News Around the Neighborhood
Thanks You!
Burke & Michael, Inc. would like to thank all of the neighbors who helped in making donations toward the care boxes that we sent to troops who will not be home for Christmas. We are grateful to all of our generous and supportive neighbors. Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year!
Christmas Tree Recycling
If you still have your Christmas tree, you can take it to be recycled. There is a drop off location in Riverview Park, just past 300 Kilbuck Road, near the Valley Refuge Shelter (at the end of Grand Avenue). Trees are being accepted through January 26th.Tania Grubbs: I AM Series “Live Documentary” Highlights
I AM Series Documentary Highlights
Thursday, January 14
7:00 pm
We honor Pittsburgh Jazz vocalist Tania Grubbs with an evening of highlights from the widely successful 2019 I AM series at Alphabet City. Tania has selected the best moments from the series and will guide us through her curatorial process and successes with new commentary. All performances include video footage, photography, and narration
Staff Pick Favorite: Daniel Alarcón
The King is Always Above the People
with Daniel Alarcón
Wednesday, January 13
7:00 pm
A special evening from our archives, selected by staff as a past favorite, Daniel Alarcón reads from his novel The King is Always Above the People.
This program is an intimate opportunity to listen to excerpts from an urgent, essential collection of stories about immigration, broken dreams, Los Angeles gang members, Latin American families, and other tales of high stakes journeys, from the award-winning author of War by Candlelight and At Night We Walk in Circles
PHLF: A Virtual Tour of Western Shadyside
Live, Virtual Architecture Tour: Western Shadyside
Wednesday, January 13
2:00 pm to 3:30 pm
Fee: $7.50
Shadyside is a veritable museum of the forms and styles of domestic architecture built in Pittsburgh’s East End between the 1860s and 1920s. This tour focuses on the neighborhood’s western part, bounded by North Neville Street and South Aiken Avenue. Docents explain how innovations in transportation, growth of the middle class, and the initiative of significant people in local history combined to produce Western Shadyside’s stellar architecture.
Ranging across styles from the Second Empire to Arts & Crafts, the tour explores single-family and multi-family dwellings, individual homes and planned developments, and main streets and cul-de-sacs. A deeper look at a home featured in an early-twentieth-century memoir rounds out our excursion into this lovely neighborhood.
This live virtual tour will be held via Zoom Conference.
Click here to purchase a ticket for your household and you will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at 9:00 a.m. on the day of the tour. Don’t see an e-mail? Please check your Junk/Spam folders. Login 15 minutes before the tour’s scheduled start to ensure that it begins on time.
Young Adult Author Sharon Flake Book Launch
The Life I’m In
Book Launch & Celebration
Tuesday, January 5
3:00 pm
Pittsburgh-based author Sharon Flake’s groundbreaking young adult novel, The Skin I’m In, was released in 2000 to tremendous critical acclaim—lauded for exploring issues of race and low self-esteem, self-love and the power of friendship. In the past 20 years, The Skin I’m In has become a much loved, modern classic resonating with readers of many generations.
And tonight, January 5, Sharon’s launching the much anticipated sister novel The Life I’m In on City of Asylum’s virtual channel.
Sharon will be joined in conversation by Andrea Davis Pinkney for a live discussion and audience Q&A.
Though Sharon and Andrea Davis Pinkney both specialize in the ‘young adult’ genre, their work appeals to a wide range of readers.
Symbolic Somatic Experience Presented by Boom Concepts
Binds & Bonds
Sunday, December 20th
5:00 pm
How can we build the bonds necessary to transform the binds that hold us back?
Binds & Bonds, is a site specific installation exploring the somatic experience in response to trauma and healing. Created by Israel-born artist Dafna Rehavia, the work is a process developed as part of a 2020 residency at BOOM Concepts.
This program is a new video work that walks audiences through the exhibit, and includes a live tour element with the artist. Also included is a collaborative dance piece featuring dancers Shana Simmons and Chezney Douglas. The movement experience creates a visceral and emotional reflection of the three responses to trauma: flight, fight, and freeze. Artwork and dance are bound together in unity demonstrating that through movement, healing begins.
Following the screening the artists will have a live virtual discussion with BOOM Concepts’ Darrell Kinsel and audience members.
PHLF: A Virtual Tour of the Mexican War Streets
Tuesday, December 15
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Fee: $5
This live virtual tour will be held via Zoom Conference. Click here to purchase a ticket and RSVP.
(You will receive an e-mail with a link to Zoom at 9:00 am on the day of the tour. Don’t see the e-mail? Please be sure to check your spam or junk folders. Log-in 15 minutes before the tour’s scheduled start to ensure that it begins on time.)
Explore one of the most colorful sections of Pittsburgh’s North Side neighborhood. You’ll learn about the history of the neighborhood, including creation of Allegheny Commons and the Mexican War Streets, and become familiar with the picturesque variety of Victorian architectural styles there. Historic preservation figures prominently in this tour, highlighting how PHLF and the Mexican War Streets Society used preservation strategies to reverse neighborhood decline and disinvestment. The tour also features historic structures that have been creatively re-purposed by individuals, including the Mattress Factory, City of Asylum/Alphabet City, and the whimsically artful world of Randyland.
Reel Q Presents a Regional Premiere
Reel Q Presents
A Worm in the Heart
Monday, December 14th
7:00 pm
Join us for the regional premiere and unreleased screening of A Worm in the Heart hosted by ReelQ. This program includes an exclusive live interview with director Paul Rice and executive producer Liam Jackson Montgomery.
A Worm in the Heart details the extraordinary lives and brave stories of the diverse LGBTQ+ communities across Russia. Shot in six cities along the Trans-Siberian railway and utilizing intimate interviews about current Russian life, this documentary features deeply personal and moving accounts from activists and non-activists alike. The film follows queer Irish filmmaker Paul Rice and his boyfriend Liam, as they go undercover, armed only with two cameras, to meet with the many heroic members of the LGBTQ+ community who risk their lives living authentically under oppressive laws and prejudices—from Nobel Peace prize nominees and international activists, to drag queen performers thriving in remote Siberia.
Deer Pit Playground Survey
The Community Engagement Survey will kick-off our public engagement process and will run from December 11th – January 8th. Thanks for participating!