Revisiting the 2nd Oldest House in Pittsburgh

Since 1973, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has used the month of May to celebrate historic preservation opportunities across the country. In honor of Preservation Month, I wanted to share some of the historic buildings that we have covered here on IheartPGH.

Let’s start with the second oldest house in Pittsburgh – the John Woods House in Hazelwood. I first learned about the John Woods House in 2015. This house, located just down the street from the historic Carnegie Library building, was one of the stops on the Has Urban Hike through Hazelwood.

I believe the Fort Pitt Blockhouse is the oldest residential structure in the City of Pittsburgh, it was built in 1764, and became a residence in 1785. The John Woods house was built in 1792, which would make it the 2nd oldest house in the city.  The John Woods house was added given historic designation in the City of Pittsburgh in 1977.

The property is still listed on the URA website and it does not looks like anything has changed with the status of the property in the past 2 years.

If you are interested in learning more about the John Woods House, these websites provide lots of information about the history of the building and John Woods:

How would you redevelop the John Woods House?

What should the future of the John Woods house look like? The property is in Hazelwood, close to the new ALMONO development site and just a block off the main road. My first thought is that this would make a unique stopping point for cyclists who are riding the GAP trail into Pittsburgh. Maybe it could be a coffee shop with rooms that cyclists could rent if they wanted to spend the night? Maybe it could be a restaurant? There is some precedent for historic lodging in Western Pennsylvania. The Century Inn, located in Washington County, has been a stop for travelers since it first opened in 1788 and it still a bed and breakfast today. What would you like to see in the John Woods House in the future?

Are there other historic buildings that you would like to see featured for Preservation Month? Leave a comment below or post a tweet. #ThisPlaceMatters is the official hashtag from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Pittsburgh Independent Bookstores

Independent Bookstore Day & A Map of Every Independent Bookstore in Pittsburgh

UPDATE 4/24/2019:

Please visit Very Local Pittsburgh for an updated Guide to Independent Bookstores in Pittsburgh. 

Info on Independent Bookstore Day 2019 events in Pittsburgh is available here. 

The last Saturday in April is Independent Bookstore Day, the official hashtag for Independent Bookstore Day is #BookstoreDay. The #BookstoreDay hashtag is a great way to take a peak at how folks across the country are celebrating local booksellers. Indie bookshops across the country are hosting parties and inviting customer and friends to buy books from their local booksellers.  If you are interested in learning more about the business of book selling, Kim Lyons wrote a story for the Trib this week, Independent bookshops find unlikely prosperity, that digs into some of the statistics on the brick-and-mortar bookstore trends.

Independent Bookstore Day Events in Pittsburgh

Some of Pittsburgh’s book stores have big plans to celebrate on Saturday. Here are some of the local events for Independent Bookstore Day:

  • White Whale Books
    • 25% off all used books all day long,
    • prizes hidden among the stacks
    • 12-2pm  Baby Loves Tacos pop-up
    • 7-9pm release party for Pittsburgh Poetry Review’s newest issue
  • Nine Stores
    • 20% off store wide
  • City of Asylum Bookshop
    • 11:30am: all-ages children’s puppet show with Felicia Cooper and story hour with Bookseller Jen.
    • 1:00 – 3:00pm: Book signing with City of Asylum Exiled Writer-In-Residence Osama Alomar
    • 1:00pm & 2:00pm: Tours of our Alphabet City building
    • a scavenger hunt for kids
    • raffles and door prizes
    • surprise discounts
    • an exclusive, limited edition chapbook by Michael Chabon

Guide to Pittsburgh Independent Bookstores

Pittsburgh Independent Bookstores

One of our most popular posts on the blog is our guide to independent movie theaters around town. Just in time for Independent Bookstore Day we bring you a guide to local bookshops around town.  In 2015, NextPittsburgh published a guide to independent bookshops in Pittsburgh. In the past two years, Pittsburgh has seen several new bookshops open and we have put together an updated guide to independent bookstores in Pittsburgh which includes a Google map of all 16 shops.

April 25 is Gobblerito Pumpking Day at MadMex

UPDATE: Looking for details on the 2019 Gobblerito Day? Head over to Very Local for an update to this post.

Yes, Pittsburgh, for one day only, you can celebrate Thanksgiving in April. The Gobblerito is the much loved thanksgiving-dinner-in-a-burrito that MadMex offers each fall. But according to the most recent newsletter from Big Burrito (the parent company of MadMex), Tuesday, April 25, 2017 is Gobblerito Pumpking Day.

It’s Thanksgiving in April as The Gobblerito comes out of hibernation for just one mad Tuesday, and brings along the last of our Southern Tier Pumking stash.

Both are available while supplies last. Avoid the crush, do lunch!

It looks like both the Gobblerito and Pumpking will be available at all of the MadMex locations.

If you haven’t met the Gobblerito yet, here is a sampling of love letters to this thanksgiving treat…

Never miss another Gobblerito day again! While researching this post, we stumbled upon this handy Google calendar of BigBurrito events. You can subscribe and view all of these important dates with your own calendar.

 

Clue: The Musical at Palisades Playhouse

Last week, I had the pleasure of being one of the attendees for opening night of the community theater production of Clue: The Musical at the Palisades Playhouse in Greenfield. If you are looking for something to do this weekend, I would like to suggest that you make time to go see one of the final performances.  This performance is definitely kid friendly and a good way to entertain the family on a holiday weekend.

One of the things I learned when I would give a weekly event listing on WDVE is that there are often no event happening on holiday weekends.  The lack of events for holidays is problematic, because if your family is like my family, we can only exist in peace when we are doing something together. I was just thinking about the easter when I was little and my grandparents came to visit, in an effort to keep everyone entertained we went to visit a chicken farm somewhere in Westmoreland County, I think (I assure you my father will read this post and fact check the location).

I will admit that I am quite biased in my support of this particular production, 1/4 of the cast are good friends of mine from high school, but my friends aside, here are 5 reasons I think you should check out Clue: The Musical this weekend.

Five Reasons to see Clue: The Musical at Palisades Playhouse

  1. Clue: The Musical. I loved and still love Clue: The Movie. I remember first watching this at my friend Mandy’s sleepover birthday party and as seven year-olds, we thought the scene where the signing telegram woman collapses was the funniest thing ever.  I had no idea there was a musical version of what I consider to be a cinematic classic. Clue: The Musical is still a mystery and still the same clever plot line but with some snappy songs for a stage production. Sadly the singing telegram is not included in the musical version.
  2. A musical & a mystery you try to solve. I’ll get back to the snappy songs in a second. I thought that I was going to see a series of musical performances, what I did not expect and really loved about the production is that is also a mystery. Your program comes with a score card and you can keep track of the clues that are presented by the characters as the show unfolds.
  3. The cast & crew. I have tremendous respect for anyone who gets on stage and performs. The entire cast is performing for fun, rehearsing after their full-time jobs.
  4. The set. I thought that the Palisades Playhouse did an incredible job creating a backdrop for the performance. Minimal, but well constructed and supported the overall plot of the musical performance.
  5. The theater building. I was particularly excited to see this production and check out how the Palisades Playhouse was re-purposing the former Greenfield Presbyterian Church building. Last month, Partners for Sacred Spaces, a national nonprofit with the mission of helping churches and communities reuse religious structures spoke here in Pittsburgh. One of the many examples of church reuse that they shared was for community theater spaces. It was great to see how Palisades Playhouse is using the sanctuary as a theater and hear more about how the other areas of the building are being used as community spaces. You can read more about Palisades Playhouse and their future plans from this Post-Gazette article.

Clue: The Musical at Palisades Playhouse

Tickets are available at the door or online here.

  • Friday April 14 at 7pm
  • Saturday, April 15 at 1pm

Chicano Batman is bringing Los Angeles Sound to Pittsburgh on April 2

Last month, on a cold, Monday morning I was driving to work and heard a catchy tune on 90.5 WYEP.  The song “Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)” by Chicano Batman has been stuck in my head and even earned a spot on my everyday Spotify playlist. WYEP featured this song as part of new music Monday, timely as Chicano Batman released a new album, Freedom isn’t Free, at the beginning of March. The Los Angeles based band is now on tour with a stop in Pittsburgh on Sunday, April 2, 2017 at James Street Gastropub.

The song “Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)” is the kind of catchy tune that you want to hear on a Monday morning or an afternoon of running errands.  Both the name of the song and the word Batman stuck with me. I think I associate Batman with Pittsburgh and thanks to @WYEPplayed it was easy for me to find the name of the song later that afternoon.

The quartet have been getting a lot of press since the release of their new album:

While I do love Pittsburgh, I will admit that I have quite a crush on the city of Los Angeles. I’ve had the good fortune of making a few visits there of the past decade or so and I am always eager to go back. Los Angeles has a bit of reputation from its Hollywood side, but if you look past the movie stars facade, the city has a grit and authenticity that reminds me a little bit of Pittsburgh.

Not only am I a fan of the Chicano Batman sound, I am also a huge fan of the style. Who doesn’t love a ruffled tuxedo shirt?  The band commented on this fashion choice last week in Rolling Stone (Chicano Batman is on the RS list of “10 Artists You Need to Know” for March 2017):

They Say: What about those tuxes? “The Temptations, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions, Los Freddy’s and all these bands from Venezuela and Latin America were rocking them on the covers of their records in the Sixties and Seventies, so that’s definitely an inspiration,” says frontman Bardo Martinez. “Our bassist, Eduardo [Arenas], was the one who actually suggested, ‘Hey, let’s get suited and booted!’ He threw it down. We’re all aesthetically on that boat, but he’s the one who actually stepped into the vintage shop – and it was a stroke of luck that what he bought fit everybody in the band. Off the rack, man! It’s been 10 years, brother, and we’ve gone through a few of them. We try to keep it classic, man; we try to keep it polyester.”

On April 2, for the very affordable Pittsburgh price of $15 you can listen to Chicano Batman live at the James Street Gastropub.

Chicano Batman w/ 79.5 & SadGirl
Sunday, April 2, 2017
7pm
James Street Gastropub & Speakeasy
Tickets $12-$15
Facebook Event