I'm bored as heck, being that it's Christmas, I'm Jewish, and there's freakin nothing to do. Already finished up the normal Jewish movie day drill. Now I'm sitting at home, doing nothing, and I can't wait to come back to school. In my boredom, I have made a few observations which I thought I'd share:
Observation #1
I have deciphered Josh Suskin's away messages, and figured out that they all follow a very definite pattern. I will identify a few classes of away messages that are common in Suskinville.
1) yo [insert word here] that...
2) Dear [insert inanimate object here],
[insert action here]
Hugs and Kisses,
Josh
3) Some sort of allusion to how late it was when he was writing the away message.
Example: "oh 5:30am how did you come so fast..."
4) Any other melodramatic statement about how bad his life is.
Example: "364 days till I gotta deal with that crap again..."
5) Discussions about how he either raped, got raped by, or is about to rape or get raped by, his next upcoming exam or assignment.
There are some strange classes that arrive when he's in SB, but we won't go into those.
Observation #2
My home makes me ill. For some reason, every time that I'm home, I get these awful allergies or something....fuck home.
Observation #3
I love the Pittsburgh Steelers. Assuming they beat the Lions in as convincing a fashion as they beat the Browns this weekend, I feel much better about how they're entering the playoffs this year than I did last year. Last year, it felt like they were winding down to the playoffs. This year, they seem to be ramping up. I'm excited to see what will come from it, but realize it's still probably a longshot for them to get to the Super Bowl. But hell, the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl from the Wildcard a few years back...so why not the Steelers?
Observation #4
For those of you who are out of Pittsburgh for break, last week was truly an exciting week for our city. On Monday, there was a new plan released to get the Penguins a new arena with no public funding. It's through some gambling venture with Isle of Capris (or something like that) where they're committing $1 billion to build a casino, retail and office space, and a $300 million arena on the land that currently occupies the Mellon Arena. The arena would be given to the city-county Sports and Exhibition Authority. Moreover, they have committed to reattaching the Lower Hill to the Downtown grid, which is good news for the redevelopment of that area. Of course, this is all contingent on them getting a slots license - but hopefully, they will.
On Monday afternoon, PNC made another exciting announcement. They announced that they would be building the first skyscraper in Downtown Pittsburgh in almost 2 decades. The last one built - the 32-story CNG Tower, now known as the Dominion Tower - was built in the late 1980's, back in Pittsburgh's Renaissance II. The building will be between 25 and 30 stories tall, and will sit along Fifth Avenue near Liberty Avenue. The building - to be named Three PNC Plaza - will trigger the demolition of around 15 run down buildings on the Fifth-Forbes corridor and will sit across the street from the newly announced Piatt Place, which is being built in one of the old Department Stores on the Fifth-Forbes corridor. Along with the announcement of the new building, PNC also announced that it will be adding around 1,000 job in Pennsylvania - most of them in Pittsburgh - in the next 3-5 years. If you would like to read the whole story, check out the article in the Post Gazette here.
Any way you look at it, all of these announcments are very exciting news for Pittsburgh. If the plans for the redevelopment of the Arena/Lower Hill area and the Fifth-Forbes corridor all follow through, we might see a very different face on Downtown Pittsburgh 5 years from now than we do today. As mayor-elect Bob O'Connor said...though perhaps a bit exaggerated...it has been "the best week in Pittsburgh" in 10 years.
Well, there you have it. On a side note, I have been going to the Athletic Training clinic 2 times a week (soon to be 3 times a week), and it has been very good. I am feeling good, and hope to be full force by the beginning of the spring season.
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9 comments:
Dave,
In Denver, the Jews have the same problem you do so they throw something unofficially referred to me as the 'Jew Ball.' They rent out a dance club for themselves for a few hours and then it opens to the public later at night. I don't think there is a real invite list, but I got it and it was a blast, but that was mostly because I had good people with me. I spent x-mas day learning to snowboard. Perhaps, you should come out here. You won't be bored and you won't be sick :) -Brody
Brody - Dont call him Dave, we'll all have to hear about he prefers David for weeks. When are you going to start blogging?
Dave - Jewish movie day was a little ridiculous for me too. I'll post soon.
That ramping up is exactly what we absolutely MUST do going for the entire month of May. But it starts now. Glad to hear athletic training is going well.
And as for Pittsburgh jobs, that's fantastic, so long as they create jobs for the people who need them and don't just take em away from Mellon or another company. For that to happen, people need to be trained. Hopefully Pitt's presence will help with that and the underprivileged can get into Banking and Finance (?) programs here. Technology will bring jobs, but it can never be the new Steel because it requires a much much higher level of training and education.
I don't know much about the Lower Hill, maybe I'll take a drive around there. But don't assume that attaching the area will raise Lower Hill, it could just as easily mean a terrible future for Downtown, since Downtown is already pretty badly set up. I recommend reading "The Death And Life of Great American Cities." It's old and parts are out of date but some more general principles clearly still hold true.
The history of the Lower Hill is what would indicate that it could experience a rebirth if it were reattached to the downtown grid. Before the Civic Arena was built, the Lower Hill was a thriving area, with some of the best Jazz and Blues clubs in the country. When the Civic Arena was built, although the plans were for it to lead to more success for the area, ended up cutting off the Lower Hill from downtown and for all intents and purposes, turning it into the slum that it is now. The hope is, by reattaching it to civilization and building new residential and office developments along with the arena and casino, the Lower Hill will once again thrive as it did many decades ago. Clearly it is not a panacea, but I'd say it's certainly a step in the right direction.
That sounds like it's pretty much on the right track. When things like civic arenas replace residential population and cuts off business, you have problems. It'll partially depend what kind of businesses open up. For a slum to get revived, there has to be enough diversity in its businesses to keep a relatively constant market. For instance, if all the businesses are 9-5 jobbers, the only time anyone would be there would be before work, during lunch hour, and after work. Restaurants and other businesses can't thrive on that, because they see so few people throughout the day. (i.e. much better for a restaurant to be 60% full all but a few hours a day, then to be 100% for a couple hours and 10% the rest. The other problem is that if it's all residential, there's far less street traffic, which is by far the best way to self-police streets and cut on crime.
Don't forget one other great thing for Pittsburgh: Google is going to open an office here. That means more high tech jobs in the area, which hopefully means more ultimate players sticking around (or moving here!)
You're right Weasel, I did forget that. It certainly is exciting that Google has announced the creation of an office in Pittsburgh. From what I heard, the reason they did it is because they kept trying to recruit people out of CMU and the people they wanted kept telling Google that they wanted to stay in Pittsburgh. That's pretty cool if you ask me. Granted, they're only moving 50-100 jobs here...but I think the move has more symbolic power than anything. Pittsburgh doesn't have Steel anymore, as Fraggle noted, and the growth of the Biotech and Technology fields in Pittsburgh is encouraging for a city that relied so heavily on an industry that's now dead. How to replace the lower end jobs that didn't require much education, though? That, I don't know.
The 9-5 problem that Fraggle hit on is hopefully being solved in Downtown with the new redevelopment projects. Both Piatt Place and Three PNC Plaza will include condominiums/apartments. Additionally, there are a bunch of other redevelopment projects that are aimed at putting housing Downtown. By keeping people Downtown to live after work, there will be a need for other services, such as restaurants and grocery stores, which will hopefully keep Downtown lively even after the 9-5 workday.
youre all missing the point. The best sign for pittsburgh is that they just put a quaker steak in Oakland.
Duh.
The Civic Arena project required the destruction of 1400 buildings and displaced 5 to 8 thousand people. Over 400 small businesses were destroyed. Most of these were unable to relocate--they didn't get much from the government and didn't have good enough credit to get loans. These business provided jobs and services that are essential to the health of any neighborhood. Basically the Arena ripped the heart out of the Hill District.
I wouldn't call the Lower Hill "thriving" in the 60s, and I do believe that city planners in Renaissance I thought it would improve the area, but we have to learn from the mistakes of past development. I hope these new and exciting projects will lead to a better future for the Lower Hill and 5th-Forbes corridor.
Perhaps it was....the Bronco's who won the Super Bowl from the Wild Card...I know it was some team in the recent past.
The reason I'd say they were winding down was that those last two games they took out their starters and lost all the momentum they built. I know they ended 15-1...but I had the feeling going into the playoffs that they peaked too early. This year, that's not the case...although yesterday's win doesn't exactly give me confidence.
Slots, I'd say, is no different than the lottery, in the sense that it's essentially a tax on the poor (and elderly). And all this to get rid of property taxes, which would help the rich more than anyone. Oh well.
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