Seedlings in peet pots , a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Jackal of all trades’ photostream

The Sprout Fund was created ten years ago by Cathy Lewis Long and Matt Hannigan to provide seed money to foster grassroots community projects. Their main emphasis has been on artistic and environmental initiatives. While the Richard King Mellon Foundation is a main contributor, The Sprout Fund works very closely within communities and gives opportunities to the kinds of people and projects who wouldn’t normally receive larger, conventional grants. They’ve mostly concentrated on providing modest financial awards that support community-based projects spread throughout neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, and Fayette and Greene counties. While many of their grants have been small-scale, their impact has been large. According to a recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, they’ve “seeded 450 projects at a total value of $4 million.” And, we’re talking about public projects that all can enjoy. These include 55 neighborhood murals and those sculptural bike racks seen in commercial areas. They’ve also helped fund such diverse projects as the politically themed Conflict Kitchen; Burgh Bees, a nonprofit organization that teaches people how to keep bees; the crafters fair Handmade Arcade; and the documentary series “East of Liberty” by local filmmaker Chris Ivey.

Then, there’s all the grants that they’ve given to help make Pittsburgh a more bike-friendly city. These include helping BikePGH get their start. The bicycle advocacy organization had a $500 budget before they received a grant for the bike racks. The Sprout Fund further assisted with their first fundraiser: Bike Fest. Ten years later, BikePgh has 1,500+ members, it’s own employees, and works with the city to help all cyclists. Additionally, The Sprout Fund provided a grant to produce “3 Rivers on 2 Wheels” — a bike explorer’s guide to our city.

The Sprout Fund has also given monies to some larger scale projects including $50,000 to develop the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium’s ReefBot which teaches children about reef conservation. Now, in celebration of their tenth anniversary they are about to embark on their most ambitious project to date. They will announce later this month who will receive a $100,000 commission to create a signature public artwork to be installed on the Law and Finance Building on Fourth Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh.

To get an idea of the full impact of The Sprout Fund, here’s former county Executive Jim Roddey as quoted in the Post-Gazette:

He called Sprout’s impact “enormous” and said the economic benefit from $4 million dispersed over 10 years is “probably 10 times that. It’s grown in reputation and popularity, it’s been a marvelous success, and I’m really proud of her.”

Happy Tenth Anniversary, Sprout Fund!

Pittsburgh Skyline, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Lagged2Death’s photostream

Pedal, Paddle, Peduto returns in 2011 with the City Lights Paddle on Wednesday, September 21 from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. The Pedal, Paddle, Peduto Hike and Learn Series consists of three educational, outdoor adventures. Pedal, Paddle, Peduto is hosted by Venture Outdoors — Pittsburgh’s premier outdoor experiences organization. During each outing, you’ll learn about our city’s history and the vision for its future with Councilman Bill Peduto and special guests.

Participants in the City Lights Paddle will join Councilman Peduto, architect Rob Pfaffmann, Tom Baxter from Friends of the Riverfront and Sean Brady from Riverlife for an evening paddle in Downtown Pittsburgh. It’s a five mile, round-trip paddle with stops for discussions of future city development from the perspective of the waterfront, riverfront trails and rivers. Imagine watching the sun setting over the beautiful Pittsburgh skyline from the unique vantage point of a kayak on the river! It will truly be an unforgettable experience for anyone who loves Pittsburgh.

City Lights Paddle
Date: Wednesday, September 21
Location: Kayak Pittsburgh – Downtown (near PNC Park)
Difficulty: Moderate
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Cost: $33.00 non-member / $25.00 member

You can register online here or call call 412-255-0564, ext. 0.

You can find out more about the other events in the Pedal, Paddle, Peduto Hike and Learn Series here.

Switches?, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from feesta’s photostream

UnSmoke Systems Artspace hosts The Lost Pittsburgh School exhibit, lecture and performance series from August 6 – 27. Councilor Bill Peduto will be one of the featured speakers (details below). While the artwork is real, the artists listed on the project’s website are archetypal and reflect our region’s industrial roots and changing economy. The work itself includes environmental and conceptual outdoor art and the website includes geotagging via Google Maps for some of the works featured in the show. Here’s a description of The Lost Pittsburgh School by novelist Stewart O’Nan:

For over 30 years, the city that made the weapons which defeated the Confederacy, the Kaiser and then the Nazis, that provided the steel for all the cars from Detroit and the beams for the Chrysler and the Empire State Buildings, that gave the world Gertrude Stein, Billy Strayhorn and Andy Warhol — the city that endlessly inspired W. Eugene Smith — was known exclusively as the home of a football team. Except to those who lived here, and even to many of them, the city itself was invisible.

In those underground years, the artists of what has been dubbed The Lost Pittsburgh School took on the project of self-definition, glorying in the radical changes to the city’s landscape. The work is a nearly unfiltered reflection of the moment. Decay and chaos rule.

Actor and writer David Conrad, who is one of the organizers of the project, describes members of this heretofore lost school of art as “imagined exemplars of an era, vehicles to help us reconceive what is art, and what is Pittsburgh.”

Thus, we get artists like “Gil Dugita” who’s “never held a job outside of a bar or a non-union construction site” and who has five children by four different women. “Gil” is obsessed with light and the color white and he “regularly buys out the supply of Bell and Mason White from TT hardware on Carson St. on Pgh’s South Side.” Then there’s “Danilova Navratilova Malloy” who received a degree in fine and industrial design from Carnegie Mellon and worked as a civil engineer until the economy and the legacy of her grandfather — a master of ceramic and glass design from Bratislava — caught up with her. She became one of Pittsburgh’s finest mosaic and stained glass artists.

The Lost Pittsburgh School exhibit, lectures and performances can be seen for free each Saturday at 7:00 PM (the exhibit can also be seen by appointment during the week: info@unsmokeartspace.com). This Saturday, August 13th, will feature lectures by Charlie Humphrey, Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Pittsburgh Filmmakers; Bill Peduto, Pittsburgh City Council Member; and Doug Shields, Pittsburgh City Council Member. The UnSmoke Artspace is located at 1137 Braddock Ave., Braddock, Pa. 15104.

“Gil Dugita”

Work by “Danilova Navratilova Malloy”

PPG, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Sabbath Photography’s photostream

“I am convinced that our people want clean air. There is no other single thing which will so dramatically improve the appearance, the health, the pride, the spirit of the city.”

- Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence in his 1946 inaugural speech

For over a century, Pittsburgh was known for the foulness of our air — it was the “The Smoky City.” Pittsburgh was called “hell with the lid off” in an 1866 article in The Atlantic Monthly and “the dirtiest pile of slag in the United States” by the National Municipal Review in 1944. In the 1939 film The City (video here), scene after scene of Pittsburgh is used as the prime example of how we had destroyed our cities through pollution. An extreme concentration of heavy industry often turned day into night and destroyed the health of the citizens, but as the film’s narrator intones, “smoke makes prosperity — no matter if you choke on it.” By the 1940′s, even businesses were threatening to leave, but a new mayor rose to the challenge. David L. Lawrence’s campaign slogan was “Smoke Must Go.” He built alliances with the private sector and in 1949, a comprehensive anti-pollution law was passed.

“Midday darkness” Credit: Smoke Control Lantern Slides, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh (link)

Flash-forward to 2011. No one can now call Pittsburgh “The Smoky City,” but we’ve fallen behind in keeping our air clean and safe. The American Lung Association’s “State of the Air 2011″ report rated Pittsburgh’s air quality as “the nation’s third most polluted area for short-term particle pollution for the second year in a row.” Again, we face a risk to both the health and lives of our residents and to our economic prosperity.

One form of particle pollution is diesel emissions — these contain over 40 toxic air contaminants, carcinogens, ozone smog-forming compounds, and fine particulate matter (“soot”). Exposure to fine particles is known to cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, strokes, and even premature deaths. The lifetime cancer risk from diesel soot in our community exceeds the risk of all other air toxins tracked by the EPA combined. Diesel soot cancer risk in the Pittsburgh area is 124 times greater than EPA’s acceptable cancer level of 1 in a million — our risk is 1 in 8,064. Additionally, emergency room visits for children with asthma-like symptoms is 400% higher in Pittsburgh than other cities. Now, imagine you have a company looking to start-up or relocate your business. How likely would you be to choose a city with the third highest short-term particle pollution? How likely would you be to want to move your family to a city with record levels of asthma-like symptoms for kids?

Again, a challenge needed to be met. An EPA study showed that the construction sector creates between 32% and 37% of all mobile source emissions. Moreover, when construction vehicles are used in publicly-funded projects, we are paying for them — with our tax dollars — to pollute our air. Hence, the Clean Air Act.

The Clean Air Act is our city’s first clean-air bill since the era of late Mayor David Lawrence. A year in the making, it requires contractors working on publicly-funded construction projects budgeted at $2,500,000 or more in the City of Pittsburgh to use cleaner diesel fuel and to have pollution controls on their vehicles and equipment. It’s estimated that this will reduce the soot from heavy equipment by 85% or more (vehicles and equipment used on public construction will, of course, also end up being used on privately-funded projects).

The prime sponsor of the Clean Air Act is Councilman Bill Peduto. Initial co-sponsors on Pittsburgh City Council included Bruce Kraus, Doug Shields and Natalia Rudiak, and were later joined by Darlene Harris and Theresa Smith. The Clean Air Act was passed unanimously by City Council on Tuesday, July 12th. But, just as in Lawrence’s time, legislation like this required a coalition of support and this one included labor, business, environmental, faith, advocacy and community groups — 42 in total.

The list of supporters includes: Pittsburgh UNITED (comprised of ACTION United, Clean Water Action, Group Against Smog and Pollution, Hill District Consensus Group, Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, Pittsburgh Branch NAACP, Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, SEIU, Sierra Club, and United Food and Commercial Workers Local 23, Ironworkers Local 3, Just Harvest, United Steelworkers); GTECH; 9Mile Run Watershed Association; Sustainable Pittsburgh; One Hill Coalition; PennEnvironment; Urban Green Growth Collaborative; RePower America; Turtle Creek Watershed; Blue Green Alliance; United Jewish Federation Environmental Committee; Three Rivers Wet Weather; American Rivers; Bioneers; Northside Common Ministries; 3 Rivers Water Keeper; Pink Coat Communications; CHEC; Friend’s Meeting House; Workers United; Women for a Healthy Environment; Penn Future; Women and Girls Foundation; One Pittsburgh; Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania; Bike Pittsburgh; Conservation Consultants, Inc.; Royal Tribe Music; Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition; Small World One Daycare Center.

You can view the Clean Air Act here and the companion “10 Year Clean Diesel Policy” Resolution here.

Congratulations and thanks to all the supporters. And, congratulations to the residents of the City of Pittsburgh who will reap the benefits of cleaner air!

End of the Day, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from t3knomanser’s photostream

Clearing the Billboard, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Truthout.org’s photostream

Scenic Pittsburgh believes in the intrinsic beauty of our city. They know that our scenic vistas are not only good for the soul, they are good for tourism and our local economy. Their mission is to “preserve, protect and enhance the scenic beauty of the Pittsburgh region” and they do this by trying to save our city from the visual pollution of billboards. This issue is increasingly important as electronic billboards have made their way onto the scene. Scenic Pittsburgh notes:

Zoning regulations do not address the new technologies that make billboards brighter and more intrusive than ever. New electronic billboards present new hazards as they distract drivers with multiple moving messages. Most billboards in Pittsburgh, built before zoning regulations were enacted, are not in compliance with current zoning requirements. Content control for billboards is limited so ads can contain sexually explicit content or vile and hateful messages.

Most people agree with the idea that billboards add clutter and despoil our cityscapes and landscapes. Unfortunately, PA law makes it difficult to acquire the land that billboards occupy. Also, under our state laws, most billboards in Pittsburgh enjoy grandfathered legal status. Otherwise, hundreds of non-conforming billboards would be illegal. Scenic Pittsburgh, therefore, concentrates mainly on banning the construction of new billboards. They had a recent victory in downtown Pittsburgh. They went to court to demand that a giant 1,900-square-foot LED billboard and ticker on the Grant Street Transportation Center that had been illegally placed be removed. Scenic Pittsburgh won their suit and now the sign will have to be taken down by its owner — Lamar Advertising — by September 1st and Lamar will have to pay for the removal.

Scenic Pittsburgh is a project of the Pennsylvania Resources Council and is an affiliate of Scenic America (a nonprofit advocacy organization solely dedicated to removing visual blight). Scenic Pittsburgh is looking for qualified and dedicated individuals to become members of their Board of Advisors. They want people who are “passionate about preservation and dedicated to the notion that natural, artistic, architectural scenic beauty should be protected.” If you are interested in serving a good organization and protecting our scenic treasures, you can fill out an application here.

Trees, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0)image from sanchom’s photostream

There are almost 2,000 acres of land in Pittsburgh’s four RAD-funded parks — half of which are dense urban forests. Up to 60% of the trees in these parks may be facing significant losses in the coming years due to challenges which include emerald ash borer, oak wilt and overbrowsing by deer. Our trees are our calling card to the image of a new, green Pittsburgh (and a visual refutation of our smokey past). Additionally, they help to clean and cool our air and stabilize our hillsides. Those interested in preserving our green places are invited to attend a free public presentation. The Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and Pittsburgh Shade Tree Commission will conduct a public meeting on Thursday, February 17th to discuss the state of our urban forest, the threats to it, and a Tree Action Plan:

Preserving Pittsburgh’s Trees:
Action and Recovery
Thursday, February 17, 2011, 6:30 – 8:00pm
Frick Fine Arts Building
University of Pittsburgh Campus
(Across from Schenley Plaza)

Speakers include:

Dr. Walter Carson, Associate Professor, Plant Community Ecology and Tropical and Temperate Forest Ecology, University of Pittsburgh

David Schmit, Forest Health Specialist, Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

Dr. William L. MacDonald, Professor, Division of Plant and Soil Sciences, West Virginia University

Lisa Ceoffe, Urban Forester and TreeVitalize Coordinator, City of Pittsburgh

Phil Gruszka, Director of Park Management and Maintenance, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy

David Jahn, City Forester, City of Pittsburgh

You can register to attend the tree symposium here.

More on Pittsburgh’s Tree Action Plan:

Single white cloud on a clear blue sky, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Horia Varlan’s photostream

Cloud computing allows people to access web-based tools or applications as if they were installed on their own computers/smart phones. The cloud metaphor was first used to describe the infrastructure of phone networks, and later, the Internet. Now, clouds are taking on a new meaning. On December 10th, Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto, N21 LLC and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy announced an innovative use of cloud computing with the creation of a “learning cloud” in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Plaza. Anyone with a laptop or handheld device will be able to simply point-and-click while in the plaza to learn all about the objects that surround them. Within the “learning cloud” they can learn about the history of the park, the scientific details of the natural environment, or architectural details of the surrounding neighborhood.

“This is the type of innovation will bring to life the objects that surround us every day and also create new opportunities for citizen involvement,” said Councilman Peduto. “We are bringing new education opportunities to the people in a free and open environment.”

The Outdoor Partnership utilizes mobile learning interfaces, geospatial information technology and outdoor high bandwidth communication networks to make this experience possible. Florida-based N21′s president, David Fries, is a Pittsburgh native who was looking to bring his pioneering networks home. He met Peduto at a convention last year. From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Fries, who works at the University of South Florida developing mobile technologies for low-infrastructure environments, sees his hometown — and the plaza, specifically — as the perfect place to debut the concept.

“It’s an intellectual and cultural epicenter,” he said. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to give Pittsburgh a chance to be out front on this technology.”

N21 is working with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, which operates Schenley Plaza, to organize its information about the area and structure it for mobile access. Signs will alert visitors they’re entering the learning cloud.

“Your device becomes cognizant of the network,” Fries said, and the network pinpoints the user’s location. The user can take a picture of a nearby tree or any other object; the cloud will match the image against its database and then respond to the user with a batch of information about the object. Eventually, Fries plans to have the network send users an automatic stream of facts based on their location.

Councilman Peduto’s office provided a $5,000 grant to help launch the project. N21 and the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy have already applied for a grant from the National Science Foundation for long-term funding.

Even more exciting, this technology can be expanded — imagine the entire city enveloped by a learning cloud — instead of surfing the net, you’ll be surfing the ‘Burgh.

Schenley Plaza, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from rwoan’s photostream

St_Pauls_Cathedral (5), a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from camrich345′s photostream

On September 6th, Pittsburghers joined Bill Peduto and special guests on a leisurely bike ride around Oakland and Pittsburgh’s East End as part of the Pedal Paddle Peduto Hike and Learn Series. Peddle Paddle Peduto is a series of three hiking, biking, and kayaking trips around Pittsburgh. Participants learn about Pittsburgh’s history and the vision for its future by key organizations involved in building the city’s next renaissance.

On this particular ride, they visited the religious institutions that call Oakland and the East End home. You can sign up for future Pedal Paddle Peduto events at Venture Outdoors.

Here’s a recap of that outing:

The second session of Venture Outdoors Pedal, Paddle, Peduto took place on Sunday July 5, as Councilman Bill Peduto and participants went on a bike ride through downtown Pittsburgh.

Louise Sturgess from Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, Don Carter from Urban Design Associates, and Eve Picker from no walls productions joined Councilman Peduto to speak about the history and design of our downtown buildings.  

The 32 participants, both children and adults, simultaneously learned about the downtown area of their city, and enjoyed a relaxing bike ride past the buildings they were learning so much about.

Missed out on the last two Pedal, Paddle, Peduto trips?  Don’t worry – there is still one session of Pedal, Paddle, Peduto left this summer!
Sign up here for the City Parks Walkabout.

On June 14th, outdoor activity and policy discussion were united in the first session of Venture Outdoor’s Pedal, Paddle, Peduto summer program.  

For the first session, 42 people joined Councilman Bill Peduto for a kayaking trip with an informative twist.  As the group kayaked on Pittsburgh’s rivers, they also learned about the Pittsburgh’s riverfront environment and riverfront development.

Lisa Schroeder from Riverlife, Tom Baxter from Friends of the Riverfront, and Rob Pfaffmann from Pfaffmann and Associates spoke to the participants about our city’s rivers.

For more photos, visit the Pedal, Paddle, Peduto page, or our Flickr!