The Blurgh

Since I’ll be starting an internship at Community Recycling and Renewables (CRR) in a few weeks, my days at the Castle are coming to an end.  It’s been awesome, and I’m going to miss the money a lot…I don’t know if you knew this, but there is quite a pay differential between bartending and interning!

It’ll actually work out all right, because starting in January, the Castle will be undergoing some renovation and expansion into the adjacent store.  Because of that, a large part of the bar will be unavailable, so they are cutting back on the number of people working every night.  I will miss it though, and I might try to start working there a few nights a week again after the semester’s over.  By then all the work will be done, so they’ll definitely be in need of people.

And I have to admit, I’m a little proud of myself–one of the main reasons that the owner decided to expand was to increase the capacity of the theatre and stage, and that’s largely due to the overwhelming success of the Rocky Horror night back on Halloween (my idea!).  The owner is planning on sponsoring an Indie movie night at least every week and also booking some bigger local bands as well as national acts to come play when the new and improved stage is done.

If you ask me, that’s something that Oakland desperately needs.  The South Side, Lawrenceville, the North Side and other neighborhoods already have big venues, but Oakland hasn’t had anything since Laga closed over 20 years ago (at least that’s what my Dad said).  He told me a story about sneaking in there to see P-Funk play when he was 16 or something…that must have been fun.

Last night, Gretchen and I got home late after seeing the final competition of 2027’s Final’s Week Festivities Series, which was a film festival.  I honestly couldn’t believe that all these films came out of my city, and they were GOOD.  There were entries from Pitt, CMU, Carlow, Robert Morris, and then a few collaborative submissions from students at Pittsburgh Filmmakers. They covered every genre there is, which resulted in quite an emotional roller-coaster ride if you watched them all.

There was one, though, that really captured me.  I’m not sure exactly what I’d classify it as…maybe a “day in the life” kind of film?  And it wasn’t even a day in the life of someone terribly important or dramatic; it was just about a guy in his mid-thirties with a “normal” job and a “normal” life.  What I loved about it was the subtlety.  It brought up many personal issues that are easy to relate to, like the difficulties inherent in balancing work and family and dealing with aging relatives, but it also gently invoked many larger societal issues like racism, xenophobia, sexism and homophobia.  In bringing them up in such a low-key way it was almost like the film was screaming them, and it really made you step back and take a look at yourself.

Anyway, it was Gretchen and I’s favorite, but it didn’t win.  The one that won was an animated film that was very trippy, but indeed very cool.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually looking forward to next finals season, which will be (gulp) my last!

A couple days ago, Gretchen and I went to the second of the Finals Week competitions, this one in theatre.  It was held downtown, and in order to keep the competition from taking all day, each school/team put on a 15-minute one-act play.  The whole thing was a about 2 and a half hours long, and during the intermission, the Culinary Institute of Pittsburgh held a competition among their students of who made the best hors d’oeuvres.  It was a new feature, but I’m thinking they should do something like that for all the competitions!  If they advertised it too much, though, there would be a standing-room only crowd.  College students are attracted to free food very much like moths are attracted to light.

The plays that different students came up with were fascinating.  There was a comedy about a college kid going back in time to the nineties, a few dramas about life and all that can go wrong, a sci-fi one based on Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”, and then my favorite, a short excerpt from Hamlet, but performed in Pittsburghese.  It’s fair to say that I have no taste.

The “I, Robot” play won the competition, and it was deserving. After the show, Gretchen and I passed on the after-party and returned home to do some more studying.  If there weren’t any finals, finals week would be really sweet.

It’s been common knowledge for quite a while that there are several very accomplished arts programs at the universities in the area. Each school has their specialty, but overall, a lot of quality art, music, dance and theatre emerges from these programs every year.

Five or six years ago, a couple graduates from the various programs in town got together and had a great idea. Most of the various classes related to the arts have performances/shows as their final projects, but most of them are sparsely attended and largely ignored by the rest of the student body and surrounding community. To change this, the graduates used various connections in their respective schools and organized competitions between related disciplines to take place in the stead of multiple small performances. From the outset these have been wildly popular, and they’ve gone a long way in creating better connections between the universities and the communities that surround them.

Last night was the first in this series of competitions, and it was in music and dance. What I loved about this is that instead of holding separate music and dance performances, the organizers decided to combine them both. This not only drew a larger crowd, but also encouraged more internal cooperation between the music and dance departments within schools. And who prefers canned music over live, anyway?

There were several performances that covered many genres of music and dance, and they were all awesome. My favorites were Point Park’s Modern Dance to classic Pittsburgh Jazz and the Pitt African Drumming Ensemble. In the end, I voted for Pitt (I guess I do have some school spirit after all!), and they ended up winning the show!

It was a sweet performance, and I’ve enjoyed coming to the performances every finals season…which hasn’t been particularly helpful grade-wise! Later on this week I’ll tell you about the other competitions and how they went.

Yesterday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Women’s Foundation was freaking adorable. I was in charge of helping the girls I work with make Christmas cards for their families. Red and green and white construction paper, fancy white-ink markers, and silver and gold glitter everywhere. (Seriously. Everywhere. I rode the yellow line home and when I got up to get off the train at Wood Street, I left a trail of glitter behind me like Hansel and Gretel.)

The effort the girls put into making their cards was admirable and the messages they wrote were just too sweet. Angie cut out about fifty gingerbread men and glued them to the front of her card. Inside she wrote “Mom, Merry Christmas. I am so happy that of all the moms in the world you are the best mom and you belong to me!” Madison made her card in the form of a snowflake and of course covered it in silver glitter. She made it for her older sister and wrote “I love you, even though sometimes we fight, but we always make up because we’re sisters and we can always work things out!” And Shante put a big red heart on the front of her card and decided to give it to her grandparents, writing “Grandma and Grandpa, you are so cool it’s a good thing it’s winter and you can be cool all season long! (But you’re cool in the summer too.)”

I was so happy that they were getting along and helping each other. We’ve come a long way since this creative writing program started a few months ago and we’ve hit some rough patches. But seeing them giggle and be creative together yesterday really (at the risk of getting too mushy) warmed my heart and put me in the true Christmas spirit.

Tis the season for finals, but thankfully, it looks like they won’t be too bad this semester.  My worst final will probably be Neuroscience, and that’s mostly because my attendance got a little shaky by the end of the semester.  One of the nice things about being a history major is that the finals tend to be essays done out of class, which eliminates the whole test anxiety deal.  On the other hand, though, you also have to write yet another essay…I guess finals just suck no matter what form they come in.

For the first time, though, I’m actually excited about one of the finals essays I have to do.  It’s the one for Dr. Lemley’s History of Pittsburgh class, and the essay question is: Is the current boom in Pittsburgh’s economy different than past booms?  If not, why, and if so, how?

There are a lot of answers to this question, which is the essence of what I think history is all about.  One of the thing’s I love about Dr. Lemley is how he always stresses that history is not about dates and names, it’s about argument and analysis.  Understanding, or at least being able to make a compelling argument, about the “why” of something is much more useful than being able to recite the “what” from memory.  I wish more history teachers taught like that; if they did, I think history would be a lot more popular than it currently is.

Anyway, since the essay is only supposed to be around 5 pages, I really can’t get too deep into an analysis of a lot of different boom periods in Pittsburgh (there are more of them than one would think).  Right now, I’m planning on taking the big one, the rise of the steel industry, breaking down the major themes, and then trying to do the same with the current boom.  I haven’t gotten too far in outlining it yet, but so far, it’s looking pretty interesting.

Big steel rose in Pittsburgh for a number of reasons–local raw materials, high-quality transportation, technological breakthroughs, etc.–and its rise acted like a magnet for immigration.  Up until World War 1, though, a lot of the immigrants did a lot of going back and forth between their homelands and Pittsburgh, which meant that while a lot of people were in Pittsburgh, a good chunk of them weren’t laying down roots.  What stopped that was when immigration was cut-off around World War 1, which meant that people stayed put and built many of the neighborhoods and communities that we still recognize today.

One element of this progression that fascinates me is how external it all is, and by that I mean that people were reacting to outside influences (here’s the psychologist in me coming out).  The industry rose because the environment was right for it, people came because of the industry, and people built communities because they couldn’t leave.  That is the big difference between that boom time and the current one–the catalyst for the current boom was a decision made by many individuals that they loved the city and they weren’t going to let anyone stop them from making Pittsburgh into the city they knew it could become.  It was an internal decision instead of a reaction to externalities.

The problem with this analysis is that it’s hard to get credible citations to support my current boom-time theory.  I’m planning on citing some blogs operating around the turn of the century, citing an increase in new progressive organizations being founded, and increase in the amount of programs sponsored by local universities to increase innovation and entrepreneurship, but no matter what, it isn’t going to be as clean as the data in support of the steel boom.

Maybe that’s because not enough time has passed yet, but I think when it comes down to it, it’s a result of the internal-focused nature of the current boom.  How do you get a nice and succinct citation for what thousands of individuals decided they wanted to do?  How do you document the many small, sometimes imperceivably small steps people took to slowly build momentum?  My guess is that it’d take a little more than 5 pages, but maybe it’s something I can get a littler closer to during my directed study with Dr. Lemley next semester.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions, especially if they help me get an A!

A few readers have pointed out to me that in my bio on the About Us page I mentioned participating in Pittsburgh Promise and doing a Pittsburgh Service Year, but I never elaborated on it in a post. With Pittsburgh Promise, there’s not a whole lot to tell–I went to Pittsburgh Public Schools and did well, so when I graduated I got a nice scholarship to cover part of my tuition at Pitt. It’s a great program, and one that made a big difference when my parents were planning their move back to Pittsburgh (or so they tell me).

There are a few more details, however, around getting involved with Pittsburgh Service Year. Like many kids who are nearing their final year or two of high school, I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to go to college. In fact, I think the only thing I was sure of was that I was sick of high school and couldn’t wait until I could legally drink. Oh those heady, idealistic times…

Just a few years before that, a number of organizations came together to create a program called Pittsburgh Service Year, which was modeled after other programs like City Year. It was a program for anyone between the ages of 18-24 who was interested in spending a year volunteering at local non-profits, hospitals, schools, or, later, for specific projects sponsored by the city. The program would pay a small stipend to the participant to cover living costs (very MODEST living costs), and after the year was up, there would be a bright shining star to put on a college application or resume.

Anyway, they were doing some tabling in the lunchroom of my school, so I decided to stop and look at the information they had. I asked the person about about the different areas I could volunteer in, which were the popular ones, which were the hardest, blah blah blah. Nothing caught my attention until she told me about a new project coming up sponsored by the city which involved working with the Public Works department. For some reason it seemed really interesting, so I decided to apply right then and there. That was no doubt one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life thus far.

I learned so much that year about all kinds of things, some of them practical, some ridiculous. For example, I could tell you all about the many “paper streets” in the South Side, including when they were first built and why. I can also tell you that I never, ever want anything to do with animal control. Most importantly, though, I learned that Pittsburgh is made up of many different communities, each with its own unique character, but that they are all filled with some of the best people I’ve ever met.

In retrospect, I think going through that program is what made me really want to study history. I’m still very close friends with a lot of the people I met there, and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

Last night I was at my parent’s house, and my dad pulled out some old footage of one of the most ridiculous football games I’ve ever seen.  It took place 20 years ago, and it was the Steelers playing the Miami Dolphins on a nationally televised Monday night game.  At the time, the Dolphins were utterly terrible, and the Steelers were doing pretty well, but the amazing part of that game was how insanely terrible the field was.  I could hardly believe my eyes–it reminded me so much of some Turkey Bowl games I’ve played with friends of mine where by the end the game resembles a mud-wrestling match much more than football.  The game ended with a score of 3-0 Steelers, and it was a huge national embarrassment.

My dad told me that after that game the Steelers came under a lot of pressure to improve the conditions of their field.  They tried different things during the next few seasons with moderate success, but it still was never great.  It was an interesting watch and an interesting story, but I couldn’t help but ask my dad why in the world he kept the video for so long.

Then my Mom came in and told me about a friend of hers who was living in Pittsburgh at the time.  She was an engineering student at Pitt, and she was at that game.  After she got home and dried off, she suddenly got the inspiration for a totally new type of turf, and five years later, she developed it into the product that almost the entire NFL uses to this day.  It completely revolutionized the fields of the league, especially the outdoor ones, and it made her a very rich woman.

She told me that the company she founded is still in Pittsburgh, and since the initial breakthrough they’ve worked on a lot of other material science R&D which has produced other useful innovations.  It takes a lot of guts to take an inspiration and run with it, but man, when it works out, it sure is worth it!

If you have nothing to do tonight, head on down to the Blank Walls in East Liberty. They’re having a live graffiti battle, and the winner will get to do his or her magic on one of the new public art walls being put up by the city. There’ll also be a band and refreshments, and it starts at 8 pm.

This is the second time that Blank Walls has held this kind of event–the first was right after the public art walls (which were Mayor Conway’s idea, btw) were approved by City Council 6 months ago. They are still in the process of being constructed, but the idea is to provide a place for graffiti artists to show their creativity in a safe and beneficial way rather than forcing them to do it illegally. Every month the walls will be painted over, and a new set of artists will be able to put up their work. Blank Walls and a few other galleries around town have volunteered to host events to pick the artists, and so far they’ve been a big hit.

I’m getting ready for finals, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it yet. Drop me a line if you’re planning on going though…it just might persuade me!

I realized that while I’ve blogged about my job before, I’ve never really explained how the Foundation began or what all it does. And it is super awesome, so here goes.

Back in 2013, Alicia Mulraney, a sociology major at Pitt, and Janessa Crosby, a women’s studies major at Carlow, had internships at the Pittsburgh YWCA during their last semesters of college. They were impressed at the number of programs the YWCA offered women in the community, but they realized that there was more that needed to be done.

So they decided to take matters into their own hands. They applied for grants from the Sprout Fund, the Heinz Endowments and a few other places, and got them. They began renting a small one bedroom apartment in North Oakland and made it their headquarters.

The first program they began offering was the sports program. It’s basically a way for girls who normally are not encouraged to play sports to get involved in physical activities and build their self-confidence. And although the girls are not very athletically inclined when they begin the program, you better believe they’re true athletes within a few months. It’s pretty amazing.

After the success of the sports program, they decided to band with Students for a Sustainable Pittsburgh and advocate for on-site child care in the majority of businesses downtown - a pretty big deal, since this was about the time when all the technology firms were making their way to the Golden Triangle. Through their efforts, they managed to have all new incoming businesses and 70% of existing businesses with 25 or more employees in the city commit to on-site child care.

By then, the PWF had been in existence for five years and their success had caused them to hire more staff and move to the present offices, in Squirrel Hill. They began their own grant program for women who wanted to start their own non-profits.

I was brought into the PWF to work on their newest program, the girls’ creative writing program. The CEOs (still Alicia and Janessa) realized that girls who aren’t really interested in sports had few options for afterschool programs, so they started working with the local middle schools to offer the creative writing program to interested girls. So far, the response has been great and I can honestly say I love going to work every day.