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2009-06-14 14:25:44 
$39.5M August Wilson Center opens doors Downtown The brand-new August Wilson Center for African American Culture hosted a community open house on Saturday to celebrate the buildings near-completion. The Center, at 980 Liberty Ave., will be open with limited access throughout the summer, and its final look will be unveiled at a gala on Sept. 19. The $39.5 million addition to Downtowns Cultural District was designed by San Francisco-based architect Allison Williams of Perkins+Will. The construction management team includes Oxford Development, Turning Construction, Sterling Contracting, LLC and Ebony Development. The 65,000 square-foot Center, which is pursing LEED Silver certification, uses materials, such as steel, aluminum and plate-glass, that are relevant to the region. The rich purple paint and zebra-wood wall coverings give the space an organic, elegant feel, echoed in the sloping stone wall that rises through the Centers entire height and anchors the grand staircase. The north-facing, floor-to-ceiling windows on both the first and second floors allow for impressive natural light as well as panoramic views of Downtown and the Hill District. We didn't want it to feel like a palace on a hill, says Shay Wafer with the Center. The building is so open and welcoming because of the windows. Anything going on inside is visible from the outside. The Center extends itself into the Downtown community and becomes a part of it. The Center also features administrative offices (relocating from the Regional Enterprise Tower mid-June), permanent and changing exhibit galleries, a studio equipped with a spring floor, a gift shop, an education center, a café with sidewalk seating options, and a donor lounge housed in the Center’s metal-and-glass “sail,†its signature design element. The Center’s two-story, 486-seat theater will see its first performance on June 11 by musician Me'Shell Ndegeocello
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2009-06-14 14:29:05 
Three Rivers Arts Festival The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Three Rivers Arts Festival Now thru 6/14/2009 Please visit the website for programming details Summer begins in downtown Pittsburgh with the 50th annual Three Rivers Arts Festival, a celebration of art, music, performance and community. Point State Park, Hertz Gateway Center, and numerous Cultural District locations downtown 412.456.6666 www.artsfestival.net Free
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2009-06-14 14:37:23 
Diamond in the Rust By Henry Hamman Financial Times Published: April 25 2009 03:37 | Last updated: April 25 2009 03:37 Butler Street, Lawrenceville “Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears. Oh! Hard Times, come again no more. While we all sup sorrow with the poor: There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears.” More than a century after the Pittsburgh native Stephen Foster – perhaps the greatest American songwriter of the 19th century – wrote this, his words ring true. Yet residents of Lawrenceville, the area where Foster was born and raised, are hoping that, in this recession, the hardest of times might pass them by. After all, no less an authority than Richard Florida, the urban studies theorist, has called their community “an example of the kind of place that can be a ‘next neighbourhood’.” EDITOR’S CHOICE Border in bloom - Apr-11 Spanish transition - Apr-04 Eastern promise - Mar-28 Lively, young and quirky - Mar-21 Going with the flow - Mar-14 The greenest suburb - Mar-07 Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, knows Lawrenceville well.
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