The Blurgh

This morning, as I was getting to the yellow line station, I was surprised to see a new face at the entrance.  For the past 10 years, the Post-Gazette has been printing a short Metro edition which was distributed free at most of the train stations around town every morning.  It’s been a big success for the PG, and has helped get the paper a lot more readers and advertisers.

As with all business, though, with success comes competition, and this morning I saw a small booth setup outside the station with a representative from the Pittsburgh City Paper distributing their new metro edition, along with some other freebies.  I grabbed both so I could compare the two, and I have to say that I’m pretty impressed.  The City Paper was a little more edgy and included some more off-the-wall content (for example, Alice Cooper turned 80 today), but the PG had more national and international headlines.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, but I’m guessing that both will get better as time goes on.  I’m also glad that PAT has so many paper recycling bins around…and that people actually use them!

On Fridays, I have a nice 2-hour block between classes.  Usually I use the time to either pass out or do some emergency cramming, but last week when I exited Posvar Hall I saw a big crowd of SSP kids waiting at the bus stop.  I asked them what was going on, and they said they were going to a city council meeting downtown to lobby for SSP’s new Open Doors initiative.

The initiative is focused  on making it easier for students and recent grads to enter careers within the city government, which right now is a pretty time-consuming and complicated process.  First you have to go through their online system and create an account, then see if you have to take the civil service test.  If you do, count out even being able to apply for at least a month.  After you finally get to apply, you have to wait for the gears of bureaucracy to work, and you may or may not get a call for an interview in another month or so.

It’s a process that in the end up takes several months, and because of that lot of good candidates end up in other professions. SSP feels that the city should be the employer of choice in the region and needs to be doing a better job of recruiting talented applicants and getting them through the system as fast as possible.  The plan is to team the city with the OED to place interns in different city departments, which could fast-track them since they would then already be in the system, and then for a study to be done on how to streamline and revamp the HR process.

Mayor Conway is apparently a big supporter of the idea, but there is some pushback from the council, so we’ll see how it goes.

This internship is turning into a fascinating/mind-blowing/engrossing/eater of all available free time type of experience.  Let me elaborate…

The first few days there, my main duties were the office/go-for types of things that most internships are heavy on.  I did get to see a lot of the different things that CRR is involved with, and I noticed that everyone in the office was very busy and a little nervous about one particular new project in Polish Hill.  Being that I’m what others have termed “a nebshit,” I opened my big mouth and asked what I could do to help.  Ever since, my role at CRR has drastically changed.

If you’ve never been to Polish Hill, I’d highly recommend it–it’s a very interesting place.  It’s nestled between the Hill, Bloomfield, and the Strip in a very weird kind of way that only the hilly Pittsburgh topography can allow. Given its central location in the city, you’d think it’d be a busy area, but in a lot of ways it’s in its own little world.  There are some beautiful buildings and churches and a small strip of businesses, but other than that, it’s pretty much all residential.

In the past 20 years, significant development and revitalization has happened in most of the surrounding neighborhoods, but Polish Hill has mostly remained unchanged.  A group of about a dozen residents approached CRR about a month ago about doing a renovation project in the area, but the situation is a little different than CRR’s past projects.  In those, a well-established community organization has been in place beforehand, and they did a lot of the grassroots legwork necessary to get the renovation projects off the ground.  In this project, however, the 12 original individuals want to use this project to galvanize the community, and by the end not only have the renovations done but also have a community organization to get in on the development that’s going on all around them.

No one’s sure if it’ll work, but everyone’s excited about the possibility.  And since I opened my mouth, I’m now in the thick of it.  Between classes and my directed study (which I’ve been majorly slacking on!), I’m spending almost every free moment either in the office or out in the neighborhood going door-to-door trying to get support.  It’s cold and tiring, but also very exciting; I’ve never felt motivated like this before.  I just hope we get the project going, because I’d love to see how these things happen firsthand.

Last night, Gretchen and I went to the opening of a new Artist’s Marketplace location, this one in the Strip.  That’ll make three locations so far, and if the new one’s anywhere near as successful as the past two, there’ll probably be at least one more popping up in the next year or two.

The first location was setup in the South Side about 10 years ago in the old South Side Market House building (off of Carson on Bedford Square), and I’m totally in love with the concept.  Artist co-ops have been popular in the city for a while, and some of them even provided spaces for artists to display and sell their work.  Pittsburgh’s also been known for its neighborhood arts festivals, and the booths that get the biggest draws in those festivals were always the ones where an artist was actively doing work.  A group of artists decided to combine the elements of those different ideas and put it all in one place.

The building is divided into 20+ studio/gallery spaces with a large central open space down the middle.  The studios/galleries are large enough to provide an artist with enough room to have a full-size workspace and also have a place to display their pieces.  The open space down the middle gives the building a very old-timey marketplace feel–almost like something out of the Middle Ages.  People love coming to watch the artists work, especially those doing metal and woodwork, and the artists get to interact with people and give their work a lot of visability.  It also provides artists with a productive setting to interact with each other, and many of them end up working together on different projects.

Pittsburgh is also a terrific place for these types of attractions since there are so many old warehouses and factories that lend themselves well to studio renovation.  A few years after the South Side location opened, one opened in Lawrenceville in one of the old buildings by the river.  At that point, people knew what the marketplaces were all about, and it was an instant success.  The opening Gretchen and I went to last night was a big event, and we have no doubt that it’ll take no time for it to become yet another attraction in the Strip.

Oh, boy. Yesterday morning I headed down to the Midwife Center for my yearly well-woman exam - a great way to start the week, ladies, am I right?

(Side note: It’s kind of funny to me that just a few months ago when Frank convinced me to co-author this blog with him, I was a little skeptical of revealing anything about myself, and today I have no problem telling the world that I saw my gynecologist yesterday. My, how things change. Anyway…)

I love the women at the Midwife Center. It’s not just for pregnant women, but for women at all stages of life. I was examined by one of the new midwives there, Maria, and she is incredibly warm and funny. She even made me laugh while undergoing a pelvic exam - not exactly the easiest thing in the world.

Since she’d never seen me before, we discussed all the standard issue things. She asked me about birth control. I’ve actually not done so well with hormonal contraception in the past (hello, near-constant headache), but luckily for me, Frank has no problem taking his birth control pill everyday, so I don’t have to worry about it. She made sure I knew how to do a breast self-exam and all that fun stuff.

All in all, a pretty good visit. I left feeling happier than I’d felt when I arrived, which is definitely saying something about the quality of the Center!

I’ve finished my first few days at Community Recycling and Renewables (CRR), and so far I haven’t done much other than the usual get acquainted with things and random go-for duties. I have been learning a lot about the company, though, and since I’m a huge history dork I think it’s all very fascinating.

CRR is a small company, but you’d never guess it by the amount of work they do. It’s also a hybrid of sorts–it straddles the home improvement, community development, and renewable energy industries. It was started about 15 years ago by Bill Hollinger and Joanna Marcinovic, both of whom were recent grads of Pitt majoring in business. They got the idea when they were working in the labs of some prominent professors who were doing research on producing solar cells more efficiently. During their time there, the professors made a breakthrough, and shortly thereafter a few of them started out on their own manufacturing cells. It made big news in Pittsburgh, and it also got Bill and Joanna thinking.

At the time, renewable energy technology was getting more and more popular, but the application of it was focused primarily on large commercial and residential buildings. Since the cost of solar cells had come down a lot after the breakthrough, Bill and Joanna decided the time was ripe to make a transition into the home market. Both of them were also very handy and had a personal interest in home improvement, so their plan was to package home remodeling and renewable energy together. They got some help from the Office of Entrepreneurial Development at Pitt, and then took the plunge.

In the beginning, business was pretty slow. They did a few renovation projects for wealthy individuals which got a lot of press, but failed to generate a lot of business. Besides the lack of business, they also just felt like they weren’t making the impact that they wanted to make. They got into this to make money, but also to do some good for the environment.

They decided to take a chance and go speak at a meeting of one of the many community organizations in the city. It just so happened that the organization was debating ways that they could decrease their carbon footprint–they were sick of waiting for the government to take action. By the end of the meeting, they developed a plan for a neighborhood-wide renovation project that would incorporate recycling programs, education, and home renovations. They also found they were able to leverage some grant funds for the project, which brought the cost to the individual homeowners to a very manageable level. Thus, CRR was born.

Since then they’ve been involved with numerous projects in Pittsburgh neighborhood and surrounding communities. There are three main branches to their business: community outreach, vendor outreach and project implementation. I’m hoping to get a taste of each before the internship is over!

Last night, I decided to be a patriotic Pittsburgher and meet my City Council member, Andrew Marsdale. He’s a relative newcomer - only elected a few years ago - but I like him a lot and he manages to do a lot of good for the Downtown area.

The meeting was held at a small café near my apartment and by the time I got there it was already full and Mr. Marsdale had already begun talking about the work he’s been doing on City Council. He’s particularly interested in the high-speed rail initiative that Students for a Sustainable Pittsburgh has been pushing for, so he talked about that a lot. Basically, he’s excited for it, and so are the mayor and a few other council members, but there are still some voices on the council who don’t see the importance of the tri-state rail system for Pittsburgh. They think that other cities in the area should take care of it.

But Marsdale disagrees. He thinks that the city of Pittsburgh is one of the foremost leaders in the region, and that while of course we need to reach out to other major cities, we should be taking the lead in developing this project. Most of the constituents who were there agreed.

Afterwards, he answered a few questions from people. I didn’t get a chance to ask him about anything, but I was pleasantly surprised that he praised the work the Pittsburgh Women’s Foundation is doing with girls in the public school system. Not bad when your council person recognizes your organization for being so awesome!

I got a call from my brother today. He went to college in DC and stayed there after graduating three years ago. When I answered my phone, I could practically feel his excitement coursing through my veins. Turns out, he got a new job. Previously he had been working as a program associate at a nonprofit in DC that deals with poverty issues in the district. Now he’ll be working in a job that’s somewhat similar to his old one, but at a large corporation.

“Wow! Why the switch?” I asked. “I thought you loved, you know, working on the poverty stuff.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “but this is just such a better fit. I’ll be doing a lot of the same types of things I was doing there, but for a lot more money, which is definitely nice.”

Later, when I ran this exchange by Frank, he didn’t seem too surprised. He has a cousin who used to work for a nonprofit in Philadelphia but switched jobs because her salary was way too low for her to even get by in the city.

It really got me thinking about my job. As you know, I work for a nonprofit - and a relatively new one at that. My salary is by no means exponential, but it’s fine. And I’m not the only one in the city in this situation. Plenty of people I went to college with now work for small nonprofits throughout the city. When the tech firms started moving in a few decades ago, they brought with them more money to be spent on charitable efforts. They also caused salaries at nonprofits to increase a bit in tandem with the increasing salaries being earned by those working in the technological industry.

Thanks to all this, I can live comfortably on my entry-level salary at the Pittsburgh Women’s Foundation. Frank and I can afford to live in our pretty cozy digs downtown while still managing to save money to buy a house at some point later on. We never have to choose between paying the electric bill or buying groceries. Living together helps keep our costs down, but my brother had been living with three of his college friends in DC and he still felt he wasn’t making enough money. The phone call from him today really made me understand how lucky I am to be living in a city with a low cost of living while still working at a job I really love.

Also - sorry for not posting the past few days! I’ve been sick with a gross bronchitis/sinus infection thing and Frank has been taking very good care of me. We’re hoping to be posting on our regular schedule for the rest of the week and into next.

A couple months ago, I wrote about the organization that my mom is involved with called Breaking Down the Digital Divide (B3D).  A few friends of hers founded it, and my mom getting a job with them was the main push that brought my family, who were originally from Western PA but living in DC at the time, back to Pittsburgh.

I was asking my mom a little more about the founding of the organization a few nights ago, and she told me an interesting story.  Before B3D started, one of the to-be founders was a prominent blogger in the then new but quickly growing Pittsburgh blog scene.  She blogged mostly about technology issues, but as time went on, her blogging became more and more focused on political and community issues.  She got a couple other Pittsburgh bloggers together, and they discussed ways they could start doing something about what they perceived was a problem common to all of them.

That problem, as I mentioned in that earlier post, was the digital divide in Pittsburgh.  At the time, Pittsburgh wasn’t in the best of shape.  The population was in decline, the public schools weren’t doing well, and the city was very segregated and socio-economically divided.  The combination of these issues meant that a lot of disadvantaged kids were getting left behind just as the digital age was really ramping up.

All of the bloggers felt that teaching these kids about technology, and particularly blogging, would be a great way to help prepare these children to better compete in the job market as they got older, give them a way to express themselves, and provide a tool for them to tell their stories in a way that was productive for them and society.  It would also help make Pittsburgh’s already growing blog scene even more dynamic and influential.  This was the definition of win-win.

But, as my mom put it, a lot of people have great ideas, but making those ideas reality is much more difficult.  Initially, the bloggers thought just that–it was a great idea, but how are we going to do it?  They started thinking about all the problems they’d encounter, and generally began to discourage themselves.  In the end, though, they decided to put a few feelers out and give it a shot.

The part of the story that really amazed me, though, was what happened next.  Once they decided to step away from the keyboard and do something about their convictions, people got excited.  One blogger knew some technology people at Pitt, and they quickly pledged to donate computers.  Another blogger knew some people in community organizations, and they pledged space to setup computer labs.  Before anyone knew it, they had equipment, space, instructors, buy-in from the community, and most importantly, a huge group of excited and motivated people.  Soon after, B3D was officially born.

These are the kinds of stories that make me think…what does it take to make things happen?  There are a million different factors, but one that seems universally constant is having enough guts to push past the doubt and various mental barriers we put up and just start making it happen.  I hope that after I get my career started, whatever that may be, that I have the guts to do just that.

Last weekend, Gretchen and I were lucky enough to score tickets to The Tubes concert, and it was awesome. Neither of us have seen The Tubes since they made it big nationally and, as I’m sure you know, tickets were not easy to come by. It just so happens, though, that they recorded their first album at Washie’s, so my dad was able to pull some strings to get us in.

The Tubes have a great 80s/funk fusion kind of thing, and they somehow find a way to incorporate an accordian into almost every song they play. I also can’t imagine a better place for them to play in than Venue 13. It’s on 13th and near Sarah in the South Side in this crazy old police station. There was a big fire in it that gutted the place decades ago, and it was abandoned for a long time. When things started happening in the South Side, a clever investor bought the property for practically nothing, and over several years renovated it into an intimate but large venue. It’s great because it attracts national acts but still has the feel of a small club.

My Dad told me that he remembers sneaking into the building before it was sold and goofing around with his friends. It tried to get more details on what exactly he meant by “goofing,” but when I asked, he suddenly remembered he had something to do that was “very important…”