Category Archives: Green PGH

Some Park and Parking History & Friday is Park(ing) Day in PittsburghParking

092107_ParkingDay
Image by JessyeAnne via Flickr

This is a neat event that is another creative way to think about our city, transit and how cars fit into the urban landscape.   It fits well into the conversation we have been having about if you need a car in Pittsburgh on the post about Zipcar.

Last year, I posted about Parking Day 2008 and recieved this interesting comment that I wanted to share – which puts some historical perspective of how cars have fit into Pittsburgh over the past centruy or so.

I have a nineteenth century “History of Pittsburg” which lists the word “parking” in the index. I thought this odd as I couldn’t imagine someone parking a carriage. When I looked it up, the word meant the placing and creating of parks in the city which was not done until after the Civil War.

Park(ing) Day, Friday, September 18, 2009 is being coordinated by Mattress Factory, the Office of Public

Park (ing) day
Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

Art and the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.

More info about Park(ing) Day and some great photos of the parks from last year is available at http://parkingdaypittsburgh.blogspot.com/ Continue reading →

Oakland Used Furniture Sale – Friday & Saturday

A table set for two people.
Image via Wikipedia

I think this event is a great idea (we have blogged about it in the past too) because it is a great way for Pittsburgh to reuse and repurpose furniture and dorm things and a great way for new students to save some money fixing up their new Pittsburgh abodes!

If you are new in Pittsburgh – or looking for some new furniture – before you make the trip out to Ikea – stop the Oakland Planning and Development Corporations 4th Annual Used Furniture Sale this weekend.

4th Annual Used Furniture Sale

Friday August 28 10am-8pm
Saturday, August 29 10am-8pm
intersection of Atwood and Sennott Streets in Central Oakland

More info at OPDC.org

Furniture Sale in the news:

From the Post-Gazzette’s Walkabout Blog – Holey couches, Batman!

“We have lots of couches, a ton of chairs, a lot of desks, tables, some shelves, dressers, and a few lamps,” Kelly said. Continue reading →

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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Haunted Boat Ride on the RiverQuest Explorer

RiverQuest is awesome and one of those cool things that didn’t exist when I was a kid.  RiverQuest, which used to be called Pittsburgh Voyager, is a floating classrom that is here to provide hand on learning on the rivers.  Earlier this summer, RiverQuest moved to a new vessel that is a green, environmentally friendly ship – the Explorer is one of the first green passenger boats in the world.

To celebrate the Halloween Season they have organized a spooktacular “spirits of the Riverfront” Cruise.  I really want to go on this – 2 hours of scary stories and visiting haunted spots along Pittsburgh rivers.

The final cruise is this Friday, October 24 7-9pm.  Tickets are $10-$15.  Click here for all the details.

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PARK(ing) Day – Parking Spots become Parks for a day – Friday, September 19,2008

Thanks to both BikePGH and PopCity media for writing about Park(ing) Day. Friday is Park(ing) Day in Pittsburgh. Park(ing) day is a one day event where ordinary parking spots are turned into pop-up parks for the day. The event started in San Francisco in 2005 and has become an annual event. Last year there were over 200 Parks created on Park(ing) day. I love this idea – definitely a creative way to get the community to think about how we are using our cities.

Here is a list of Pittsburgh Park(ing) Day locations:

  • ARL Wildlife – Copeland Street in front of Starbucks, Shadyside
  • Pashek Associates – 619 E. Ohio Street, North Side
  • REI – S. 27th Street in front of REI, South Side Works
  • Greater Pgh Arts Council – 7th Avenue near Penn Ave., Downtown
  • The Pillow Project – Forbes Avenue in front of Coffee Tree Rosters, Squirrel Hill
  • Riverlife, Mon Wharf Park – William Penn Way near 6th Ave, Downtown
  • Allegheny Commons Initiative – Cedar Ave (N. & E. Ohio Street) at the Farmers market, North Side
  • Venture Outdoors – East Ohio Street, North Side
  • Mattress Factory – East Ohio Street, North Side
  • Children’s Museum – East Ohio Street, North Side
  • Manchester Craftsman Guild – East Ohio Street, North Side
  • Chatham University – Fobes Avenue/ Murray Ave. in front of Carnegie Library, Squirrel Hill
  • Sean Derry – Craig Street, Oakland
  • PA Resources Council – 1400 E. Carson Street in front of Starbucks, South Side
  • Mayor Luke Ravenstahl – 4th Avenue Next to City County Building, Downtown
  • City Councilman Patrick Dowd – 4th Avenue Next to City County Building, Downtown
  • Land Trust Alliance – 10th Street and Penn Avenue Parking Lot, Downtown
  • Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy – Schenley Plaza, Oakland

Both of these websites have tons of info and how to guides for putting the park back in parking space.

Parking Day Website – http://www.parkingday.org
Pittsburgh Parking Day Website – http://pghparkingday.wordpress.com/

Photo: The Berger Partnership, PS