News Around the Neighborhood

City Releases 2016 Paving Plans And New Transportation Asset Management System

The City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Works (DPW) has released its 2016 street paving list. Approximately 49.5 miles are scheduled to be paved this year. View the Map To support improved management of the city’s road network, the City of Pittsburgh has contracted with Cartegraph, Inc. to conduct a comprehensive pavement condition assessment of all 2,400 lane miles of city-owned streets. As part of the assessment process, Cartegraph staff will travel every mile of street using specially equipped vehicles that collect detailed information on twelve different distress criteria. More Details

Tomorrow: Affordable Housing Deliberative Forum

When: Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 6:00-8:30 pm
Where: National Association of Letter Carriers, 841 California Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15212

It’s not too late to join us at one of five Affordable Housing Deliberative Forums. Your input is crucial to this process. All residents are welcome!

Modeled after the highly successful Police Chief and Capital Budget public meetings, these new forums will give neighbors a chance to learn about the work of the Affordable Housing Task Force. The forums will also provide an opportunity for the community to provide input on affordable housing issues, specifically relating to policies, programs or initiatives designed to increase the supply of affordable housing in the City of Pittsburgh.

Each forum will include:

  • A brief overview of the Affordable Housing Task Force and Affordable Housing in Pittsburgh
  • Small group discussions of priorities recommended by the task force
  • Q&A opportunities with the panel members
  • Food will be served

All forums contain the same presented content, and are open to every resident of the City of Pittsburgh. Families are encouraged to attend and participate.

Register: tinyurl.com/affordable412

Please call Sally Stadelman at (412) 255-4773 or email sally.stadelman@pittsburghpa.gov with any questions. Walk-in registration will be available on the day of the forum.

Free Days at The Warhol

Free Days at the Warhol

Buncher Family Free Days
March 24, 25 and 26 at 10am

Join us for three free days of museum admission during Pittsburgh Public Schools’ spring break week, sponsored by The Jack Buncher Foundation. Activities include art making in The Factory and family-friendly tours.

[ebor_button style=”wisteria” url=”http://www.warhol.org/responsive/event.aspx?id=27343″] Learn More About this Free Event [/ebor_button]

City of Pittsburgh Adds New 311 Tools

Pittsburgh has just made it easier to use the city’s 311 non-emergency reporting service than ever before. In addition to the online web form and phone service, residents can now take advantage of both a Twitter handle and MyBurgh apps for both iOS and Android mobile devices. You can learn more via the official press release – and we’ve also updated the links on our own Government Resources page.

NSLC/AWCC: Neighbor of the Year

Neighbor of the Year Nominations Are Now Open!

The Northside Leadership Conference Annual Dinner and Awards ceremony will be taking place in early June so now is the time to nominate one of your hard working neighbor volunteers for the Neighbor of the Year award.

Each member neighborhood in the Conference nominates one person to be their Neighbor of the Year and that person is recognized at the annual dinner. This person goes above and beyond in their volunteer service to the neighborhood. (If you didn’t know, the Allegheny West Civic Council has no paid employees. All of the work done by the Civic Council is done by hard working volunteers who want to keep this small neighborhood a great place to live and work!)

If you would like to nominate one of your neighbors for this award, please forward their name and a short paragraph about why you think they should be the 2016 Neighbor of the Year for Allegheny West. All nominations should be submitted via email to president@alleghenywest.org. All recommendations will be forwarded to the Nominating Committee of AWCC and a formal nomination will be made to the full membership at the May membership meeting.

Each year one award is also given to a non-profit service provider on the North Side. If you would like to nominate a non-profit service provider from our neighborhood, please submit your recommendation via email and include the name of the organization, contact info and brief description of why this non-profit should be considered. One nomination will be put forth from Allegheny West at the April Northside Leadership Conference monthly meeting; service providers from across the North Side are nominated by their individual neighborhoods and one award is given.

Letter from the President – March 2016

Just a few quick updates:

Round two of the meetings for the Buhl Foundation One Northside Grant will take place at 6:30 pm at Calvary Church before the meeting Membership meeting on Tuesday, March 8. Jim Pashek, the consultant we’re working with, has been meeting with various City departments and needs our feedback on what issues we want to emphasize.

We closed on 930 Western this week! Please welcome Dr. James Worry to the neighborhood. He’s already got all of his approvals and permits, and he’s ready to start making amazing things happen! (Maybe we should get him to teach a workshop on how to navigate bureaucracy?) Do you think I should tell him now that we snuck a clause into the sales agreement that he’s required to be on the Christmas Tour by 2018?

I’m joking, of course, about any “requirements” to be on the tour (although I make no promises about not resorting to peer pressure), but this is a good time to remind folks that planning is underway for the June Wine & Garden Tour. If you’re interested in volunteering or having your house/garden on the tour, please contact Carrie at tours@alleghenywest.org. The tour is scheduled for the first weekend in June.

We’ll also be taking orders for this Spring flower baskets along Western. We need to confirm prices for sponsorships this year, but stay tuned for more information, and definitely let us know if you want to sponsor a basket (or 2 or 4). E-mail us at: flowers@alleghenywest.org. Thanks to Trish and Holly who offered to take this on for another year!

Catherine Serventi
President, AWCC

P.S. Greetings from India! There’s nothing quite like traveling in faraway lands to make you appreciate home. I think I’m going to start our meeting on Tuesday (where parking and traffic are bound to come up) with the video that I took from my hotel window of the traffic. Lane lines or even traffic direction(!) are really more of a suggestion here. (Although I’ll still be chasing after drivers going the wrong way on Beech and N. Lincoln.)

Local Business Spotlight: Motive Salon

Contributors: Sara Sweeney & Karen Beer

As a new feature of the Allegheny West Gazette, we are spotlighting new local businesses that are making our neighborhood more vibrant. In this month’s issue, we’re featuring Motive Salon. Owners and master stylists Breanne Kochmanski and Sara Harris opened the salon in 2014. Since then, business has been booming! The staff has expanded to include five stylists.

Motive Salon

Prior to opening Motive, Breanne had studied here in Pittsburgh, as well as in New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Sara initially worked for her mentor at Salon Vivace. Breanne and Sara met while working at Capristo Salon and Wellness Spa in Shadyside.

So what do they like about Allegheny West? The people and the potential. “The restoration of Allegheny West is a labor of love for everyone here,” says Breanne. “I saw myself in the fabric of this neighborhood.” Sara agrees. “I’ve truly never worked in such a diverse, friendly, communal and supportive neighborhood in all of the many places that I have been throughout my career,” she says. “In a year and a half, I’ve made lifelong friends here. It’s something special.”

The only disadvantage? “Parking,” says Breanne. “Two-hour metered parking doesn’t allow for much wiggle room—but everyone seems to make it work!”

Luckily, we’re all neighbors, so we can access the salon’s many services without the parking woes. Are you looking for a new look? Motive specializes in cuts and color. In fact, if you’re looking for the trendiest style, Breanne recommends Ombre and Ecaille highlighting and coloring. Breanne, Sara and their stylists will work with you to find the style that’s right for you. When giving a cut, they consider everything from face shape, skin and eye color, to the image the client wants to portray, their home-styling skill level and even the time they have to style. “It’s important to take someone’s lifestyle into consideration when discussing the look they want,” says Breanne. “We don’t want to put a high-maintenance cut on a person that doesn’t have time to style it!”

Looking forward, Breanne, Sara and their team are getting ready to participate in one of the largest cut-and-color competitions in the country. They’re also heading out to classes in Nashville and Philadelphia to keep watch of the latest styles. And keep an eye out for their new advertisements: they recently completed a professional photo shoot showcasing the styles of some of their current clients. In the meantime, you can see their creative styles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Motive Salon: 910 Galveston Avenue
Hours: T/W 10–7, Thu 11–8, Fri 10–6, Weekends 10–4 (Closed Mondays)
Appointments recommended, but walk-ins are accepted with availability
http://www.motivesalon.com
(412) 904-4606

We Want to Hear From You

Did your child win the science competition? Get accepted to college? Did you just get married? Promoted? Celebrate a milestone birthday? Let’s recognize our neighbors in the Gazette. If you would like to feature a family member, a neighbor or your own accomplishment in the Gazette, please e-mail information to gazette@awcc.org. All entries must be in by the 1st of each month.

The House History Project: We Need Your Help!

In an effort to not only preserve the fantastic house histories that were created by Carol Peterson but to update them for the digital era and make them available for the public, Allegheny West is embarking on a new project centered on our website. We are hoping to build out a really robust house histories/Before & After section of the Allegheny West website as materials arrive, and then to also explore putting together a walking tour that could include an interactive, mobile device-driven component. This will allow visitors (and residents!) to dig deeper into the homes around them and their long, glamorous pasts as well as the hard work that went into – and goes into – keeping them beautiful.

Neighbor and friend, Jim Wallace and webmaster, Nick Smerker are asking for anyone who has a house history (these are key), photos of their home or the neighborhood over the years, video recordings of folks talking about their homes or other interesting materials to get in touch via Nextdoor or directly at webmaster@alleghenywest.org. Hard copies of any materials can be dropped off at 806 Western Avenue. More information is available on our Website: www. alleghenywest.org.