North Side: Making Connections
Many of the changes taking place here are happening along the “North Shore,” a name that refers to the sliver of land that runs alongside the Allegheny River. The name is also, obviously, a commercial tool, hoping to encourage visitors and investment by distancing the area from the rest of the more hardscrabble neighborhood. But…
Greater Tuna
Lowe excels at the broad humor (pun incidental) of the more extreme zanies, especially when in drag. Gmys, on the other hand, can bring out more nuance, from the characters’ creepiness to their charm.
Answer Key
1. Either A or D are acceptable answers. And suffice it to say you won’t want to take on the city’s tow pound on an empty stomach. 2. True. The 54C connects to 71 different Port Authority bus and trolley routes. 3. Match the South Side bar to its gimmick: 1-B. 2-D. 3-E. 4-A. 5-C.…
Interview: Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets
“I still have to remind him all the time, ‘This is way better than having to line up to eat, dude, so just shut the fuck up.'”
Letters To The Editor: August 22 – 29
Feedback from our readers.
Chef Kevin Sousa
Sousa and his transformative cuisine have successfully turned Pittsburgh’s meat-and-potatoes dining scene into a beacon of avant-garde cuisine. “We take a lot of local and seasonal product just like other restaurants do, but treat it differently,” Sousa explains. “We might take English peas and turn them into a hot jelly or a warm foam.”
The Warhol hosts Stereo Total’s multilingual mélange
When they’re not singing about the nasty, the two are equally literate on the subjects of Patty Hearst, chewing gum and the power of rock ‘n’ roll.
Bellevue: Taking the long vue
Not unlike several other neighborhoods that have turned into arts havens in recent years, Bellevue is in flux. There are some vacant storefronts, to be sure, and the Family Dollar discount store on Lincoln does as much business as anyone in town. A few art galleries and a perch above Ohio River Boulevard do not…
Boxing instructor Jimmy Cvetic
Whatever else the kids get from Cvetic, they get a shot at greatness, however fleeting. “I don’t care how tough the kid is or how bad he is,” Cvetic says. “When he puts on those trunks and those gloves and steps into that ring under the lights, it’s a moment he’s going to carry with…
This Just In: August 22 – 29
Highlights from the local TV news.
Dormont: The Golden Mean
Sometimes you wonder why Dormont hasn’t been colonized by cash-strapped hipsters. Access to transit is better than in many city neighborhoods, and much of the housing stock is charming, reasonably priced and well maintained. As importantly, Dormont is just old enough to seem new again … just genuine enough to attract the hipster’s ironic, devouring…
Economist Chris Briem
Christopher Briem is an often-cited regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research. He authors a local blog, nullspace2.blogspot.com, and answers reporters’ economic questions without making them feel too stupid. What’s the biggest misconception people have about the local economy?Within the region there are a lot of pessimistic people, and…
A Conversation with Sharon Lippincott
When she decided to start writing her life story, Monroeville’s Sharon Lippincott took the short-story approach — little vignettes that were important and memorable to her. Today the former workplace development-and-training specialist with a master’s degree in psychology spends time teaching others how to get started recording their stories. She has even written a book…
Millvale: True Grit
Millvale is hardly a fashionable address. Like many Pittsburgh-area mill towns, it remains a humble, down-to-earth community amid the shadows of its industrial past. But it offers a set of seemingly incongruous characteristics: a gritty history and a beyond-unpretentious present, coupled with a few pop-cultural destinations and convenience to Downtown.
Family Planning: What to do with kids in town?
As a rule, City Paper staffers don’t reproduce: The only thing we’re interested in breeding is contempt. But even we have the occasional nephew to babysit, the wayward foundling to care for. So what do we do when the little blighters are left in our charge?
Silver Eye takes us through The Looking Glass.
With its gritty documentary realism, “Broken Mirror, Beirut” suggests a visual metaphor for the region’s social, religious and political fragmentation, a portentous signifier of the milieu in which the next generation is finding its splintered identity.
The Jaguar Club sounds like everything you already like
A brooding, New Romantic sentiment that few attendees of ’80s Night should be able to resist.
Oakmont: It fits to a tee
Oakmont’s leafy, brick-paved main drag is filled with high-end boutiques with unusual dresses, glam shoes and distinctive jewels. If the goal of your shopping trips is to end up pictured in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s Seen column, this quaint riverside town may be the destination for you. And if shopping’s not your bag, you can see…
Life Inside the Triangle: A brief survey of local GLBT organizations and events
Although Pittsburgh is the birthplace of such gay notables as Andy Warhol and Gertrude Stein, they had to leave town to fulfill their destinies. These days, though, there’s every reason to stay: Pittsburgh boasts its own established gay community, with welcoming neighborhoods and activities for young and old.
Grill Fire
The Harris Grill, a popular Shadyside bar and restaurant, caught fire on Sat., Aug. 11, while a night of revelry was in full swing. All the patrons — reports vary from 50 to 200 people in the bar — and employees were safely evacuated. The only injuries reported from the three-alarm fire were two firefighters…
Celtic melodies and electronica collide in The Good Neighbors
The Good Neighbors seems a bit late to both the Celtic-crossover dance and the rave.
Downtown: Where it all starts … and starts over
A city’s downtown often symbolizes the self-image of the people who live there. Pittsburgh’s Downtown — known to locals as the Golden Triangle — suggests the triumph and despair of a place that has undergone repeated makeovers … some more successful than others.
The Path of Lease Resistance: A quick guide to resources for renters
Pittsburgh’s rental market has grown increasingly diverse in recent years, with apartments ranging from ridiculously pricey lofts to ridiculously cheap student flophouses. But wherever you live, as a renter there are three things you should know.
Plan of Attack
There are many problems in the 9th District, which encompasses the mostly-black neighborhoods in the city’s East End. But Dave Adams says there’s one that has to be the main priority: “I want to stop politicizing the violence going on in this city’s black neighborhoods and give the people of the 9th District unconditional safety,”…
Ruckus & The Trousers release Cartoon Lightning
Hints of everything from The Beatles to early Talking Heads to, perhaps, Squeeze — yet with that collegiate, slightly jammy flavor.
East Liberty: No longer going in circles
Prosperity began draining away in the ’60s due to white flight compounded by bad urban-planning decisions. But the tide is changing, thanks in part to creative types and homeowners taking advantage of housing prices that are depressed (though perhaps not for much longer). Spots like the Shadow Lounge put ‘Sliberty on the map as a…
Feet First: A guide to Pittsburgh hiking opportunities
This is a city graced with expansive city parks, organizations committed to showing off the region’s rich history and diverse charms, and a surprising amount of flat terrain. It all adds up to a great town to enjoy on foot, whether one is walking for exercise, fun, edification, or all combined.
Merton Center Faces Financial Crisis
“The Merton Center is broke,” says Kevin Amos, communications director for the TMC. “Summertime is traditionally a hard time for nonprofits, they’re all struggling. Because of some emergency building repairs and numerous other repairs that have fallen through the cracks we are really struggling.” The problems started, Amos says, when the center had to go…
This Is England
Twelve-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) falls in with some affable skinheads, then connects with the more dangerous Combo (Stephen Graham), a violent racist. Nothing that happens in England will come as much of a surprise to adult viewers, but as the story unfolds through Shaun’s naive eyes it still packs some well-placed blows. A tip of…
Lawrenceville: You Can’t Keep a Good Community Down
Even as heavy industry left the region a century after its commercial heyday, the neighborhood held on. Today, with an infusion of young progressives drawn by the neighborhood’s proximity to Downtown and its affordable housing, Lawrenceville is busily reinventing itself while still keeping its blue-collar roots.
Shopping Outside the Box: A directory of out-of-the-ordinary retail in Pittsburgh
It’s easy to discover the traditional retail venues — whether it’s the region’s dominant grocery store (rhymes with beagle) or a big-box chain, more of which pop up within the city every day. Even some of Pittsburgh’s steel mills have been converted to retail. Mill sites in Homestead and the South Side, where harsh conditions…
Just Harvest hires food-stamp specialist
With Eugenia Mosby’s hiring, Just Harvest plans to offer eligible applicants the convenience of applying at the organization’s office. In the meantime, she will reach out to those who could use the aid by telling them that it’s simply smart to do so.
“If you don’t use it, you’d lose it,” says Mosby, “and…
Lady Chatterley
The French director Pascale Ferran bases her new film on one of D.H. Lawrence’s two earlier versions of his famous story, the one she titled John Thomas and Lady Jane. Lady Chatterley is an intelligent film, if rather unabsorbing, and surprisingly old-fashioned in its meticulous presentation of character and psychology. Naturally, symbolism abounds: the darling…
Shadyside: Under no one else’s shadow
You can’t throw a brick around here (and believe us, we’ve tried) without hitting a yuppie, a professional, or a grad student trying to become one or the other. Still, much of the neighborhood retains a village feel, with wide streets and plenty of charming, unostentatious homes mixing with apartment buildings and the occasional manse.…
Rally Records looks back to pop-punk roots
For those aspiring locals who have a pop-punk or powerpop band that’s not primarily influenced by, say, Sum 41 or A Simple Plan, Jonny is open to talk.
The Eye Of The Dolphin
This family-oriented film from Michael Sellers has its heart in the right place — and its cameras in a lovely bit of the Bahamas — but a poorly developed story and clunky acting does it no favors. Teen troublemaker Alyssa (Carly Schroeder) decamps to the islands to meet the father she never knew she had.…
South Side: Clearing the Bar
During its working-class heyday in the mid-1900s, the South Side reputedly had the area’s largest number of bars per capita. Today, it indisputably does. But the more things stay the same, the more they change: The shot-and-beer bars have given way to microbrew-friendly taverns, gourmet restaurants, boutiques and nightclubs. Longtime residents have made room (grudgingly)…
Cornering the Market on Good Design
A good building knits urban pathways together, encouraging pedestrians to move a bit further along the street, maybe to the next store or the next purchase — any place but back to the car. Walk in either direction on Highland Avenue near Centre, for example, and you will encounter the Stevenson Building, a pleasant, vaguely…
Interview
Buscemi directs this two-person talkie in which bitter former war correspondent Pierre Peters (Buscemi) is assigned to a fluff interview piece with flighty self-absorbed starlet Katya (Sienna Miller). (Interview was written by Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004.) The two spar briefly at a restaurant, then banter the night away…
Squirrel Hill: Pittsburgh’s Promised Land
If you’re coming to Pittsburgh from a more cosmopolitan area, and find the rest of the city just too damn Pittsburgh (and Shadyside just too damn Shadyside), Squirrel Hill is arguably as vibrant a melting pot as you’ll find. You’ll stumble across large, beautiful homes on quiet streets (with large, beautiful price tags to match);…
Savage Love
Hear me out. You’ve pushed the idea that everyone must be GGG, or “good, giving, and game,” and that people in relationships must be sluts for each other, and that women must perform oral sex. I agree that sexual satisfaction for both parties in a relationship is important. I think that is what you are…
Mr. Bean’s Holiday
The nearly mute and always hapless Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) wins a holiday to Cannes. In a refreshingly simple set-up, he loses his ticket and must bumble his way across France, encountering a lost Russian boy, buskers, chickens, a World War II tank, a pretty actress and even a pretentious film director (Willem Dafoe). Mr.…
Filmmaker Chris Ivey
The North Carolina native came to study at Pittsburgh Filmmakers in 1995, when he was in his early 20s. He found freelance work on local television-commercial productions, and by 2000 was doing more on his own, including award-winning ads for Jones Soda. He’s also made numerous music videos, including two for noted underground rapper J-Live.…
It’s All Greek
Business lunches of yore used to include three martinis and three-inch pork chops served in dark paneled clubrooms lined with portraits of dead guys. Then, white wine spritzers replaced martinis, the pork chop became a quiche and ferns brightened up the interiors. Today’s midday meal usually involves spring water and something pre-packaged or prepared in…
Resurrecting The Champ
Inspired by real events, Rod Lurie’s film tells the story of an eager young sports reporter (Josh Hartnett) who discovers that a homeless man (Samuel L. Jackson) is a former boxing champ. It’s a dream story … at least, until it turns into an editorial nightmare. The middle of the film — when things go…
Visual Artist Tim Kaulen
Kaulen is a co-founder of the Industrial Arts Co-Op, a seminal local group that in the mid-1990s began creating large experimental sculptures in Pittsburgh’s abandoned mills, factories and warehouses. Mostly using materials found on site, the group has built a reputation around several high-profile efforts. There’s “Space Monkey,” a cartoonish simian which railroad authorities once…
Private Lives
I can’t imagine a finer opportunity for you to see Coward at his best than this pristine production from Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre.
Superbad
]It’s the last party before high school ends, so it’s imperative these three nerds get there, bring booze and get laid. That it doesn’t quite work out is obvious — but just how the all-important evening does play out is a fun surprise. (Let’s just say some awesomely bad cops get involved, and a mystery…
Stage Performer Robin Walsh
Actors are supposed to be chameleons. But Walsh transforms much more convincingly than most. “If you had to name the leading lady of Pittsburgh, I think it has to be her,” says director Karla Boos. “You can’t cast her in anything other than the leading role because you can’t take your eyes off her.”
Apartment 3A
Jeff Daniels’ clever, inventive Apartment 3A is at Little Lake Theatre in a well-played, well-directed and polished production.
Field Trip
Welcome to Pittsburgh, students, and before you ask: No, the whole place doesn’t smell like South Oakland in the summertime. The rest of the city is favored by honeysuckle-scented breezes, which caress the succulent fruit of our local flora. We natives use the delicate foliage to make festively colored baskets for our fertility rituals, during…
Musician David Bernabo
What is constant — aside from his wavering, evocative voice — is Bernabo’s self-imposed workload. Over the last six months, Bernabo has released a solo EP and a full-length album on Sort-Of Records. He’s also curated “Woodlab,” a bi-weekly showcase that results in a monthly compilation CD, which often features Bernabo’s production skills, compositions and…
