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.

NY Times Story on how Robert Moses and NYC Government Placed the Poor in Harms Way

Finally, after rarely bringing the issue up, the brilliant caring folks at the NY Times have come to wonder why so much of New York's public housing ended up in highly vulnerable flood zones. 

From The New York Times:

How the Coastline Became a Place to Put the Poor

"It’s impossible to talk about the landscape of modern New York without talking about Moses, who leveraged his position as head of the Mayor’s Committee on Slum Clearance to mass-produce thousands of units of high-rise public housing, often near the shoreline. His shadow looms over much of the havoc wreaked by the storm."

Well, is only Moses to blame? In the more than 60 years since these policies started - few if any have publicly recognised the clear danger.

'Initially, there was a strict screening process to get into the Rockaways’ new projects. Over time, though, those with steady incomes were encouraged to leave, to make room for people on public assistance. To city officials, the Rockaways’ distant location made it an ideal destination for troubled families and individuals. The projects that lined the seven-mile-long peninsula were soon joined by facilities for recently deinstitutionalized mental patients and high-rise nursing homes."

The article is too short but touches on the long history.

My two posts

Sandy and Far Rockaway: Another Tragedy of Urban Planning

Far Rockaway was dumping ground for mentally Ill warehoused in Nursing Homes

I hope very much the New York Times links work.

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.

Devastating, Depressing Slideshow of Pittsburgh's Lost Architecture

I came across this slideshow on line, while searching for images and history of The North Side Market House. Ohio City in Cleveland is celebrating the happy 100th birthday of it's West Side Market. Allegheny City will never have that happy moment, after losing 500 buildings at it's heart to urban renewal in the 1950's, along with it's connected street grid.

It's not so much that all these buildings were lost--life goes on, and building and adapting is part of life-it's that a vast number of them were replaced with ugly parking garages, highways, failed developments and often just empty lots. I rarely feel that way about losing buildings in Manhattan since most (not all) are replaced for good reason, most often taller and more urban structures.

Anyway, it's depressing and there's a whole lot more one could show-entire communities just blown away in a few years of destruction.

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.

Beware Of Feds Bearing Gifts

While doing research on another much more in depth post, I came to realise how much our current cities and landscapes had been shaped by projects born in the last great economic downturn when the Federal Government offered to "stimulate" and improve cities.

Few were as eager for the cash as Newark, New Jersey. "Newark pursued Federal Funds".

"The city made serious mistakes with public housing and urban renewal, although these were not the sole causes of Newark's tragedy. Across several administrations, the city leaders of Newark considered the federal government's offer to pay for 100% of the costs of housing projects as a blessing. The decline in industrial jobs meant that more poor people needed housing, whereas in prewar years, public housing was for working class families. While other cities were skeptical about putting so many poor families together and were cautious in building housing projects, Newark pursued federal funds. Eventually, Newark had a higher percentage of its residents in public housing than any other American city."

No doubt, there was a short "boom" and and many jobs tearing down neighborhoods and constructing "transportation improvements", like the mass of Highways that cut through the city.

"Billed as transportation improvements, construction of new highways: Interstate 280, the New Jersey Turnpike, and Interstate 78 harmed Newark. They directly hurt the city by dividing the fabric of neighborhoods and displacing many residents. The highways indirectly hurt the city because the new infrastructure made it easier for middle-class workers to live in the suburbs and commute into the city."

Not sayin this what's in store-- thankfully because government's at all levels are too broke, but watch out for that "free stuff". It often costs more than you think.

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.

Jane's Walk Update

Since I first brought up the "Jane's Walk" idea, there's been a bit more buzz and talk about it,on this blog, Rust Wire and Null Space including several people interested in guiding a walk or helping in some way.

The official "Jane's Walks" are held in early May in cities and towns across mainly North America, so there's plenty of time to plan things out.

The central site's for info are:

Jane's Walk USA
JanesWalk.Net

All walks are free and there are no limits to how many a city can have.

Here's the comment I left on Rust Wire

"If I had to pick one walk, I think choosing an area with a variety of positive and negative issues might be best. For example, a functional or semi functional neighborhood divided by a major highway or a functional street grid cut off by a senseless mega block office park or even a poorly thought out park.

Also from my general knowledge, the issue of minimal concentration and population density is a big issue like it is on Pittsburgh’s North Side and Hill District both of which have big troubles supporting a supermarket, shopping district or mass transit.(even though both once had thriving shopping areas)

Remember, some of Death & Life’s chapter titles.

The uses of sidewalks: safety
The uses of sidewalks: contact
The uses of neighborhood parks
The uses of city neighborhoods
The need for mixed primary uses
The need for small blocks
The need for aged buildings
The need for concentration
The curse of border vacuums
Gradual money and cataclysmic money
Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles

Sadly, I think in both Pittsburgh and Cleveland the best plan might be to walk the streets with a really old person with a memory of their neighborhoods before they were “improved” by government highways and politically organized mega projects.

Stay tuned, it looks like this will happen.

The Igloo From Hell

I'm really sorry for not doing more local arts posts. There are lots of great things about Pittsburgh, great people, offbeat projects, some great neighborhoods, history etc.... which luckily now you can hear more about in places like Pop City, the City Paper, The Post Gazette and great new sites like Bittersweet Harvest and City Creative.

However, the city is small, fragile and cannot survive the kind of taxpayer supported clusterf--cks it's had to go through in the past.It's not fun but someone has to stand with a sign saying-- not again, and I guess that's my job.

In spite of all the promises made when they built the new Penguins Arena, to tear down the old one and build a normal mixed use, residential, retail development to help reconnect the Downtown and The Hill, a curious number of people are showing up with honestly bizarre excuses to keep old "Igloo" standing-- few are Hill District residents.

No doubt is was an interesting and significant building and even less that it holds a lot of great memories for many people. But, almost nobody who remembers the old Hill, or has an even passing knowledge of urban issues, thinks the area was improved by the huge steel shell, massive block of parking space and highway interchange that made it very difficult and unpleasant to walk from the Hill to Downtown or that the city was made better off by the loss of several blocks of potential tax generating property.

Even the Post thinks it's wacky.

"Pursuing them would produce real harm by placing significant constraints on the development of the plot that surrounds the arena and, at least from the vantage point of the Hill District, a large steel shell -- albeit smaller when fully opened -- would remain standing between the neighborhood and Downtown."

Keep it up Pittsburgh. You still have a shot at being Detroit. Just follow these tips.

"Tear holes in your city and stick in as many highways as you can. Highways that will divide and cut through existing business districts are the best. You must have major highways cutting into your downtown!! Remember, you don’t want people to live in the city especially wealthy people.

Raise Taxes in the city to pay for it and your other plans. Well, just raise taxes for any reason really.

Cut and remove as much mass transit as you can. Transit is needed to have a dense city and you don’t want that.

Add as much parking as you can. You can build huge garages to help waste tax money but you mainly need huge areas of plain old surface lots.

Put huge Sports Stadiums in or near the key areas of the city. Since they are usually empty, they are are like putting extra fancy holes in the town. they waste lots of tax money and best of all they need tons of parking!!! (remember you don’t have mass transit.)The key is to put these holes in or just near the downtown and make sure that a sea of parking lots sit on the most useful city land."

Hat tip to Pittsburgh Comet.