How many steps are on Pittsburgh’s famed 712 hillside staircases? That answer is just waiting for you to figure out. The city didn’t even know how many sets of stairs there are before the late 1990’s when Bob Regan got off his bike and started mapping them. We have the most sets of stairs of any city in the world blowing the #2 out of the water, Cincinnati has 300 fewer sets of stairs. The longest lasting celebration of stairs is Southside’s Step Trek that started in 2000. Northside’s Finefview’s Step-a-Thon has been around a few years now. The city is now working on an on line detailed map of all city stairs and hopes to have it live by the end of the summer.
There’s a new shop on Mt Washington basically across from my friend’s restaurant The Shiloh Grill, Love Pittsburgh Shop Monica Yope and Kelly Sanders are two arts that met each other at various Pittsburgh events for artists like Handmade Arcade & Neighborhood Flea and decided to open a shop near Monica’s home besides their own wares, they also carry the work of various other artists.
Hey UPMC, jealousy is a bad thing. Just because I referred to Lamar Advertising as the evil empire, doesn’t mean I’m not watching you. You think you can bully everyone around for your evil profits, barely making the required minimum free service for poor people. There seems to be some leeway on the 4%, because every time I see your numbers you are running at 3.4%, 4.1%,3.2%. Not only does your rating as a non profit save you millions of dollars on your vast real estate empire, it also gives you bragging rights so good hearted people feel they should run and donate to all of the well intended fund raisers so you can pay your executives multiple millions of dollars each. There’s a new development being built in South Fayette called Newbury that is zoned for shopping and dining. A hospital is neither and you are put off that you have to ask for a variance, last I heard, residents own their own township and set up the rules. I can’t say with certainty, but when residents started questioning you an anonymous flier was sent to most of the residents, questioning their elected commissioners decision to hold variance hearings. De Ju Vue of Pleasant Hills where you recently tried to shove a hospital down the the residents’ throats to drive Jefferson Hospital our of business. Similar what you tried with Forbes Regional out in Monroeville. I guess it’s true, you can’t change the stripes on a tiger or teach a pig to eat with a fork and knife. I’m just saying. 🙂
31st Street Sudios the filming business in the Strip has been teetering on bankruptcy for over a year now. North River Company, a New York private equity company is in the process of purchasing it. Even though they claim they are going to keep the location as a film studio, this property is on the riverfront. I bet they develop the riverfront and then maybe close down the studio and if it’s not working right then develop that land as well. I would say that’s great way to keep the studio afloat.
The Regatta is returning August 4 – 6 for their 40th anniversary. The high speed races will be back, now that it’s later in the season and they think the rivers will be clearer. They had trouble when they first moved the Regatta to July 4th weekend with trees and other large debris int he water. Anything that floats will be back and a new event. A new event has been added, Fly Boarding, I talked about in the past. I saw them practicing on the river last week and it’s pretty cool and exciting. Schedules and details on their website.
I recently finished a book Leadershit by Rande Somma. One of the things that drew me to it was Rande is from Pittsburgh and the book has yinz and stillers quoted in it. Several times I thought of just putting on a shelf in the Library and I’m glad I finished it. One of Rande’s premises is top executives get bonuses based on short term profitability. it’s easy to complain and he does lots of that, but if you pick it up, plug through to the end where he talks about solutions. Executives get a big bonus by making the numbers Wall Street is looking for instead of investing in the future. Something else he suggests when someone is applying for an executive position, they should list failures and what they learned from these. I think this is a great idea for any job seeker to add to their resume. We’ve all had failures personal and professional in our lives. I think that would give a great opening for a conversation with a potential employer.
There’s a Pittsburgh very small organization that feels there’s not enough unconditional love in the world. Jonathan Potter & Rachel Adler started Pittsburgh Good Deeds. They have recently helped a woman move from McKeesport to the Northside. Because of the distance, she would not have been able to take advantage of an affordable housing opportunity here. It’s not a total commitment like people frequently do to help at the food bank every Thursday for example. It’s like Gisesle Fettereman’s 412 food rescue. You contact PGH Good Deeds when you have time. Or you can email them at pgh-gooddeeds@gmail.com.
The scammers have entered the world of texting. Just like you should never open an email with hyperlinks you don’t know the sender, don’t respond to a text that asks for person info or follow a link in the text.
Complaints are pouring in over the nasty appearance of Pittsburgh’s ex flagship department store Macy’s. Core development has owned it for several years now and claim they have been concentrating on interior structural work. They admit they have ignored the exterior and say will clean it up. Core is the same development company that took exclusive rights to the Garden Theater block and had that tied up for years, never getting anything off the ground. I hope they don’t pull that same with the old Kauffman’s building.
That’s it for today, enjoy yourselves,
ed
