The Mayoral Election + Race + Hill District = Jack Wagner?

24 Replies

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you…Interesting tweets a week ago Friday night as Mayoral candidate Bill Peduto was on a Hill District bar crawl going to the Flamingo and Ace’s Deuce’s. So, clearly it’s Hill District voters he’s courting, but it’s also a move for African American voters. One of the tweets reference my man, Rep. Ed Gainey , the African American state rep from the East End, and you can click here for Rep. Gainey’s comments on Peduto as the candidate for the African American community. The idea of a collective Pittsburgh African American interest is  being heard clearly in this Democratic Party Mayoral Primary, which is striking when we think about the race narratives of the national election just 6 months ago where President Obama and the Democratic Party downplayed race, a strategy presumably supported by the local Democratic Party members involved in this election. Pittsburgh does need a serious conversation about racism and racial disparities, but it’s hard to see, without intervention from anti-racism folks, that this conversation continues within the Democratic Party once the race conversation has served its purpose i.e. mobilizing votes in the Mayoral election.

As Pittsburgh’s oldest predominantly African American neighborhood, the Hill District has been a major contributor to this election race’s narrative  First, and primarily, there is the Pittsburgh Black Political Convention (PBPC), a group whose goal is “to unite the black vote behind the candidacy of a single candidate for mayor in the 2013 Primary Election” and led by the Hill District’s former City Councilman, Mr. Sala Udin,  endorsing the Hill District’s State Representative Jake Wheatley.  But there was also an editorial in the Pittsburgh Courier, printed in the City Paper as “the mayoral race: a black perspective“, by the minister of the Hill District’s Monumental Baptist Church, Rev. Thomas Smith, who was writing as a member of the Western PA Black Political Assembly (WPBPA). This letter shares an analysis that seems to point to Mayoral candidate Bill Peduto as the best of imperfect options, but talks about the difficult place for Black folks in this election. And there is Councilman Bill Robinson, the African American County Councilman from the Hill who is explicitly endorsing Bill Peduto and who one would imagine is a part of Peduto’s campaign to connect to Hill District and African American voters.

Clearly, African American voters are critical to this election, but if you needed further evidence of this you would only need look at last week’s big mayoral campaign story, the attack ad against Bill Peduto.  This ad, paid for by  The Committee for a Better Pittsburgh and chaired by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, positions Bill Peduto as not being supportive of a number of African American neighborhoods.   This ad is apparently the first of many that will come from the mayor’s group in attempt to show “the real Bill Peduto“, but that its first choice is to focus on the African American vote is telling. So, the PBPC is supporting Rep. Wheatley and Councilman Peduto is working for support from African American voters, where is Jack Wagner’s campaign in relation to the race conversation?

Despite the fact that Jack Wagner received the fewest votes of Democratic Party candidates participating in the PBPC process, it may turn out that it helps get him elected. The PBPC endorsement process itself is worth looking at to see this possibility. Even though the Wheatley victory in the PBPC process produced the result most assumed it would, it’s useful to look at it as a microcosm of Black voter sentiment in this election. After Wheatley’s 112 votes, Bill Peduto won 72 votes compared Wagner’s 29.  So, if we can assume Peduto is preferable to African American votes over Wagner then what happens if African American voters turn out in serious numbers for Wheatley? Well, African American voters cease to be in play between Wagner and Peduto and it becomes a “whites mainly” election (note: there are a variety of social, class, and geographic differences  among whites that deserve attention as to their impact on this election)  between these two candidates which favors Wagner.  Why so? If we use the PBPC process as even a rough estimate of African American voter desire,  Peduto clearly had more support from African American voters than Wagner. Thus every African American vote for Wheatley is essentially  a vote that would more likely have gone to Peduto than Wagner, and thus votes for Wheatley are also a boon for Wagner. In effect, and I oversimplify a bit to make a point, this leaves Peduto with a two front war: Wheatley and African American voters on one side and Wagner and white voters on the other. Meanwhile, Wagner can focus principally on Peduto and white voters. Wheatley will likely also attract some liberal whites, which also comes out of Peduto’s end.

But the $64,000 question is does the Wheatley Campaign or Mr. Udin, as the convener of the PBPC, have their own Hill dog in the Peduto v. Wagner fight we are seeing play out everyday?  I would think so.  As anyone participating in or watching Hill District civic life knows, Wheatley and City Councilman Daniel Lavelle are  allies. Both worked for former Councilman Udin, both serve on the  Greater Hill District Development Growth Fund, and both are active supporters of the Hill District Community Development Corp of which Mr. Udin is a longstanding board member. Add to this that Peduto and Daniel Lavelle are known not to be supportive of one another or even on speaking terms and a Peduto win could well diminish Lavelle’s current authority and capacity to impact the Hill District through support of the Hill District CDC since, as Mayor, Peduto would be unlikely to keep Lavelle as Vice-Chair of the Urban Redevelopment Authority.  This is turn would affect the plans for the Lower Hill’s 28 acres; a process being led by Lavelle and the Hill CDC. This potential creates its own separate set of political incentives.

So, could the candidacy of a Hill District based African American candidate and a process led by long-term Hill District political activist play an important role in helping to elect Jack Wagner, the man who received the fewest votes of the Democrats participating in the Pittsburgh Black Political Convention? Again, I think so. I will vote for Bill Peduto. I like the creativity and policy wonkishness he shows in his 100 position papers , one of which is about his support of the Dollar a Car Campaign, an effort being led by the Hill District Consensus Group of which my wife is co-director and I am also a member.  However, of these 100 papers I do not see one with a focus on the  general issue of racism, which has negatively impacted the Hill District for centuries. Rather there are couple focused on diversity initiatives, so I won’t delude myself about the kind of leadership Peduto will provide on the systemic issue of racism facing this city.  Still, when I went to see a Mayoral debate a few weeks ago, Wagner seemed completely absent of ideas on African American neighborhoods, like the Hill, was clueless about the ban the box movement, and, his support from organizations like the Fraternal Order of Police doesn’t suggest he will be first or second out the gate to be forthright on the issue of police brutality, still a serious Pittsburgh issue, particularly for African American men and boys. Interestingly, Wagner might be Ravenstahl all grown up, a more well spoken, professional version of a man who will do business as usual. Pittsburgh needs some shaking up, and that includes the Hill.

Belmar Gardens-A Story That Deserves More Telling

3 Replies

Last week I was talking with one of my original mentors in the world of non-profits, Sabira Bushra, and she started telling me about how she is moving to another place within her housing cooperative, Belmar Gardens. I wasn’t at all familiar with the idea of a housing cooperative and so Sabira started explaining it to me. This history deserves more attention in Pittsburgh as a story of African American self determination and in the Hill District as an example of how we might fullfill two goals of the Greater Hill District Master Plan. The first goal would be “Build Upon The African American Legacy” and the second goal would be “Family Friendly Housing Without Displacement”. Please click here for a link to “Strategies to Prevent Displacement of Residents and Businesses in the Hil District-working paper” written by attorney Bob Damewood and my wife, Dr. Bonnie Young Laing.

In talking to Sabira, I learned Belmar Gardens was started in the 1950′s as one of the only ways that working class African Americans could own their own home. As I understand the history, a group of African Americans  formed a for-profit corporation to purchase a 118 homes in Belmar. This was the first African American Housing Cooperative in Pittsburgh and, according to Wikimapia.org, this was the first housing cooperative anywhere to receive a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage. We should pause here to note that even into the 1950′s, FHA underwriting manuals expressly forbade the granting of mortages unless they were to white people purchasing homes in racially homogenous neighborhoods because the FHA believed that Black homeowners brought down White owners’ home values and in doing so endangered the loan. What has come to be known as “redlining” obviously meant loans were not going to African Americans, so I would think the story behind the initial securing of this mortgage is quite powerful. Fast forward to today and 50 years later the cooperative continues. The structure works in such a way that people own a share in the company and the share represents their ownership of a home. Once a person has purchased a share they pay a monthly fee that is lower then a typical mortgage payment and this fee is then used to pay current expenses like the water bill as well as major capital expenses. For example, this year Belmar Gardens will be installing new kitchens in the homes that are in need of them.

Not sure what would prevent this approach from being implemented in the Hill District, but it sounds compelling and a strategy worthy of being on the table. Maybe this approach could be tried in Addison Terrace? Belmar Gardens is particularly intriguing as an approach to the Master Plan goals noted above when I reflect on the questions I have raised earlier on the Residencies at New Granada Square, particularly the way the family average median income standard will be applied to residences that are largely for single dwellers. Thanks very much to Sabira Bushra for taking the time to answer my questions and explain this history and an extra big shout out to all who have maintained the institution of Belmar Gardens over more than half a century.

Cupcakes & Community Development

Leave a reply

Continuing to think back to my stay in Anacostia, S.E. Washington D.C. and connections to the Hill District (see Mr. Laing Goes to Washington), allow me to introduce an impressive operation, Olivia’s Cupcakes. The store is a brilliant combination of tasty treats, economic and community development as well as an educational facility. Here you have all the principles of the Nguzo Saba wrapped up in one experience. My family came across Olivia’s as we were driving out of Anacostia to go to MD a couple of Saturdays ago. When I saw it, I had to bust a U-Turn to see what was up with this gourmet cupcake store, smack dab in the middle of the ‘hood. Once inside, we learned that Ms. Cindy Bullock began the store, along with Royelle’s  Princess Party Palace upstairs, as an opportunity to express her love for baking while showing her two daughters, Olivia and Royelle, how to run a business. Thus, Olivia’s Cupcakes and Royelle’s are providing real live spaces to teach all the elements of becoming an entrepreneur while providing the community with upscale deserts. The idea of creative deserts in this predominantly African American neighborhood, combined with a family taking education into their own hands and preparing children to run their own shops was powerful to see. But none it works without the cupcakes being delicious and they are with just the right amount of icing and moist cake… you go, Bullocks! Next time you are in D.C. go check them out at 2318 Minnesota Ave, S.E. Washington D.C.

Olivia and Royelle at Olivia's cupcakes

Olivia and Royelle at Olivia’s cupcakes

Thinking about the larger environment and its relationship to things that do and don’t happen in predominantly African American neighborhoods, it was interesting to me that around the corner from Olivia’s is another relative new operation, a grocery store that was once called Yes! Organic and is now called Fairlawn Market. The grocery store apparently got a $900,000 grant from the city and has struggled to be profitable, but I wonder what the support network in Anacostia is for long-time Anacostians like Ms. Cindy Bullock and small businesses like Olivia’s? The store helped give the neighborhood personality and in talking to Ms. Bullock and her daughters, I was learning about the history and culture of Anacostia. I will go back to Anacostia for that experience and as a person who is part of the Black professional class for the forseeable future, Olivia’s helps to make this a neighborhood I would want to go and live in. What are the opportunities for Hill District entrepreneurs, such as the folks at Grandma B’s, to open businesses in the redevelopment of this community? Hopefully as the Hill District changes it will include a heathy proportion of indigenous business ownership. In this way, the neighborhood maintains and develops its character as a predominantly African American community with a proud legacy, while offering the secondary benefit of making Pittsburgh a more fair, interesting and important city.

Mr. Laing Goes to Washington

5 Replies

Norman's HouseLast week on the sad occasion of the passing of my father, Clarence Laing (love you, Dad), I went back home to the metropolitan DC area. Because of my father’s illness, I have traveled back and forth between Pittsburgh and D.C. over the last month and a half and have felt a sense of foreboding in looking at DC and thinking about the Hill District. Washington is changing. Quickly. Buildings, posh restaurants and Dunkin Donuts are sprouting up everywhere and I see “White” people in places I never saw them before. Even places like where I stayed last weekend, Anacostia/Fairlawn, S.E. Washington D.C. (there is some debate as to whether Fairlawn is in Anacostia or is a separate neighborhood) Together, these characteristics serve as the sign of the feared and/or desired ”G- word” (gentrification)

Growing up in Silver Spring, MD, if DC was “Chocolate City” then Southeast D.C. was “Dark Chocolate City” and, like the Hill District, the stories that were often told about it, usually by outsiders to outsiders, were of one form of deprivation or another. When Black boys met and played the “where you from?” card game, saying “Southeast.” was an Ace and saying “Silver Spring” was like a 4, or something. But, also like the Hill, Southeast D.C., one-time home of Frederick Douglass, has brought forth some powerful history and gotten stigmatized by the nightly news, more so than its daily life. So, last weekend, I was kind of bugging off the fact that my wife had booked a weekend stay in Southeast, D.C. (apparently I had been told in advance, but hadn’t listened).  A weekend stay across the Anacostia River? To my mind, just imagining that this part of D.C. could be a place for tourists to want to stay was a bit of a shocker, but I wasn’t hip to a trend that apparently is pretty strong and that is airbnb.com. The online comments show folks from all over the world. I had an interesting texting conversation with the owner of this house, Norman, and he expressed 1) Anacostia has gotten a bad rap for too long; 2) There are some interesting demographic changes; 3) Racial diversity is not necessarily a bad thing for the hood. We really enjoyed our stay and if my mother’s house get’s tight again, we will definitely go back. I just talked with a fraternity brother of mine and he has a friend stay with him for short periods of time while she rents out her upper East Side New York house for periods up to as long as a month. I checked to see if there are Hill District houses on this website and even found one in the Sugar Top section. Apparently this is going on in cities all over the country and with the economy and hotel costs what they are, this will only grow. I was saying to my wife we may want to put the house we now rent out on annual basis on airbnb at some point in the future. What impact might this have on a street? On notions of neighborhood and community?

What does all this mean for the Hill District and my sense of foreboding? Pittsburgh is no D.C. and thus the Hill District is no Anacostia. So, we are not talking an apples to apples comparison. However, I will say that soon after we crossed the bridge into Anacostia there were signs for ONE BEDROOM HOUSING-COMING SOON that put me in the mind of the Hill (see my earlier post on The Residencies at New Granada  Square). But, what is my role in gentrification as a Black person in the professional class who has bought two homes that were built by non-profit community development corps as part of a redevelopment strategy?  Not long after we purchased our home on Dinwiddie St. there was an article in the New York Times, arranged at least in part by the Hill District Community Development Corporation, titled “Revival for a Black Enclave in Pittsburgh” that discussed our family and quoted me in the context of what was then a new phenomenon of “Black gentrifiers”. Interestingly, my wife, born and raised in Hill District public housing, didn’t fit this frame and was not included in the story. Towards the end of the article this trend of Black gentrification was juxtaposed with a quote from a young, unnamed Black man saying “Ain’t none of this got nothing to do with me”. I wonder if this young man had his own sense of foreboding.

Wanted: Play Space For Children and Families

4 Replies

A week ago, children in tow, I passed out flyers on Wylie Ave getting a sense of and encouraging interest in a play space around Wylie Ave. This was the next step after our November, fledgling, 3 resident, block club meeting (see my earlier post “You Can Find Me in Da Club…the Block Club” for background) at which we discussed the lack of neighborhood play spaces and the possibility of the land that sits behind Wylie (actually Humbert) and is between Duff and Chauncey as a great play space for kids. In the couple of hours I spent door knocking last weekend, I heard that others are experiencing weekends with children at home in front of the computer or tv because of the shortage of play outlets in walking distance/eyesight. The good news is that the section of land in which we are interested is designated to be a park in the Hill District Master Plan (see page 106 & 107 of the plan on the Chauncey Street Steps) but a potential problem is that our Hill District Community Development Corporation (CDC) is planning to study this land for its feasibility to hold housing. We’ll be meeting with the CDC in part to get an understanding of how they interpret the master plan to even allow for the consideration of housing in this space.

Don’t get me wrong, we really do need more people and families in this section of the Hill. However, there is one brand new house on Wylie that has not been sold in the two years we have lived on this street and that’s a commentary on the neighborhood’s perceived livability. What needs greater attention is how to improve the neighborhood for the families, couples and people who are living here now. Case in point, while door knocking I spoke to a woman who is leaving the street in January because her family’s basement floods every time there is significant rainfall…

We will have another block club meeting in January and involve our children in the conversation about a park and how this neighborhood could become a better place for children and youth. A conversation probably needed Hill District wide.

Tennis Anyone?

2 Replies

Serena WilliamsA couple of weekends ago my wife and our two youngest children wanted to play tennis (actually, my youngest son had no interest in going whatsover). To do so we needed to go to Schenley Oval because the Hill District tennis courts are in the Oak Hill Development and those courts are locked up on Sundays. One could read this to say that there is not a demand for tennis in the Hill, and, at this moment, you’d probably be right. However, with some supportive training programs this could change very quickly. Why couldn’t the next Venus or Serena come from the Hill? Well, right now because we only have two tennis courts.

Yes, tennis is usally associated with middle and upper middle class white people, so there is a surely a race and class dimension to why tennis is not currently popular in the Hill. But what of it? One of the strengths of African American neighborhoods prior to integration was said to be the multi-class dimensions of their mono-racial make up. With that in mind, how could the Hill self-consciously intensify its efforts to become a multi- class, predominantly African American neighborhood? How might the neighborhood intentionally develop a culture that helps its youth bridge to white middle class culture through amenities like tennis courts and bond to one another through African Centered schools with a focus on the creative aesthetics of Black individuals and groups? To go Utopian for a second, might such a culture be one that could attract white families who wanted to bring their children up in an anti-racist environment? How about the Hill District as a place that created the kind of culture for young people that it became known for producing all kinds of justice loving, anti-racist young folk? One can tell a lot about a community by what it offers its children since these activities have larger implications in what it reveals about how a community imagines the future of its children. What do the youth offerings in this community say about the Hill District? Tennis anyone?

Residences at New Granada Square

3 Replies

Reading Councilman Lavelle’s most recent newsletter (this was a few weeks ago at this point), my wife, Bonnie, Co-Director of the Hill District Consensus Group, pointed out to me that there were new plans for housing on Centre Ave in the New Granada Theater. Going to the URA agenda from the November 8th meeting, I believe I found (the language is almost impenetrable) that the URA has one year option to buy the land next to the New Granada Theater for $45,000 from the Hill House Economic Development Corp. and that this option has been given or assigned to a new entity called New Granada Square Housing LP (I assume the LP stands for Limited Partnership). This LP consists of the Hill District Development Corp and Ralph A. Farbo, Inc. In talking to the Councilman, he confirmed local news accounts  that the option gives the development entity “site control” so that almost $11 million in tax credits can be sought.

The plans noted in the November 8th, URA Board Agenda state that the development is to include 35 single bedroom units and 16 two bedroom units with about 80% being for people who earn up to 60% of the Area Median Income or AMI. I asked Ms. Milliones what AMI rate would be applied to the housing and she shared that it would be the $64,000 for a family, so potential renters can earn up to $38,400. As I write this I am concerned about applying a family rate to single bedroom units…

The question both my wife and I had was why was this development had not been presented at the Hill CDC’s community meeting to review proposals submitted in response to the Centre Ave Request for Proposals. So, I wrote Ms Marimba Milliones, Executive Director of the Hill District Development Corporation and copied Councilman Lavelle, since he has played the lead role in the process to redevelop Centre Ave. Ms. Milliones explained was that this land had not been included in the Centre Ave RFP because the Hill CDC had had a vision for this property that connected it to the theater going back several years, if not a decade, and to include the land around the New Granada Theater in the Centre Ave RFP could lead to incongruous plans for the theater and the land that surrounds it. Councilman Lavelle followed up on his own and offered the same explanation with the additional history that the Hill House Economic Development Corporation had also had plans for this land at some point. I can understand the idea of protecting the opportunity of Hill District organizations to play an important role in the development of the neighborhood, but the fact that the Hill CDC was selected by the URA to manage the Centre Ave Redevelopment process and also has its own development work happening on Centre Ave again demonstrates the benefits of a separate comunity body to approve development plans in the neighborhood. Please see here my Laing letter to Lavelle-Support the Planning Forum asking him to reconsider his lack of support for the Hill District Consensus Group’s Planning Forum.

More to think  about regarding how we are going to deal with housing, income, gentrification in this changing Hill District and so will return to this topic. Thanks to Councilman Lavelle and Ms. Milliones for setting aside time to answer questions and discuss this project and to my wife for pointing it out to begin with.