PITTSBURGH | Development Rundown II - Page 435

photoLith · #**8681** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:17 PM**

Look at those absolute 🞵🞵🞵🞵 bags Yinzers, smiling and laughing while demolishing this cities history. Wish I could kick them in the nuts.

Private Dick · #**8682** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:24 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianTH

The claim in the article is they like Pittsburgh's skilled workforce, strategic location, and European vibe.

photoLith · #**8683** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:26 PM**

If by European vibe they mean white trash people wandering around in cammo caps and steelers sweat pants, then sure yeah.

Private Dick · #**8684** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:40 PM**

Feels like Paris to me... or at least Berlin...

Evergrey · #**8685** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:42 PM**

We can make tired Millvale yinzer sweatpants jokes... but I think the "European vibe" references Pittsburgh's tight legacy built environment and a topography that is pretty unique in the U.S... hearkening to hilly cities in Eastern and Southern Europe.

BrianTH · #**8686** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:45 PM**

I also understand why people often compare Pittsburgh to European cities, particularly Central-European cities. The density and neighborhoods in the core are similar, the topography is similar, a lot of the prominent architecture is similar (thanks to immigrants), the college-town/post-industrial smashup is similar . . . heck, Europe even has a lot more of its own versions of "yinzers" than you might realize if you only think of Europe in terms of the upper-classes of London, Paris, or Milan.

Of course there are many, many differences too, particularly outside the core. But among other U.S. cities, I think that claim makes some sense.

Evergrey · #**8687** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 3:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Private Dick

Feels like Paris to me... or at least Berlin...

McKeesport may only be 10 miles away from Pittsburgh... but it might as well be a different planet. The demographic, cultural and economic trajectory of 'core' Pittsburgh will have a tough time penetrating insular Greater McKeesport... which has a completely different set of priorities and objectives.

Private Dick · #**8688** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 4:33 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evergrey

... but I think the "European vibe" references Pittsburgh's tight legacy built environment and a topography that is pretty unique in the U.S... hearkening to hilly cities in Eastern and Southern Europe.

I agree, I also assume that is what the reference was made to. And I don't mean to dismiss that notion, because I do feel the same way in terms of looking at Pittsburgh's topography, built environment, history, immigrant groups, etc. -- that it does indeed have a "European feel" to it. It just sounds funny for me to think of Pittsburgh as having a "European vibe", because although I am by no means a world traveler, I have been to some European cities and have never quite had that "this reminds me of Pittsburgh" feeling, when considering the local culture, but that may just be the negative, self-defeating "western PA vibe" I've been subject to my whole life... that it would never even occur to me to think that way...

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianTH

. . . heck, Europe even has a lot more of its own versions of "yinzers" than you might realize if you only think of Europe in terms of the upper-classes of London, Paris, or Milan.

I'm sure. We do seem to have a certain special breed of "yinzers" though...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evergrey

McKeesport may only be 10 miles away from Pittsburgh... but it might as well be a different planet. The demographic, cultural and economic trajectory of 'core' Pittsburgh will have a tough time penetrating insular Greater McKeesport... which has a completely different set of priorities and objectives.

Yeah, McKeesport is a pretty depressing area. Sad, considering it, and towns in the area like it, were once thriving and popular spots.

BrianTH · #**8689** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 4:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Private Dick

because although I am by no means a world traveler, I have been to some European cities and have never quite had that "this reminds me of Pittsburgh" feeling, when considering the local culture, but that may just be the negative, self-defeating "western PA vibe" I've been subject to my whole life... that it would never even occur to me to think that way...

I think the asymmetry here is that as Americans who travel to Europe (and I think all this applies to me as well), we tend to get a nonrepresentative view of what Europe is really like, in the same way you may not get a great picture of the U.S. if you only visited Manhattan, Miami Beach, and so on. But the original claim was about how foreigners perceive Pittsburgh, and presumably they typically have a more rounded picture of Europe than we have.

I'll also just note that I did travel to Central Europe a few times in the 1990s, including places that only a few years earlier had been behind the "Iron Curtain." I still wasn't randomly sampling places, but it is some of those experiences specifically that most remind me of Pittsburgh (indeed, that is probably one of the reasons I keep selecting Krakow as a model for the Strip District--I happened to visit Krakow back in the 1990s). I'd even go so far as to say we could do a lot worse than to promote ourselves as the Prague of the U.S., but that is getting far afield.

Quote:

We do seem to have a certain special breed of "yinzers" though...

Possibly, but I am personally convinced there is not really a notable difference between "yinzers" and most other white working-class ethnic groups/stereotypes. Speaks with a funny dialect, too into sports, drinks too much beer, provincial--give just a slightly genericized list of typical "yinzer" attributes to most Europeans, and they will probably think you are talking about some group local to them.

Austinlee · #**8690** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 5:53 PM**

Drink too much beer, talk too loud, won't shut up about futbol. Yeah Europe has none of that.

Private Dick · #**8691** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 6:08 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Austinlee

Drink too much beer, talk too loud, won't shut up about futbol. Yeah Europe has none of that.

But what can you visualize this fine looking crew wearing? Stillers black and gold or some Euro football jerseys?

BrianTH · #**8692** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 6:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Private Dick

But what can you visualize this fine looking crew wearing? Stillers black and gold or some Euro football jerseys?

Nothing but a Newcastle United tattoo:

Private Dick · #**8693** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 6:23 PM**

^ SO 🞵🞵🞵🞵

DKNewYork · #**8694** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 6:45 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianTH

It was definitely news to me. There are lots around there where such a project would make sense, however (like 176-H-348, aka 700 Rebecca, and maybe 176-H-337, aka 712 Rebecca). I'd even toss in the back portion of 714 Rebecca's lot as long as the building itself is preserved (176-H-336). But as you point out, nothing in the current ownership records available at the County website suggest they are under PHLF or public control. Anyway, I'll certainly be interested in whatever clarification you get.

The clarification on the condo complex: Last night I was provided a this description of the building: a "handsome historic building with balconies and iron railings"---and it was confirmed that the building was at the corner of Rebecca and Wood. I realized that I had already seen photos of the building but it was surely not at that intersection. The announcement has one of the cross streets wrong. StreetView places the property at Wood and Coal. Lot or Lots 233-E-262-6. The building is beautiful, a four story property with great balconies. It sits across Coal from a pretty little Richardsonian knock-off church of the same buff yellow brick.

PGHFan · #**8695** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 7:06 PM**

Anyone know if there is anything new on the plans for the new Point Park Playhouse?

BrianTH · #**8696** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 10:10 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by PGHFan

Anyone know if there is anything new on the plans for the new Point Park Playhouse?

Last I knew they were still planning on demolishing (sorry, "recycling") the facades. To my knowledge their full plans still are not public.

BrianTH · #**8697** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 10:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by DKNewYork

StreetView places the property at Wood and Coal. Lot or Lots 233-E-262-6. The building is beautiful, a four story property with great balconies. It sits across Coal from a pretty little Richardsonian knock-off church of the same buff yellow brick.

Isn't that Rebecca and Coal?

Anyway, I agree that is a great building!

Evergrey · #**8698** Posted **Jun 20, 2014, 11:23 PM**

Oxford in the news yet again... hopefully this momentum will carry them to another flex building in the airport cor... I mean... skyscraper downtown.

http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6317836-74/hot-metal-building

Quote:

Oxford Development doubles down on upscale apartments in SouthSide Works

By Tom Fontaine

Published: Friday, June 20, 2014, 12:36 p.m.
Updated 22 minutes ago

At a ceremony Oxford Development Co. held Friday to mark the start of a $29 million, 117-unit apartment building in the SouthSide Works, a company official said plans are in the works to build high-end apartments across the street.

Shawn Fox, director of business development and marketing for the Downtown-based Oxford, said the company has an option to buy a Sidney Street property between Hot Metal and Sarah streets.

Oxford intended to use the vacant land owned by the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority as a parking lot for an office building planned at the corner of Sidney and Hot Metal. Oxford scrapped the office plans last year in favor of building the 117-unit apartment building known as Hot Metal Flats, now under construction.

“It's a vibrant new community in the South Side,” said Grant Mason, Oxford's vice president of real estate.

...

BrianTH · #**8699** Posted **Jun 21, 2014, 2:06 AM**

Great news, but I remain puzzled as to why Oxford downscaled Hot Metal Flats.

BrianTH · #**8700** Posted **Jun 21, 2014, 2:11 AM**

Incidentally, the Bradley Street Redoubt project may begin construction this summer:

http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/neighborho...brief-hot-metal-flats-green-design-more/

Quote:

Architect Ed Pope, who worked with Paul on Sweetbriar Village, is handling the designs while Paul’s company is working with local historians to restore and preserve the earthen fortifications built by anxious Pittsburghers when Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army marched north during the summer of 1863. In addition to housing, the Bradley Street Redoubt will include a park which will make the restored fortifications accessible to the public.

I'm of mixed minds about this one--the design is going to level a large portion of the redoubt mound, but as it stands it isn't really serving any purpose. And prior owners of the land apparently wouldn't sell for just a park:

http://wesa.fm/post/mount-washington-developer-aims-preserve-slice-civil-war-history