Monday, October 15, 2007

Too Sexy for My Blog

Actually, that title is there only to see if you're still paying attention. I've been traveling again and neglecting my blogs. I might have defended not posting by claiming that nothing interesting is going on, but that's not true. While I was out of town, an actual election for the Mayor's office almost broke out. Give it about another week, and Pittsburgh may yet see real democracy.

Evidence? Even Luke Ravenstahl's erstwhile buddies are having a crack at him. From a Letter to the P-G editor last Wednesday from one of his college classmates:

"Luke, I have news for you. The harshest criticism of you is not from the media, it's from your fellow young professionals who stay in the Pittsburgh area because it's home, or who came here because of the opportunities it presented. When you defend your missteps with "that's what 27-year-olds do, and I shouldn't be any different," we wince, grimace and gasp in disbelief. We could never make such a claim to our bosses and continue to have their respect.

No local figure is the public face of young professionals' initiative, creativity and ability more than you. Every gaffe you commit, and every time you defend yourself by mentioning your youth, you bring down the success and advancement of all young professionals in Pittsburgh. You're opening the door for other young professionals to run for office, to invest in startup businesses, open medical and law firms and achieve important positions in established firms and industries. We need your time in office to show that we are serious and can handle these immense tasks.

Please, Luke, don't screw it up for the rest of us.

JOHN P. FRIEDMANN
Uniontown"


Meanwhile, did you see this? The New York Times noticed Lawrenceville in its Sunday Travel section:

But in the past five years artists and other creative types have bought into the area's dirt-cheap storefronts and turn-of-the-last-century brick row houses, and opened galleries, boutiques and interior design shops along Butler Street. Today, it's a hub for an arts, fashion and interior design district called the 16:62 Design Zone that begins at the 16th Street Bridge in the adjacent Strip District and extends to the 62nd Street Bridge in Lawrenceville. Throw in some good restaurants and other ancillary amenities, and Butler Street is slowly becoming a go-to destination.
Tres cool.

Link

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'm actually pretty pisssed off about the NY Times peice even though they mention my gallery.

Basically, it covers a small fraction of all the neat stuff going on in Lawrenceville. The reason they didn't do a longer story or meantion more things is that they likely didn't know about it. Almost everyone here is pretty broke--especially, the people doing creative stuff. Because the Design Zone, has an annual fee of 250 dollars it knocks most people out. The Visit Pittsburgh Website which is supposed to be telling everyone about how great Pittsburgh is, lists even less stuff. It would have taken a lot of calls and legwork to find out about everything else and the reporter just didn't have the time.

The end result is that Pittsburgh gets very little out of positive meantions in the press. If readers of the article turned to google, they wouldn't find much.