seemed on shaky ground

See a brief grim synopsis here (Notice the flawed study by the same URA which thought tearing down The Hill was a great idea)

 I'm not usually one for bailouts, but in this case two entities, The Richard King Mellon Foundation & The Pittsburgh Penguins stand out as owing something to Pittsburgh's black community for the crimes committed against it.

From The Post Gazette- Look For The Name Richard King Mellon

 Mellon's heft allowed his deputies, Richards and Van Buskirk, to spread their fingers everywhere, creating a shadow Mellon government. In 1945, they lobbied the state to approve the Urban Redevelopment Authority, a powerful tool that allowed Pittsburgh to seize private properties through eminent domain.............yada yada 

 Lawrence eventually settled on the Lower Hill District, a popular neighborhood for Italians, Jews, Eastern Europeans and blacks. Politically, it was a better choice. "There was not a lot of opposition," Weber said, in an interview. "Was that easier? Absolutely."

It was a lively neighborhood, bulging with shops, nightclubs, restaurants and small businesses. But it had problems, too. There were more than 1,000 tuberculosis cases reported in 1933. A 1953 building's inspector's report, cited in Weber's book, rated 681 of the 901 homes as "substandard....

"The URA's demolition, which began in 1956, forced out 1,239 black families. About 800 relocated to the nearby Third, Fourth and Fifth wards -- predominantly black neighborhoods. And the relocation did not go well.

The federal government, at the time, did not provide displaced homeowners with relocation money, as it does today. Also, homeowners had no contact with the city until the acquisition had been made. They got a notice in the mail. "Chaos. It was absolute chaos," URA official Irving Rubinstein told an interviewer in 1974. "We didn't know what to do."

Mellon looms so large in the Hill district's fate, he plays a big part in August Wilson's play, Two Trains Running. ( $$$$ mysteriously critical entries about him are hard to find online)

Well.. anyway, he left a large foundation behind to help out the city. What better way than by supporting a potentally important cultural center for a community you "accidentally" damaged?

As for The Penguins who happily sit on the grave of that community and then helped themselves to another slice... pay up.

As for the city taxpayers, I don't believe in collective guilt. But, if you worked in any capacity or supported in any way the policies named here, please pay up.

Sandy and Far Rockaway: Another Tragedy of Urban Planning

I apologize for another post not directly related to Pittsburgh, that I think brings up some relevant urban issues. As many know, I am from NYC and have some knowledge of one of the areas hardest hit by Sandy. My sister, her husband and now my nephew all worked as lifeguards on the same beach in Far Rockaway for many years. For public school teachers this fit in as a fun summer gig. I haven't been there in many years. It's not the most attractive place, dominated by large public housing projects isolated on a long stretch of beach. Far Rockaway, is not just slightly far away from almost anywhere, else in the city- it's really, really far away. Yes, there is a subway, which in theory could take one into Manhattan if one has a spare hour and a half to two hours- if it's running well.

To break the suspense- I always wondered why someone thought concentrating large numbers of poor on a barrier island, exposed to storms, so far a way from jobs, shopping or social opportunities was a good idea.

 

 

From The Manhattan Institute,

Blessed with the Atlantic Ocean to the south and Jamaica Bay to the north, the Rockaways became a popular resort area of elegant hotels and fine houses in the 1830s. The coming of the railroad in the 1880s encouraged more intensive development, including playlands, amusement parks and a few apartment buildings. Attractive beachfront communities were developed, such as Belle Harbor, Neponsit, and Arverne. The opening of the Cross Bay Bridge in 1925 and the Marine Parkway Bridge in 1937 made the Rockaways convenient for middle- and working-class households, who bought the bungalows, frequently distributing themselves according to ethnic heritage.

Later, a series of factors related to falling incomes during the depression and the area's long distance from the city sent the Rockaways into decline.

Officials in the Wagner and Lindsay administrations found what they regarded as an answer to decline: build large public housing projects along the gorgeous beach. Today, the old towns of Arverne and Edgemere have some of the highest concentrations of public housing—and crime and unemployment—in New York. The city also used federal and state financing to support the development of dozens of nursing homes.

Um, That's right- city officials thought an isolated island might be a great place to warehouse not just the poor, but also the infirm, elderly.

These days, almost no one regards the Wagner or Lindsay land-use planning decisions favorably. District manager Gaska, for example, calls the Rockaways the Siberia of city government. "For five decades, the city and state governments dumped their problems here," he says. "If you were a problem tenant in public housing, NYCHA sent you here. If you didn't have a job and weren't going to get one, then this was the place for you. When the state government started closing their hospitals, they began placing those with mental disabilities here, but without any services. The Rockaways now has 50 percent of the borough's adult-facility beds. The state just keeps approving new facilities via their sham community approval process. They send us what's called a 60-day letter, telling us they're going to approve a new facility. We say no, and they say, 'Thank you for your opinion; we're going to open it anyway.' One result was that, according to the 1990 Census, one-third of our population was on public assistance.

Yes. and the mentally disabled too- far away from any support system. What happened seems to have been a cycle, in which any project or population that was unwanted in the rest of Queens was dumped on this secluded stretch of land, few people cared about.

No great shock that big problems developed. That's on a good day but add a a big Atlantic storm or hurricane and one has the potential for a massive tragedy. Now the only subway line into Rockaway may be down for months and ocean water has seriously damaged power lines. While I don't expect government to provide instant perfect responses to all disasters, I wish they would stop creating bad situations like they did in The Rockaways. It's one thing to not help people and another to forcibly create communities in which it's hard for people to help themselves.

Update: As of this posting, most people in Far Rockaway have gone 10 days without power, heat, subway service and other basic needs. Another storm is bearing down on the area.

Street Art Project In Cleveland Plays On Local History

From a distance, the main focus of the Art Collective, known as Cleveland SGS has been to document historic signs, and the unrecognised locals that make the city unique.

A recent project, took things a step further by covering a large building's windows with cryptic signs that reference a forgotten part of Cleveland's past.

From Vandalog: Cleveland SGS pays tribute to a neighborhood icon

The widely held belief is that this area, didn't have much of a past, or any prospects, until the Cleveland Foundation and The Cleveland Clinic, came along. The signs bring back the much more complex story of a highly successful local entrepreneur and a decades long fight to save his property.

From the Wikipedia

Winston Earl Willis (b. October 21, 1939) is a formerly successful American real estate developer who first came to local prominence in Cleveland, Ohio during the early 1960s. At the time, one of the most successful business owner/operators in the country, he created and controlled a corporation, University Circle Properties Development, Inc. (UCPD, Inc.) that owned one of the most strategic and valuable real estate parcels in Cleveland and was the largest employer of blacks in that part of the country. Under his solely-owned UCPD corporation at East 105th and Euclid, upwards of 23 successful businesses were running simultaneously and exhibiting tremendous success.

Winston was quick to see the opportunity to create businesses in the area near University Circle.

The acquired experience of having operated several successful small businesses led to a quick assessment of the local college community that would prove to have been very shrewd. After securing a lease on a building that was previously an automobile dealership showroom, 19-year-old Willis opened The Jazz Temple, a liquor-less coffeehouse/night club, to immediate success. Situated on a small triangular lot on Mayfield Road near Euclid Avenue and adjacent to the Western Reserve University campus, his institutional neighbors were the Cleveland Museum of Art, University Hospital, and Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra. The club also bordered the ethnic enclave known as Murray Hill/Little Italy.

Willis approached such legendary jazz artists as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzie Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Cannonball Adderley, The Ramsey Lewis Trio, and Dinah Washington and convinced them to come to Cleveland to appear at his club. Not only did they appear and perform before standing-room-only crowds, but such notable acts at the trendy establishment also attracted visits from Malcolm X, and Stokely Carmichael, and booked performances from other notables such as comedians Red Foxx, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and Dick Gregory. The popular night spot, frequently referred to as “the Jazz Mecca”, was hugely successful and became a regular hang-out for college students from throughout and around the State of Ohio. But that success was short lived. As is typical of jazz establishments – there was much race-mixing and numerous interracial couples in attendance. This triggered community wide resentment in the racially polarized community, and after months of threats and intimidation, a vanguard of vengeful racists planted a bomb in the club, thereby ending the brief history of one of the most successful jazz spots of the region.

So anyway, as you might guess, the major power players like the universities, foundations and The Cleveland Clinic conspired to take his properties away.

Having found no support in the courts from a campaign of fines and other harassment. Winston turned desperately to putting up billboards.

I like the way, this project subtly brings up this injustice without being just angry and bombastic. It's a tribute to the man.

More about the project on Cleveland SGS

More

Root Shock Book Review Coming Soon

I finally got around to reading, Mindy Fullilove's amazing book, Root Shock and I promise to get on here with a review.

My reaction to the book, was much like the one I had when I first came across The Death & Life of Great American Cities, in that the author has come across a concept and way of thinking that is both eye opening and so obviously correct.

At the same time, one thirsts for more knowledge and detail. There should be a library on this subject alone. Why hasn't it been studied more?

To paraphrase Robert A. Caro, To really understand power, one must study it's effect on the powerless.

Beyond The Motor City Documentary

Early next year a new 90 minute documentary about what went wrong in Detroit and the latest scheme to revive it. The consensus among even the dullest bulbs out there seems to grasp that something happened beyond just the decline of the big three car makers, which is pretty obvious since the city has been in drastic decline for years.

Most place racism and "white flight" at the top of the list, noticing the openly toxic trends in the region's social and political culture and a large number now acknowledge that-- perhaps the city's sacrifices to the car played a big role.

Gotta love the self important, "Yes We Can" beat to the trailer. It's part of The "Blueprint America" series!

What planet are these people from? Detroit, is the visible evidence left after the last two great hopeful, helpful, "Yes We Can" projects, the National Highway System and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and Urban Renewal programs. Yes, they did.

Near as I can tell from the trailer, the latest plan is to undo the last ones with major taxpayer "investments" in mass transit. (probably a better Blueprint than the last one)

But will, the film take an honest look at what really happened? Detroit, more than even most American Cities handed itself over to be experimented on by the nation's "best and brightest" urban experts and engineers who replaced it's normal street grid, street car lines and all the self organizing aspects of it's social fabric with central planning.

Remain calm, fair citizens of Detroit -- more help is on the way.

Hat tip to Rust Wire.

Sorry, can't seem to embed video.

Insolvent By Design Part One: Pittsburgh Promise Problems

I hate to gloat, but one of the good things about the economic recession is it's blown sky high a lot of the convenient lies public figures have been telling us. As Warren Buffet said, when the tide goes out you learn who's been swimming naked.

Poor Luke, he's likely far from being our worst mayor, but the tide is out and more and more inconvenient truths about our budget are being revealed. Don't look to anyone else for help, like the county, state or feds, they're naked too.

The cash strapped city received a firm no from a coalition of almost all the colleges, to a "request" by the mayor for 5 million annually from non profits towards the city's general fund. The rejection letter contained this quote.

"a. When you solicited significant contributions to the Pittsburgh Promise from the non-profit community, you significantly diminished that community's capacity to support the City, a fact that you have acknowledged on other occasions."

Ever since the mayor announced the ambitious Pittsburgh Promise program, people have been wondering if there wasn't a wink agreement that contributions would replace tax payments to the city's general budget. It sure looks like that's what many non profit's thought.

The ironic thing is that the mayor needs the money, mostly to fill a massive hole in it's employee pension fund. In other words, we didn't have close to enough money to pay for our previous "promises", and yet Luke piled on some more.

The whole situation is IMHO, likely the product of a long chain of public policies that have worked to put more and more of Pittsburgh's land area in the hands of non tax paying uses.

How did this happen? It's a long story, many details of which I don't know but it sure as hell should be an area of study.

Be back with more thoughts.

Some Thoughts About The Blog

Hi, it's John. Many of you might have been wondering about the turn my posts have taken over the past month which since I'm the most active poster, have shifted the direction of the blog.

I have only so much time I'm refocusing my energies on the areas where I think I might be most helpful.

When the blog started there were far fewer blogs and online resources, no blogs giving art announcements or reviews, few blogs about things to do; almost no coverage of grass roots organizations and galleries and virtually no connections or interactions with the wider world outside Pittsburgh.

It's far from perfect, but more of these holes are being filled, making what I'm doing somewhat redundant. I think more and more people are increasingly aware of the many small things that make the city great.

However, in spite of what should be the obvious facts, far too people are thinking about what may be going wrong, that may threaten what's left of our social and economic fabric. You don't have to travel far around the Rust Belt to see how far we can still fall.

The Battle Of Brooklyn

Battle of Brooklyn Trailer
Uploaded by rumurtv. - News videos hot off the press.

Please watch the video. It's relevance to Pittsburgh and my recent posts should be obvious.

Be back with more tomorrow.