Articles Archive - Page 52 of 157 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Barry Alfonso, a writer living in Swissvale, has produced a book we didn’t know was needed. Chances are, if you remember Rod McKuen, you’ll know his popular image: a 1960s California pop singer-songwriter who also churned out best-selling volumes of poetry that non-best-selling poets considered the equivalent of Muzak. Indeed, Alfonso cites the assessment of …

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Opinion

Colleges and Schools Can and Should Open in a Way That Does the Least Harm

by David L. Katz & Kelly B. Close

Any untimely death is a tragedy. Our youth die in transit to and from schools and universities every year, but these institutions are not shut down as a result. Engaging in life involves some risk of death. COVID-19 deaths in youth are rare. Rational policies should aim to minimize such risks with no expectation of …

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Nature

Floating on the Shenango River

by Thomas Saunders

One wonderful way to see portions of our western Pennsylvania landscape is to paddle a river or stream by canoe or kayak. One place to paddle is the upper Shenango River in western Mercer County, 70 miles north of Pittsburgh. A 23-mile stretch flows unimpeded between the Pymatuning and Shenango reservoirs. The Iroquois name Shenango, …

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Profiles

Ken Gormley: Lawyer, Teacher and Author

by Jeff Sewald

I was the first person in my family to be born in Pittsburgh. My brothers and sisters have always said that this accounts for my “irrational” loyalty to the city. My dad grew up on a farm in Kentucky and was the odd person in his family—the one who left home to get a Ph.D. …

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Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast

Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast: Sean Luther, Executive Director of InnovatePGH

by Donald Bonk

Donald Bonk interviews Sean Luther, executive director of InnovatePGH, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. The transcript is abridged and edited for clarity. View the episode archive here. Read Sean Luther’s full bio here. “Pitt and CMU have evolved to be extremely complementary. They physically overlap in this really unique urban environment. That …

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Region

Did We Do Any Good?

by David M. Feehan

Did VISTAs in Pittsburgh even come close to “eliminating poverty,” the stated goal? There is no evidence that this happened, nor do any of the ex-volunteers think they even made a dent. What, then, did they achieve? Most VISTAs believe that they were able to help individuals who needed help. Some of this help was …

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Regional Annual Report

Bold Action Needed: Jim Roddey, Diane Holder, Bill Strickland

by PQ Staff

At a time when the Pittsburgh region is continuing to lose population and has been seeing regional job losses the past few months, we asked a group of regional leaders to respond, in 200 words or less, to this question: What action do we need to take to create the kind of growth, vitality and dynamism that will stem …

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Regional News

Local Unemployment Drops, but Rate Remains Staggering

by Julia Fraser

Unemployment in southwestern Pennsylvania fell sharply in May, when the region began to relax social restrictions and reopen businesses that had been closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Still, the jobless rate remains at levels rarely seen as the pandemic continued to take its toll on the local economy. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan …

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Creative Capital

The Power of the Press?

by Greg Curtis

For readers who missed part 1 of this series of posts, I am summarizing a fictional novel written almost forty years ago. With Plans A and B dead, the Approvals Panel began to discuss a fallback plan. One way to expose the Black Hole plot would be for George—or someone—to simply make it public. Call …

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Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: Wentling Tarquinio Loughney, Greycourt & Co, Henry Armstrong Associates

by PQ Staff

Each year in the summer issue, we ask a group of Pittsburgh’s leading investment experts to answer a question for our readers in 250 words or less. This year’s question: “The coronavirus has led to the first bear market in more than a decade with widespread uncertainty remaining. How are you positioning your client portfolios …

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Food & Wine

Here’s to a Summer Night

by Lidey Heuck

The long, rainy spring is finally gone, the sun is shining and summer’s here. It’s still unclear how much we’ll be able to socialize this summer, but rather than dwell on all the things we may not be able to do in the coming months, I’m reminding myself of the summer traditions we can still …

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Regional News

Could the Coronavirus Kill the Gasoline Tax?

by Jeffery Fraser

A crisis in how to pay for roads and bridges with a gasoline tax had been worsening for decades. With Americans traveling less, the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating it. Fifty years ago, when the miles Americans traveled in their cars were soaring, a tax on every gallon of gasoline sold worked as a way pay …

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Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast

Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast: Audrey Russo, President and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council

by Donald Bonk

Donald Bonk interviews Audrey Russo, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. The transcript is abridged and edited for clarity. View the episode archive here. Read Audrey Russo’s full bio here. View her LinkedIn profile here. “It would be creating a culture of zero tolerance for …

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Region

They Came to Pittsburgh to Eliminate Poverty

by David M. Feehan

Now, more than 50 years hence, it is time to ask a few important questions: Did the presence of VISTA Volunteers have an impact on the communities they served, and how? And what impact did the VISTA program have on the lives of the VISTAs themselves? What follows are the stories of almost a dozen-and-a-half …

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Regional Annual Report

Bold Action Needed: Patrick Gallagher, Sunil Wadhwani, Dennis Unkovic

by PQ Staff

Bold Action Needed: Patrick Gallagher, Sunil Wadhwani, Dennis Unkovic Read More »

Creative Capital

The Ways of LBJ

by Greg Curtis

For readers who missed part 1 of this series of posts, I am summarizing a fictional account written almost 40 years ago. As the ambulance pulled up to the farmhouse on the eastern shore of Maryland, George Leader was watching out the living room window. What he saw shocked him. An elderly, gray-haired woman was …

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Money

Positioning Client Portfolios: Fairview Capital, Shorebridge, PWA, WesBanco

by PQ Staff

Positioning Client Portfolios: Fairview Capital, Shorebridge, PWA, WesBanco Read More »

Profiles

Vision and Action: A Remembrance of Paul O’Neill

by Douglas Heuck

I first met Paul O’Neill 23 years ago. I was running a project at the Post-Gazette called PG Benchmarks, which compared Pittsburgh to regions across the country with the goal of elevating Pittsburgh’s moribund trajectory. Aside from publishing statistics and stories, we held periodic roundtable discussions, the first of which was on the economy. I …

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Regional News

Pandemic Heats Up Housing Market

by Julia Fraser

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted business as usual in the residential real estate industry as it swept through the Pittsburgh region in March. It shut the doors on open houses, cancelled showings and stifled home inspections. But it failed to curb demand. A Howard Hanna real estate agent helped a seller stage a home via Facetime …

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Regional News

Pandemic Slams Pittsburgh Jobs

by Julia Fraser

The COVID-19 pandemic continued its attack on the Pittsburgh metropolitan job market in May with the region losing 175,800 jobs since May 2019, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. All of Pittsburgh Today’s 15 benchmark regions posted significant job losses in May. The seven-county Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area lost 14.6 percent over its jobs …

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Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast

Pittsburgh Tomorrow Podcast: Diamonte Walker, URA of Pittsburgh Deputy Executive Director

by Donald Bonk

Donald Bonk interviews Diamonte Walker, deputy executive director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, as part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast series. The transcript is abridged and edited for clarity. View the episode archive here. Read Diamonte Walker’s full bio here. “A lot of folks didn’t believe that Pittsburgh would become what it is. …

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Region

VISTAs in Pittsburgh

by David M. Feehan

Editor’s note: This is part one of a three-part series. We came to Pittsburgh from all across the United States—from California and Oregon, from Minnesota and Michigan and Alabama, from Florida and New York, from big cities and small towns. We came to Pittsburgh with one mission in mind: To eliminate poverty. We were VISTA …

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