Yearly Archives: 2009

Pittsburgh is for 2nd Homes and Historic Grocery Stores

Null Space, Chris Briem’s blog with lots of interesting info – often about Pittsburgh, links to this blog post from Otherstream – a blog from a North Carolina resident who has just purchased a 2nd home here in Pittsburgh – mostly just because he loves Pittsburgh.  I wanted to share an excerpt of his post Why Pittsburgh…

So now on to the bigger and more interesting question of why I would consider a place like Pittsburgh, and how I could assume I might like it better there than, say, San Francisco, given all the relief I felt upon living that particular urban area. It’s a valid question, and it’s one that even my husband asked me at one point.

…

Pittsburgh gives me that “urban” that I crave. I fell in love with the city on my first visit in 1997, and I love it a little more each time I visit. Unlike most sunbelt “boom towns”, the texture is decidedly urban, with a diversity of building types, people, and incomes. Unlike San Francisco and other “sophisticated urban areas” , the mood is neither expensive nor pretentious. And unlike such rust belt icons as Cleveland and Detroit, there’s an actual economy; in fact, Pittsburgh has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

Otherstream has some more great posts about Pittsburgh.  The author also writes a blog about old grocery stores, Groceteria.com, which is very well put together website with tons of interesting information.  There are even some pictures of some Pittsburgh grocery stores on the site – SureSave in Bloomfield, Swartz’s on Carson Street, and Breakers in Dormont.

Congratulations on your new Pittsburgh home! Continue reading →

Radio Round Up – April 17, 2009

Oh My Gawd! It's Free Cone Day....Image by Fire Monkey Fish via Flickr

Making the Connections Book Launch Party

  • Friday, April 17 4-7pm @ The Shadow Lounge
  • Check out the new book that chronicles some of the community projects that were part of the Pittsburgh 250 celebration

Tech Fair aka Spring Carnival at Carnegie Mellon University

  • Friday, 8pm Free Concert with New Pornographers
  • Game booths, buggy races, carnival food and more fun

Lawrenceville Blossom Tour

  • Saturday, April 18
  • Merchants along Butler Street will be passing out seeds
  • Market places set up for local fresh food an vendors

Attack Theatre Dirty Ball

  • Saturday, April 18, 8-Midnight
  • Rumored to be the best party for the year – this is the 4th annual fundraiser for Attach Theatre

Free Cone Day

  • Tuesday, April 21
  • Ben & Jerry’s, Forbes Ave. Squirel Hill

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History Books – Making the Connections

Making the Connections Book Launch Party
Friday, April 17, 2009, 4-7 pm
Shadow Loung, 5972 Baum Blvd, East Liberty
RSVP on Facebook here.

One of the final events of the Pittsburgh 250 celebration was the community connections wrap up session back in December.  The afternoon turned out to be a lot more fun that I had anticipated.  As part of the Pittbsurgh 250 birthday celebration – the folks at the Sprout Fund helped to distribute over $1,000,000 in grants to communities around western PA to celebrate pride and progress in their community.

I was honored to serve on the grant making panel and hearing about the projects at the end of the year long birthday celebration exceeded all of my expections.  People came from all over the region to talk about the projects that took place in their communities to celebrate the 250th birthday and they had great stories to share and the sprout fund had a great story teller to document the stories too.   These stories were way more than just tales of an extended birthday party.  The community connections grants engaged people in more ways than just parties.  Sitting there in December I learned about all kinds of projects that happened from these grants – from mobile agriculture labs, Jazz communities, car car ministries and some very entertaining tales of fishing trips.

So the folks at the Sprout Fund wrangled up their story teller to  document these stories in a book which debuts tomorrow – Friday April 17, 2009 at a reception at the Shadow Lounge.

I stopped by the Sprout Fund office earlier this week for a sneak peek of the book which is titled Making the Connections – it is great – they have done an outstanding job of compiling and capturing the region in a convenient book format.

Stop by the Shadow Lounge to celebrate and pick up a copy or order one from the Sprout Fund’s website here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7h-Cogf_4Q&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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Sierra Club Enviromental Film Festival featuring Mark Dixon from YERT

Mark & YERT (check it out!)Image by michael and anna via Flickr

Saturday, April 18th, 2009, 6-10pm is the 2nd evening of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Film Festival. They have a great line up of 5 different films for the evening – including a showing of some of the YERT footage. YERT stands for Your Environmental Road Trip (see the our post on the YERT kick-off and follow up from last year).

After his year long environmental road trip, YERT founder Mark Dixon has decided to make Pittsburgh his home and he will be at the film festival on Saturday. I have had the opportunity to get to know Mark over the past 2 years and I really enjoyed his presentation at the 2009 GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) Conference that we attended last month in Milwaukee. I am also thankful that Mark has introcuded me to the chico bag and that I have significantly reduced the number of plastic bags needed for shopping this year.

Here is the schedulfor Saturday:

  • Garden Song – If you want to get psyched for gardening, this should do it! (28 mins)
  • Eden’s Lost and Found: Philadelphia – If Philly can do it, so can we! How volunteer organizations have redeemed inner-city Philadelphia’s environment on a shoe-string. (57 minutes)
  • YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) – A zany, clever, fun, interesting and totally up-to-date look at what’s happening nationwide in the environment, with Mark Dixon, the filmmaker. Not to be missed! Really first class fun. Great for all ages. (about 90 mins)
  • Cheat Neutral – A satirical look at carbon offsetting. Does it really work? (13 mins)
  • Black Diamonds – Mountain-top removal at its worst. How it’s destroying our neighbors in West Virginia and what we can do about it. (72 mins)

Here is the trailer for Black Diamonds…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Zb3Tb0oSM[/youtube]

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The 4th Annual Attack Theatre Dirty Ball

Attack TheatreImage by carolclarinet via Flickr

Attack Theatre is an award winning Pittsburgh based dance/music/video perfomance group. The Dirty Ball is their annual fundraiser that is now in its fourth year. I have not yet attended the Dirty Ball but I can say with certainty that I have heard rave reviews from many people who have attended in the past. The attire for Dirty Ball is open to your interpretation – anything from garbage bags to the more risque outfits.

Saturday, April 18, 2009
8:00pm – midnight
The 51st Street Business and Technology Center
135 51st Street, Lawrenceville

Click here to buy tickets. 

via ThisIsHappening

More on Attack Theatre…

2006 Article from PopCity Media – Raising the Barre

Here is a video interview with the founders of Attach Theatre that offers a nice overview of the group.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRnKlSFZ7mI[/youtube]

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