Citizen's Bank parking lot, E. 8th Ave and McClure St. Homestead, PA.
FRESH, wholesome and affordable locally grown fruits and vegetables!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Rainbow Kitchen Farmers Market
Monday, June 20, 2011
Community Heritage Market at the Pump House
Every Sunday starting, June 26 · 12:00pm - 4:00pm
Location
The Historic Pump House
880 East Waterfront Drive Munhall, PA
Created By
Rivers of Steel Heritage Area
More Info
Come join us as we celebrate the first Community Heritage Market at the Pump House on Sunday, June 26th from 12 PM to 4 PM! Support local artists, crafters, businesses, farmers, and musicians and enjoy an afternoon of fun at the Historic Pump House. This is event is presented by Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, with funding assistance from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National Park Service, and the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Parking is free and the market is open to all ages!
The Community Heritage Market will occur every Sunday through August.
For more information or to become a vendor, please contact Bridget Bradley at bbradley@riversofsteel.com or 412-464-4020 ext.46.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
New section of Great Allegheny Passage trail opens
Mon Valley area set, but last link delayed
A nearly three-mile section of the Great Allegheny Passage in the Mon Valley, described as one of the trail's most scenic, will open next Friday.
"Awesome" was how Linda McKenna Boxx, president of the Allegheny Trail Alliance, described the new asphalt-paved segment stretching from Grant Avenue in Duquesne to The Waterfront complex in Homestead.
But Ms. Boxx also said Thursday that a goal of completing the last remaining section of the Great Allegheny Passage, the piece at Sandcastle Waterpark, by November is not going to be met.
"We don't have the funds in hand," she said. More than $1 million has been raised toward the estimated $3 million cost, and trail advocates are hoping Gov. Tom Corbett releases a $750,000 grant that state Sen. Jay Costa got added to the capital budget.
County Executive Dan Onorato had set a goal of Nov. 11, 2011 -- 11-11-11 -- for finishing the section and completing the 150 miles of trail linking Pittsburgh with Cumberland, Md., where it joins the C&O Towpath to Washington, D.C.
Design work is under way on the Sandcastle segment. Trail developers were unable to relocate utility lines before the waterpark opened as they had hoped, Ms. Boxx said.
A 10 a.m. ceremony next Friday will open the newest trail segment, which features views of the U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Plant, Braddock Locks and Dam on the Monongahela River and even the Westinghouse Bridge over the Turtle Creek valley, she said.
The ceremony will officially open up the section where two bridges were erected last summer -- a 110-foot-long span in the RIDC industrial park in Duquesne that crosses three sets of Norfolk Southern Railway tracks, and a 170-foot-long bridge in Whitaker over six sets of tracks operated by Norfolk Southern and Union Railroad Co.
The section already has had its unofficial debut, as bicyclists and walkers have been checking it out.
"We didn't want to deny people access [before the official opening] when there was no reason," Ms. Boxx said.
The new Whitaker bridge will be the site of the ceremony. Rather than cutting a ribbon, the celebrants will raise a ceremonial railroad crossing gate, she said.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Homestead, PA now connected to DC by trail
PLEASE JOIN US TO CELEBRATE!
Homestead, PA now connected to DC by trail
June 17, 2011 at 10:00 am
at the Whitaker Bridge ramp*
A new, amazing 3-mile section of the Great Allegheny Passage will be opened for trail use. This section includes two new bridges and the scenic former U. S. Steel coke gas pipeline road.
Help us thank the funders, the landowners, the contractors, and the volunteers.
Bring your bicycle and ride the new section after the event.
RSVP to admin@atatrail.org or call 724 537 6905.
* Please enter at Guardian Storage (1002 East Waterfront Dr. Munhall, PA 15120) to be directed to parking for the event.
Homestead, PA now connected to DC by trail
June 17, 2011 at 10:00 am
at the Whitaker Bridge ramp*
A new, amazing 3-mile section of the Great Allegheny Passage will be opened for trail use. This section includes two new bridges and the scenic former U. S. Steel coke gas pipeline road.
Help us thank the funders, the landowners, the contractors, and the volunteers.
Bring your bicycle and ride the new section after the event.
RSVP to admin@atatrail.org or call 724 537 6905.
* Please enter at Guardian Storage (1002 East Waterfront Dr. Munhall, PA 15120) to be directed to parking for the event.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Rebirth in Homestead: the Carnegie Library
Comedian Paula Poundstone will be there Friday. Patti Smith showed up in 2007 just after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. David Crosby and Graham Nash recently played to a sellout crowd, as did Nickelodeon's "iCarly" star Miranda Cosgrove.
Is there a glitzy new entertainment venue in town?
Not exactly, unless you consider the century-old music hall at the Carnegie Library of Homestead to be glitzy, with its terrific acoustics, a thousand seats of burnished wood, a coffee shop (whose grand opening is Friday during the Paula Poundstone performance) and a wine bar.
The recently renovated hall, along with a new fitness center, reading room and other amenities have transformed the Homestead library -- located in Munhall -- from an antiquated white elephant of a building in a faded neighborhood into a self-sustaining multipurpose facility for a newly reinvigorated community.
At a time when nonprofits and other "community benefit" organizations are reeling from cuts in public funding, the Homestead library is a textbook example of social enterprise and reinvention, experts say, using revenue from the music hall and its fitness club memberships to stay viable. The library's core mission has been preserved, and then some: you can check out a book or use a computer, take a Spinning class, have a cup of coffee or see a show.
There's more to come: a swimming pool in the basement -- the longest continually operating heated pool in Western Pennsylvania, complete with marble columns reminiscent of ancient Rome -- will be renovated, as will an old bowling alley, which may become an indoor baseball training facility.
"They've captured the spirit of the original Andrew Carnegie vision for libraries in building and renovating what he originally saw as a community center with multi-function outreach, updated for the 21st century," said Marilyn Jenkins, executive director for the Allegheny County Library Association, which comprises 45 libraries -- including the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, which isn't affiliated with Homestead.
"If we had told people in Pittsburgh that we were going to take a 113-year-old library and turn it into an engine for economic development that would drive business to the Waterfront and surrounding communities, they would have said we were crazy -- but most people think I'm crazy anyway," said Dan Lloyd, a Munhall insurance agent who is widely regarded as the driving force behind the library's renovation.
Mr. Lloyd, who chairs the library's 11-member board, may have ruffled some feathers when he first joined in 2004, but few people are complaining now except, he noted, for some who said they were shocked -- shocked -- that alcohol was being served during music hall performances.
Bookings have dramatically increased thanks to the efforts of Brian Drusky, a local concert promoter who took a chance on Homestead when others wouldn't, Mr. Lloyd said. When he first started contacting entertainment promoters about bringing acts to the music hall six years ago, he was told "it will be a cold day in hell when we bring a show to Homestead."
"Who's sorry now?" he asked a visitor, only half-jokingly, adding that when Ms. Cosgrove, then 17, appeared at her sold-out show in January, 100 young fans paid extra and lined up an hour beforehand in the old shuffleboard room to meet the young star.
Mr. Lloyd's "aha" moment, he says, came in 2006, when he attended a seminar led by Michael Kumer, executive director at Duquesne University's Nonprofit Leadership Institute, who talked about the ways "community benefit" organizations could survive.
"What we do is coach organizations, to assume that they have hidden assets and can creatively look and explore ways to leverage those assets to create new and diversified income streams," said Mr. Kumer, who said he was aware of Mr. Lloyd's subsequent efforts.
The library was designed by the architectural firm of Alden & Harlow, which designed the Duquesne Club, and is believed to be the third library in the United States built by Carnegie after those in Braddock and the North Side.
"I totally admire what they're doing in Homestead. Libraries have to change with the times," said Vicki Vargo, executive director of the Carnegie Braddock library -- Mr. Carnegie's first library. While in a more economically depressed community than Homestead's, Braddock's library is renovating its own music hall and has transformed what used to be a bathhouse in the building into a ceramic studio.
While a $1 million endowment established by Carnegie helped the Homestead library stay afloat during the 1990s, the 2008 recession meant a $300,000 drop in its worth, forcing the board to lay off its executive director, library director and a music hall employee.
"Many corporations lay off at the bottom end of the ladder, but we could not do that because it would have meant a cut in services," said Mr. Lloyd. Instead, he and other board members are managing the facility themselves until they are able to afford to hire an executive director.
The library's operating budget is $850,000, not including capital expenditures -- of which only $161,000 came from government funding in 2010. Last year, $150,000 from a community block grant was used for infrastructure improvements, along with $50,000 from the Allegheny Foundation to renovate and enlarge the children's and teen areas.
The children's library, across from the new adult reading room, is a marvel. Its walls, ceilings and columns were hand-painted in trompe l'oeil fashion by artist Elizabeth White, while the teen area -- called "the Sky Room" -- was painted in shades of dark blue, punctuated with stars, by artist Ian Green.
The adult reading room was also restored to its original design.
Professionals were hired to do much of the work, but Mr. Lloyd and a number of other volunteers spent nights and weekends stripping floors, sanding and painting to reduce costs.
They even laid the tile themselves in the coffee shop -- named after Mr. Lloyd's Aunt Betty Jane Lloyd, who donated $10,000 to complete it.
On Friday, music hall patrons for the first time will be able to go to Aunt B's coffee shop for a cup of joe, unless they're in the mood for a glass of wine.
And while they're imbibing, they're helping their local public library survive.
"It's all about people stepping up to the plate," Mr. Lloyd said.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
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