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. 

Last Call for Penn Ave.

Hopefully, my blog is not read by too many people other than artists, and some other marginal "art folks" here in Pittsburgh. If you are not one of them please ignore this post!!

So now, to the rest of you..... Please, Please, Please, if you are a sincere artist or gallerist-- buy your building on Penn in Garfield ASAP. And I mean f---n now.

People who have read my "talking to birds" ( more talking ) ( and more talking ) rants and my boiling frog flashbacks, might have some idea why I am here and my obsession with the idea that artist's need to take control of thier lives and own stakes in thier creative communities. Well one very important and wonderfully located place in Pittsburgh is having a last call or at least the signs of one are there.

This was an area of Pittsburgh that was and still is pretty raw, pretty poor and pretty rough. It was also, to anyone who looked at a map damn well located. One space there, Garfield Artworks has been shining a light here since the eighties as an exhibition and performance space. Then, sometime later; the idea of "saving" the area with art and artists seemed to gather steam.

I think that a lot of money was tossed around in grants with the idea of getting artists to move into the area. Honestly, a lot of the stuff that was written shows a gross attempt to use a few "creative" types to create a gentrification wave. But still as a whole , the idea was wise and logical in that the area already had a lot of artists, was well located in relation to Oakland and the colleges and was "artist" cheap. It was also severly depressed with many vacant buildings and a bad crime issue. Also, that artists were encouraged to buy into a nieghborhood was something very great.

The Pittsburgh Glass Center opened there a few years back making it home to some of the best Glass studio facilities in America. Even so, for many years, it seemed like very slow going attracting artists and almost all the other investors and businesses steered clear. The few positive things seemed very alone.

Well, on Sept 1, I will be going to the opening of Carolyn's Studio/exhibit space on Penn and from what I can see, the last call is coming soon. In the last few months a number of spaces have finally opened and the paint cans are out for several more. Most of these things are artist owned buildings and projects so they have nice shot at sustainablity. But, now one see,s the clear hand prints of the usual group of "developers" there. This is one of Pittsburghs most realistic shots at having a liveable and funtional art and gallery district and one that artists own and have a stake in. If after all the struggle and ground work artist's are pushed to the margin of this area it will be on them and I won't feel pitty when the fools start picking at thier wounds and scabs.

And as to you real estate types, you should realise that a lot of artists have serious drug problems and are crazy, just wait untill the first ear gets cut off and your investment will be down the tubes.

More Picking at the Scab

So here are some thoughts, I have about the previous post. As you can see it's an ongoing public therapy session which is freely flowing between a lot "issues" but almost all of them relate closely to the pretty hardcore suffering that a lot of artist's are going through right now. Obviously it starts with a rant related to the pressures and inequity that faces a lot of women artists in getting their work done, getting it out there and all the trouble that seems to involve in the current system. It soon exposes a lot of the deep wounds that unite/ divide most artists. How does one keep a studio? How can one get one's work out there? etc...

Here are a few thoughts. First of all, I think that my first purpose here was to just try to expose some of the anger and pain that's out there. I think that one fundamental problem that exists is that a lot of this pain is not talked about freely. So there is an increasing lack of awarness on the part of a lot of the "power structure" of dealers, collectors and the like of what the level of pressure on artists is. I also think it's really important in that what is going on now is pretty new in that it's on a totally different level and now threatens the existence of the art world as we know it. Here and here are some more links on the subject.

Getting back to all that bitching; ( and here's some more, more, more. ) What is my opinion about it and who's side do I take. I would say that, yes I feel the artist's pain but my sympathy level is pretty low and dropping fast. The current scene of today is more than anything else the product of the choices made by artists so they have a lot to do with thier own problems now. I mean, artist's in the 1965 East Villiage or 1965 Haight Ashbury could lay some claim to being unaware of their own role in the process of urban gentrification. And also artists in the NY scene during this period could claim a high level of commercial ignorance since for the most part it wasn't a commercial scene. But with each passing year the ignorance excuse gets thinner as nieghborhood after neighborhood is revived by artists and also as the enourmous art industry develops around artists. A lot of artist's have a lot more money than me ( someone's paying for those $90,ooo MFA programs) and a lot of artists are highly skilled in a way I am not- good on computers and handy. We all know that a huge chunk of NY was fixed up by artists living on the sly in run down buildings. So my sympathy level is pretty low.

Almost all of the middle aged artist's in NY know and now resent the few artists who were smart enough to scrimp and buy thier run down rat infested buildings years ago. The fact is that they were the stupid frogs who sat and sat while they were slowly cooked. To anyone with eyes open the point of no return for Billyburg came around 1996-1997 ( which is around when Joe bought his building I think ) The issue of NY's housing shortage has been known for many years.
Artist's made this situation and now they will suffer for it.

One fact stands out in America. There are dozens of emptied out and run down cities with surplus housing and empty factory space ( I moved to one, not that it's all run down or anything ) and some are pretty big. You would think that artists would be flocking here to grasp thier last chance to have some control of thier lives. ) and you woud think that dealers who are allegedly concerned about thier artist's would be making similar moves. But for the most part this is not happening. The level of inertia is amazing and is more and more unforgivable,