The week in review And you don’t need an umbrella
So we’re all jammed into the back seat of this Pennsylvania car that Gov. Tom Wolf is driving through the stages of this lousy pandemic, and we’re all crying, “Are we there yet? When are we going to get there?”
And he’s like, “We’ll get there when we get there. Don’t make me come back there!”
OK, maybe it’s not exactly like that. But Mr. Wolf did go to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Friday in his battle with the legislative branch over his lockdown restrictions.
Republican majorities in the House and Senate, with a few Democrats in support, voted last week to end the state’s emergency disaster declaration that Mr. Wolf, a Democrat, has used to shut down “non-life-sustaining” businesses, ban large gatherings and order people to stay at home.
Mr. Wolf asked the state’s high court to uphold the shutdown, even as he is phasing some counties’ restrictions from “Keep your hands to yourself!” to “If you guys be good, we’ll stop for ice cream.”
The state announced Friday it was moving more counties from the yellow to the green reopening phase, but that did not include Erie County, which has seen a continuing rise in COVID19 cases.
The weather’s nice, but rules are mean
Staff writer Anya Sostek last week tackled what the green phase really means to individuals. Infectious disease experts caution that the green phase does not mean that life is back to normal.
“The virus doesn’t know or care what kind of stage you’re in,” said Thomas Walsh, an infectious disease doctor and director of the antimicrobial stewardship program at Allegheny Health Network. “It’s really critical that people — while you are allowed to be more social and not have stay-athome orders — that you not go back to where you were in a pre-COVID-19 world. We still don’t have a vaccine or much in the way of therapeutics.”
“There isn’t really a onesize-fits-all answer,” said John Williams, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. “Each person and family have to assess their own personal and family risk.”
Consider the play date, Anya wrote. If a young child lives with a high-risk person like a grandparent, it’s not something that Dr. Williams would advise doing at this point. If the child and their parents are relatively young and in good health, “they may feel that it’s worth the risk to resume those more normal activities,” he said.
Dr. Walsh stressed that while cases are relatively low now, what we are seeing is really a snapshot of where the region was a couple of weeks ago, because symptoms don’t show up until after an incubation period.
“I think we need to be smart and not just throw our hands up and say, ‘We’re not getting rid of it. What’s the point?’” he said.
This piece predates the COVID-19 Age
Pittsburgh museums have all this art, for Pete’s sake, and we haven’t been able to enjoy it for months. Well, that’s about to change, too.
Carnegie Museums announced last week it will reopen its four museums — The Andy Warhol Museum and the Carnegie Science Center, both on the North Side, plus the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in Oakland — on June 29.
Staff writer Marylynne Pitz told us that visitors will be admitted every half-hour with timed tickets and the museums will operate at 25% capacity. Visitors will be asked to wear masks and to follow foot traffic patterns.
On the weekend of June 26-28, the four museums will be open only to those who have memberships.
The Frick Pittsburgh in Point Breeze reopens its 5½-acre grounds to visitors on July 7, followed by a reopening of select museum spaces on Aug. 15. And Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Oakland reopened Saturday.
Staff writer Maggie Susa caught readers up on the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, which kicked off Friday. But don’t go wandering around the Point looking for funnel cake.
For the first time in the event’s 61-year history, the festival is online — which, of course, would have been inconceivable 61 years ago.
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust website (TrustArts.org/TRAF) launched the digital art exhibitions and a virtual Artist Market, featuring new ways of showcasing the work of nearly 400 artists. They’re also livestreaming concerts.
The cool part is that some of the artists Maggie interviewed have already seen more traffic at their websites and even sold some of their work.
Scratching the surface to our recovery
Nail salons were permitted to open their doors last week for the first time since mid-March, and staff writer Sara Bauknecht was on hand to see how it went.
She reported that the salons are operating at 50% capacity and doing all the things necessary with masks and cleaning. But salons have always been clean places anyway, so there hasn’t been that much of a culture shock for workers or customers.
The trouble is getting an appointment. And it’ll probably cost you more.
“Before, we had four people at the same time. Now, we only have two people working,” said Tu Wade, who owns Miss T’s Beauty Lounge in Shadyside. “Plus, we have to take 15 minutes now between appointments to be able to clean up. We are going to make less money for sure.”
PPG wraps up a difficult quarter
Downtown-based PPG has not been immune to the impact of the virus, taking a hit of more than 30% on revenues in the second quarter. But staff writer Joyce Gannon learned about a bright spot in the company’s packaging coatings operations.
It seems they kept going strong as people worldwide looked for products that were able to sit on the kitchen shelf longer than usual.
“There was lots of pantry stocking … we have kept rolling,” said Amy Ericson, a senior vice president with PPG. In fact, Ms. Ericson said, they saw a pandemicrelated demand increase of about 10% as they converted a couple of European facilities from making car coatings and tire products to making packaging coatings.
That kind of collaboration could serve as a bestpractice model as the economy emerges from COVID19 shutdowns, she said.
We keep learning painful lessons
Staff writer Peter Smith reported the already strained Catholic parochial school system here took another hit Friday as the Diocese of Pittsburgh announced the closing of St. Patrick School in Canonsburg and Our Lady of the Most Blessed Sacrament in
Harrison, effective June 30.
Two other Catholic schools — St. Joseph Elementary School in Verona and St. John the Baptist School in Plum — will be merged, effective July 1.
“Sadly, with funding sources critically reduced due to the impact of the global pandemic, we do not have the ability to financially sustain every one of our school buildings,” Bishop David Zubik said in a statement. “However, our spiritual and financial commitment to Catholic education remains strong. These decisions were made with exactly that mission in mind — to preserve and protect Catholic education in our diocese.”
The ground shook, the walls collapsed
And then there was the sad news from the Christian Fellowship Center and the Church of God in Christ on McClure Street in Woods Run. On Monday, the rotting roof of the building, which had stood since 1861, brought the whole church to the ground, destroying a historic landmark that Pastor Frank Tillman Jr. said was once an “acting force” in the Underground Railroad.
Witnesses told staff writer Alexis Johnson they actually felt the ground begin to shake and the telephone poles started swaying.
“They were bending down, and all of a sudden the wires popped,” said Marcie Kemmler, whose father owns Don’s Diner, about half a block away.
The street became filled with debris and black smoke, and Ms. Kemmler’s son, who ran into a nearby alley, said the church looked like a “big hole” that was “sucking everything down into it.”
No one was hurt, however, because the church was empty.
Pastor Tillman said the aged roof had sprung a number of leaks over the years, but the financially stressed church couldn’t keep up with repairs.
“We were not negligent. We did the best we could with the little bit that we had to work with,” Pastor Tillman said Thursday, speaking through pauses and tears shed for his church home. “The damage was too much to overcome, and it eventually overcame us.”
Community members are starting a GoFundMe to raise money for rebuilding.
URA steps up to rebuild
Sam Williamson, chairman of the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority, announced that the board is contributing $10,000 to a fund to help African American businesses damaged by violence that took place Downtown after the death of George Floyd.
Mr. Williamson told staff writer Mark Belko that the agency would do more to “promote true economic equality in the city and to make up for the harm that the URA over the years has either caused or tolerated, directly or indirectly.”
“We’re the city’s economic development authority. We bear some direct responsibility for rooting out systemic racism both within our own organization and across our economy — not only because the actions of this organization for many years did help to reinforce and deepen this same oppressive system, but also simply because it’s the right thing to do, the only thing to do,” he said.
The URA is providing $10,000 to the Cocoapreneur Pittsburgh Black Business Relief Fund. Citizens Bank is adding another $5,000.
Groups want cops out of schools
Staff writer Andrew Goldstein reported that a coalition of more than 10 local, state and national social justice groups on Friday demanded that the Pittsburgh Public Schools board remove police from all district buildings.
“It is time to take back our schools from the hands of the police and to place our students in the loving palms of community driven and culturally informed processes,” said Paulette Foster, a co-founder of the Education Rights Network.
Education equity advocates have criticized the presence of police in schools for years, saying that black youths are disproportionately criminalized. Advocates believe schools should end the school-to-prison pipeline by investing in restorative justice practices and hiring more counselors and mental health professionals instead of officers.
School board President Sylvia Wilson said in an email that board members have not discussed any of the issues raised in the letter.
“While emotions are high across the country and here in Pittsburgh, there must be careful thought given and not knee jerk reactions,” Ms. Wilson wrote. “Many misconceptions are floating around in regard to our school security measures.”
Vandals deface Columbus statue
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Oakland is the scene of so much beauty. But Friday morning it also was the scene of vandalism to a statue of Christopher Columbus.
Staff writer Jade Campos said it wasn’t the first time vandals had struck the bronze figure standing majestically atop a granite pedestal. Previous incidents to the statue, erected in 1958, included 2010 and 2017 on Columbus Day. It has also been the scene of public protests.
City officials said they are looking for those responsible for the vandalism, which occurred the night after a petition on Change.org was created calling for the Pittsburgh Parks and Recreation Department to remove the statue. It had more than 1,000 signatures as of Friday.
We shall see what develops
Staff writer Mark Belko is also monitoring the conversations regarding development at the former Civic Arena site and how members of the Sports & Exhibition Authority and the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority are cooperating.
Both agencies have a hand in the development, but SEA board member Sala Udin on Thursday voiced concerns about the URA’s control of the property in the lower Hill District.
The SEA, you see, is a City-Allegheny County authority that owns Heinz Field, PNC Park and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The URA is the city’s chief economic development arm. The goal is for the two to work together to get this thing done.
URA and SEA officials meet regularly to coordinate actions involving the development, said URA Chairman Sam Williamson, adding that he’s not aware of any instances where they are working at cross purposes.
State Sen. Wayne Fontana, whose district includes the Hill, said he was bothered by the constant “banging of heads” regarding the arena development and wondered why Mayor Bill Peduto wasn’t doing more to resolve it.
“If I’m the mayor of this city, to be blunt, I would think that it was on me to try to make this happen. Half this board is appointed by the mayor and the URA is all appointed by the mayor,” he said. “I would feel a responsibility to step up and possibly try to do that.”