The holiday season is over, and downtown had its usual heavy traffic in a couple of hot spots. The skating rink at PPG Place is very popular. Another favorite destination is the creche on the plaza at the US Steel Building.
The rink has great atmosphere: A giant tree, the skating rink, wide open space, holiday music playing. It's like the Pittsburgh version of Rockefeller Center. The difference is there's no real retail presence of any consequence in the shadow of PPG Place. So we know that people come, rent skates and sip hot chocolate. But do they do anything else downtown? Ruth's Chris Steakhouse isn't the kind of place where you drop in for a snack with the kids after an afternoon of skating. I'm not sure that any business really benefits much from all the visitors.
The scene is largely the same at the creche. The Steel Building has always been an island unto itself in that part of town. No stores in the immediate area, no quick bite places within site of the plaza.
Downtown has two nice attractions in the holiday season that should bring people into the area. Too bad there isn't more near either to keep the visitors a little longer.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
This Letter Nails It
Published in the Post-Gazette, Tuesday Nov. 20, 2007:
Misguided glitz
Post-Gazette sportswriter Dejan Kovacevic usually ends his online Pirates Q&A with "Thing No. [X] That Makes Pittsburgh Great." Inspired by his example, and dismayed by the story about the purging of Candy-Rama from its longtime home Downtown ("Hanging Up Their Hats," Oct. 31), I present "Thing No. 87 That Makes Pittsburgh Lame and Degenerate":
A slavish adherence to yuppie-centric Reaganomics in Downtown drives small, local businesses out, in favor of high-rise condos, ritzy chains and fitness clubs.
These spawns of misguided supply-side development seem to sprout in our city daily like a twisted thicket on the shores of Acheron. Aside from the pandering to the upper crust antithetical to Pittsburgh's proletarian identity, the distressing element here is that Downtown is going to be loaded with high-end housing and gyms that will be completely empty.
And yet, the Urban Redevelopment Authority keeps making way for these establishments as if the problem were that they just haven't built the right one yet. They think that perhaps this will be the boutique-condo-fitness-martini-bar complex that will tap the yuppie geyser and have the Lincoln Navigators flowing through town on a river of wealth.
More likely, 15 years from now we'll still have an abandoned Downtown full of overpriced lofts nestled among shanties of uninspired art and bad theater, but we also will have wasted billions on a metropolitan-center-never-to-be.
Pittsburgh's charm and strength is in the personalities of its (now decaying) neighborhoods. Build on that. People don't visit New York to see office buildings, but Greenwich Village and Chinatown. People want personality and variety, not a pathetic attempt to fulfill a generic and unrealistic notion of "urban."
MORGAN KELLY
Squirrel Hill
Misguided glitz
Post-Gazette sportswriter Dejan Kovacevic usually ends his online Pirates Q&A with "Thing No. [X] That Makes Pittsburgh Great." Inspired by his example, and dismayed by the story about the purging of Candy-Rama from its longtime home Downtown ("Hanging Up Their Hats," Oct. 31), I present "Thing No. 87 That Makes Pittsburgh Lame and Degenerate":
A slavish adherence to yuppie-centric Reaganomics in Downtown drives small, local businesses out, in favor of high-rise condos, ritzy chains and fitness clubs.
These spawns of misguided supply-side development seem to sprout in our city daily like a twisted thicket on the shores of Acheron. Aside from the pandering to the upper crust antithetical to Pittsburgh's proletarian identity, the distressing element here is that Downtown is going to be loaded with high-end housing and gyms that will be completely empty.
And yet, the Urban Redevelopment Authority keeps making way for these establishments as if the problem were that they just haven't built the right one yet. They think that perhaps this will be the boutique-condo-fitness-martini-bar complex that will tap the yuppie geyser and have the Lincoln Navigators flowing through town on a river of wealth.
More likely, 15 years from now we'll still have an abandoned Downtown full of overpriced lofts nestled among shanties of uninspired art and bad theater, but we also will have wasted billions on a metropolitan-center-never-to-be.
Pittsburgh's charm and strength is in the personalities of its (now decaying) neighborhoods. Build on that. People don't visit New York to see office buildings, but Greenwich Village and Chinatown. People want personality and variety, not a pathetic attempt to fulfill a generic and unrealistic notion of "urban."
MORGAN KELLY
Squirrel Hill
Squeezed out?
That's the theme of this Tribune-Review article:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_537826.html
There has to be a place for the small and quirky businesses in the new downtown.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/search/s_537826.html
There has to be a place for the small and quirky businesses in the new downtown.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Light-Up Night
It's one of the few times that suburbanites renew the tradition of shopping downtown. Well, at least they walk around downtown for a few hours after dark, and that's something.
Macy's has continued the Kaufmann's tradition of elaborately-decorated display windows. After Light-Up Night, I often see families driving slowly along Smithfield Street so the kids can get a look at them. Sometimes they'll hastily park and dash out of the SUV long enough to take a picture or shoot some video. Then it's back into the vehicle and back to the mall.
Macy's has continued the Kaufmann's tradition of elaborately-decorated display windows. After Light-Up Night, I often see families driving slowly along Smithfield Street so the kids can get a look at them. Sometimes they'll hastily park and dash out of the SUV long enough to take a picture or shoot some video. Then it's back into the vehicle and back to the mall.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
A Sour Deal
No Candy Rama downtown?
This is appalling news, outlined in this Post-Gazette story by Mark Belko:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07304/829842-85.stm
They're being booted from their building in the name of downtown progress after 55 years in business.
Candy Rama used to have another location at the corner of Fifth and Wood. They closed that when kids waiting at a nearby bus stop would swarm in and steal. They had a nice, large location in the Clark Building on Liberty, but that closed earlier this year.
When former mayor Tom Murphy was preaching a scorched earth approach to downtown development via the doomed Nordstrom project, he sneered, "Do we want Candy Rama to define downtown?" Maybe not, but we certainly want Candy Rama to be downtown. It's one of those uniquely Pittsburgh experiences that has survived for generations. People comb speciality websites to find rare treats that are in regular stock at Candy Rama.
The owners have apparently been unable to find a location that makes economic sense. If I ran the Union Trust Building -- in one of the few areas that gets regular foot traffic, thanks to Macy's -- I'd be on the phone to the Candy Rama people and putting out a red carpet for them to rent some of the vacant space at street level.
With any luck at all, the front page publicity will lead to some sort of deal that will allow Candy Rama to keep a presence downtown. How can we lose a first-class candy store when we have a kid mayor?
This is appalling news, outlined in this Post-Gazette story by Mark Belko:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07304/829842-85.stm
They're being booted from their building in the name of downtown progress after 55 years in business.
Candy Rama used to have another location at the corner of Fifth and Wood. They closed that when kids waiting at a nearby bus stop would swarm in and steal. They had a nice, large location in the Clark Building on Liberty, but that closed earlier this year.
When former mayor Tom Murphy was preaching a scorched earth approach to downtown development via the doomed Nordstrom project, he sneered, "Do we want Candy Rama to define downtown?" Maybe not, but we certainly want Candy Rama to be downtown. It's one of those uniquely Pittsburgh experiences that has survived for generations. People comb speciality websites to find rare treats that are in regular stock at Candy Rama.
The owners have apparently been unable to find a location that makes economic sense. If I ran the Union Trust Building -- in one of the few areas that gets regular foot traffic, thanks to Macy's -- I'd be on the phone to the Candy Rama people and putting out a red carpet for them to rent some of the vacant space at street level.
With any luck at all, the front page publicity will lead to some sort of deal that will allow Candy Rama to keep a presence downtown. How can we lose a first-class candy store when we have a kid mayor?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
That smell
If you've been anywhere around 7th and Liberty lately, you've smelled the grease pit in the new Moby Fish take-out place. Whew.
According to the menu they put in a City Paper ad, the place is big on catfish and also offers chicken gizzards.
This doesn't seem like a positive addition to the "new" downtown. Wonder what Morton's thinks of the new neighbor?
According to the menu they put in a City Paper ad, the place is big on catfish and also offers chicken gizzards.
This doesn't seem like a positive addition to the "new" downtown. Wonder what Morton's thinks of the new neighbor?
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Paper or Plastic
The downtown grocery store will finally open in October according to this article in the Post-Gazette. The location should be fine for downtown residents -- it's an easy walk from most of the new buildings that are opening, and manageable from the residential buildings in Gateway Center as well. I can't imagine this will do much business with workers picking up something on the way home. This just won't be on the way for most people who work downtown. The issue will be whether downtown residents can provide enough business to make this venture viable. One thing that's encouraging is that Robin Fernandez is backing this venture. Fernandez is the one who saw the potential for the Strip District as an entertainment destination, then was smart enough to get out before it came crashing down.
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