News Around the Neighborhood

Every Student Succeeds Act Meeting

City Council District 6 The Pittsburgh Black Elected Officials Coalition is partnering with the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and A+ Schools to host a public discussion with the PA Department of Education on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed by President Obama on December 10, 2015, and was intended to represent good news for our nation’s schools. This bipartisan measure reauthorizes the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the nation’s national education law and longstanding commitment to equal opportunity for all students. It is important that the community comes together at this time of political transitioning to discuss what this law means for students of our Commonwealth and City.

When

Friday, December 2nd at 9:30 am (Registration starts at 9:00 am)

Where

CCAC Allegheny Campus, Tom Foerster Student Service Center

Award-winning Chatham University novelist Marc Nieson Debuts Memoir

City of Asylum (12th Year)

Marc Nieson

Friday, December 9th
8:00 pm

City of Asylum @ Alphabet City
40 W North Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15212

“Someone once told me that School and Life were different; in school they give you the lessons before the test, in life it’s the other way around.“

Marc Nieson, Schoolhouse: Lessons on Love + Landscape

Join us on Friday, December 9th for a reading by long-time friend of City of Asylum, Chatham professor and author Marc Nieson. We are honored to host a reading of his newly published book Schoolhouse: Lessons on Love + Landscape, in which he explores love, identity, and writing during his time in Iowa.

Structured like a schoolhouse primer, Marc’s personal and introspective memoir examines his life subject by subject. Each subject – from “Geography” to “History” to “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” – is a chapter describing his life-changing experience as part of the University of Iowa’s intensive writers’ retreat.

Marc will be joined by visiting City of Asylum writer-in-residence Ukamaka Olisakwe (Nigeria) from the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.

Marc NiesonMarc Nieson is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and NYU Film School. In the 1990s he worked with the International Writing Program, and is thrilled to be joining their ranks again for this reading. His memoir, Schoolhouse: Lessons on Love & Landscape just released from Ice Cube Press. (www.icecubepress.com) He’s won a Raymond Carver Short Story Award, Pushcart Prize nominations, and been noted in Best American Essays. He teaches at Chatham University, edits fiction for The Fourth River, and is at work on a new novel, Houdini’s Heirs.

[ebor_button style=”pomegranate” url=”https://cityofasylumpittsburgh.secure.force.com/ticket/#sections_a0F3100000MSYlfEAH”] Get Your FREE Tickets Today [/ebor_button]

Police Training Center Open House: November 29th

Our new neighbor, the Pittsburgh Police training center on N Lincoln Avenue has invited all of us in Allegheny West to join them for an open house this coming Tuesday. Here are the details:

When: Tuesday, November 29th from 4:00-6:00 pm
Where: 900 N Lincoln Avenue (at the corner with Galveston)

Come out and learn more about this new Pittsburgh Police facility!

Discounted Tickets for Northsiders: Three Days in the Country

Three Days in the Country

Presented by Kinetic Theatre
November 23, 25 + 26 | 8 PM

Set on a beautiful country estate in mid-nineteenth century Russia. A handsome new tutor brings reckless, romantic desire to an eccentric household. Ivan Turgenev’s passionate, moving comedy, A Month in the Country, has been a source of inspiration for films, a ballet and the plays of Chekhov. It’s presented here in a new version by Patrick Marber.

Northsiders Get $11 Off the Price of Admission

Use Discount Code: Northside

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Coming Soon: City of Asylum Books @ Alphabet City

City of Asylum (12th Year)

Coming Soon

City of Asylum Books is Almost Here

City of Asylum Books @ Alphabet City is an independent bookstore specializing in works in translation and world literature. We carry over 7000 titles for adults and children. We are dedicated to offering a geographically and linguistically diverse collection of translations from many genres: literature, poetry, history, travel, cookbooks, and children’s literature.

City of Asylum Books will also feature:

  • Complete collections of some of the most prominent publishers of translated literature, including: New York Review of Books, Archipelago Books, Dalkey Archive, New Directions, along with many others
  • A robust children’s section dedicated to promoting diverse authors and stories
  • A weekly Saturday morning story hour for children
  • A cookbook section (my personal favorite) featuring gorgeously produced regional and ethnic cookbooks from all over the world
  • A Free Book Program for our low-income community members

The bookstore is committed to furthering City of Asylum’s mission of giving voice and promoting cross-cultural exchange. We hope you will visit with an open mind and an open heart.

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GTECH Resilience Generation Initiative

Resilience Generation

Technical Assistance and Direct Financial Support for Projects Improving Community Health

Now through June 2019, GTECH will offer a range of custom interventions in partnership with 24 individual communities in the effort to increase resilience of vulnerable communities.

If your organization works with residents to build community health and resilience, you could apply for awards ranging from $5-30K of direct and indirect resources.

Applications due December 2nd

More information and applications available at:

[ebor_button style=”nephritis” url=”http://gtechstrategies.org/regen”] Resilience Generation [/ebor_button]

Letter from the President – November 2016

In a happy coincidence, Allegheny West elections and US elections fall on the same day. (I guess if we’d really been coordinating I would have managed to have the AWCC officer elections on the state ballot.) Consider the following exhortations about your civic duty:

  • “this is one of the clearest avenues to influence policies”
  • “don’t complain if you don’t vote”
  • “yada yada”

Apply to both elections equally:

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU VOTE!

(Assuming you’ve properly registered and our paid your membership dues of course!)

As an added bonus we will all have a good incentive to be efficient in our decision making at the meeting so we can go home and wait for the West Coast to hurry up and finish counting.

Catherine Serventi
President, AWCC

AWCC Membership Meeting Agenda – November 8, 2016

Calvary United Methodist Church, 971 Beech Ave
Tuesday, November 8th at 7:30 pm

  • Visitors: Erin Tobin, Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy
  • Minutes
  • Treasurer’s Report
  • Tree and Scholarship for Stella “Yia Yia”
  • Vote on Bylaws
  • Elections!
  • Ways and Means: Christmas Tour
    • Volunteer Signups
    • Two More Houses
    • Five Year Plan with Calvary
  • Housing and Planning
    • Film Guidelines
    • Western Avenue
    • Light of Life
    • Buhl Grant Meeting
  • Green Space: Parklet
  • Membership Events
    • 50th Anniversary: Alleys, Axles and Ales Report
    • Mixers
    • History Project Update
  • Property: 806 Western Avenue Improvements
  • Friends
  • Committee Q&A

Above and Beyond

A big “Happy Halloween!” from the neighborhood. Thanks to Kevin for making all the arrangements to close Beech to traffic so the munchkins (and Elsas, and Ironmen, and Batmans – see examples of the cuteness in the print edition) were safe! Extra special thanks to the Delta Foundation for sponsoring a police officer at the intersection at Beech and Galveston. Also the peanut butter crackers that Councilwoman Harris’s office dropped off for the festivities were much appreciated by all (especially those of us who were planning to have Halloween candy for dinner).

Proposed Amendment to the AWCC Constitution and Bylaws

Below please find the proposed amendment to the AWCC Constitution and Bylaws from the July 12, 2016 AWCC meeting.

First paragraph of Duties of Officers should be changed to read (changes highlighted in bold):

“The President shall preside at all meetings of the Council and Executive Committee, and shall be ex-officio member of all committees except the Nominating Committee. He The President may appoint special committees, and shall perform all other duties usually pertaining to the office. The President along with the Treasurer shall prepare an annual budget for presentation at the June meeting for the fiscal year beginning in July. The budget will be voted on at the July membership meeting.

Implementation: According to Article XII Bylaws, the amendment may be adopted upon presentation in writing of the proposed change at one regular meeting, and the publication in the Allegheny West Gazette, and a ⅔ vote concurring at the next regular meeting (November 8, 2016 at 7:30 pm).