What can we do?

Redeemer on the Mount did the right thing by contacting police to record and photograph the vandalism. They’re also installing video cameras so perhaps surveillance will serve as a deterrent in at least part of our business district. We should also contact our city council representatives (Theresa Smith and Bruce Kraus) to let them know that we believe our graffiti problem has gotten worse.  Councilman Kraus actually opened a satellite office in Allentown at 2320 Arlington Avenue just last week. The office is open from 12pm-3pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.

In the past, Public Works did have a dedicated truck or two equipped with a power washer that would shower public walls and privately-owned buildings (with the owner’s permission). There were also several plain clothes city police officers that would at least photograph the graffiti and enter into a database. I’d be willing to bet though that the city’s financial hardships have affected these graffiti-busting initiatives.

A few years ago, we starting an a Adopt-A-Collection Box program in Mt. Washington. People purchased paint to match the dark green collection boxes in our neighborhood and “adoped” one or two of them and repeatedly and consistently painted over graffiti. We could revive that initiative or even extend it to other properties. Adopt a  building, get the owner’s permission and each time you see a new tag, paint over it. In an ideal world, property owners would take reponsiblity for this, but we know that doesn’t happen often enough.

• 2008; Marquise Investments asks for city’s approval to operate a strip club at 1635 W. Carson St., a former medical office building. The building is in an industrial zone where adult entertainment is allowed, subject to planning commission and council approval.
• November 2008; Planning Commission said ‘no’ to request. Planning and zoning staff allegedly didn’t send that recommendation to council as they’re required to do to trigger a public hearing.  
• March 2009; Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James told city lawyers to have council hold a hearing.
• June, July, August 2009; Still no hearing.
• September 2009; Judge James issues a “conditional-use permit for the club, ruling that the building meets all the objective requirements for an adult-entertainment facility.”

Sponsored by PCRG, the goal of Safe Neighborhood Networks is to bring neighborhood public safety activists together to share strategies, discuss root causes of crime across communities, receive training from public safety experts, and build safe communities from the grass roots up.

The discussion will include available resources for community groups; any problems that you might be having in your own neighborhood and how we can work together to address them; and what initiatives are currently underway in the city.

There will be a special presentation from Wendy Urbanic, the Coordinator of the city’s 311 Response Center. She will be discussing the services associated with the 311 line, how our communities can properly utilize the system, and the differences between 311 and 9-1-1. If there is something specific that you would like the group to address, please let Jared at PCRG  know so he can make sure it is on the agenda for the morning.

RSVP by March 11th by contacting Jared at programs@pcrg.org or (412) 391-6732 x210.

By the way, if you don’t check the message boards regularly, I encourage you to do so. You may find some useful information about activity that has occurred in or around your part of the neighborhood. With that being said, let’s not let vigilance (which is necessary living in any urban neighborhood) evolve into paranoia. We should continue to exchange information and pay attention to our surroundings when we’re out walking or driving around and just generally look out for one another, but remember that we live in a relatively safe, wonderful place.

Safe Neighborhoods Network Quarterly Meeting

DATE: Saturday, September 26, 2009

TIME: 9 am – 11 am

LOCATION: PCRG Conference Room 1901 Centre Ave, Suite 200 Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Join us on September 26th as individuals from neighborhoods across the city gather to discuss how we can work together to address safety issues! Safe Neighborhoods is a collaborative network of block watches across Pittsburgh. Sponsored by PCRG, our goal is to bring neighborhood public safety activists together to share strategies, discuss root causes of crime across communities, receive training from public safety experts, and build safe communities from the grass roots up. The discussion will last from 9am to 11am in the PCRG Conference Room. The discussion will include available resources for community groups; any problems that you might be having in your own neighborhood and how we can work together to address them; what initiatives are currently underway in the city. If there is something specific that you would like the group to address, please let me know so I can make sure it is on the agenda for the evening.

RSVP by September 25th by contacting Sarah at sstutts@pcrg.org

As ssb70 noted in a comment, WPXI.com reported that a Mt. Washington mother called 911 after finding a doll hanging from a noose attached to the hood of her car on Monday morning. When she looked closely at the doll, she noticed that its face had been painted black and her son’s initials were scrawled across the doll’s mangled and ketchup-splattered torso. This is horribly disturbing and I urge anyone that saw anything that may have led to this incident to call Zone 3 police at 412-488-8326.

What may seem like a cruel and heartless act by either kids who picked up the racist mentality of their ignorant parents or ignorant adults, it’s representative of much more than the misdemeanor offense with which the perpetrators will be charged. It’s a reminder that’s we’ve got miles to go with race relations in the City of Pittsburgh.

Racial incident effects of hypersegregated city?

We featured the Post-Gazette’s interactive homicide map in a previous post and mentioned the 2001 Brookings Institute study that concluded that Pittsburgh is in fact “hypersegregated” based on the fact that “68 percent of the metropolitan area’s black residents would have to move to achieve an even representation of race in every census tract.”  Statistics on the City Planning website from the 2000 U.S. Census reinforce this theory. Just to give you a few points of comparison, African-Americans comprise about 16% of the total population of Mt. Washington, while making up 34% of the population in Hazelwood and 2% in Brookline. Not exactly what you would call parity. There are a myriad of reasons for this including sprawl, lack of representation at every level of politics and housing discrimination just to name a few.

There are no easy answers, but it’s something that needs to continue to be part of public discourse.  As a friend of mine asked on Facebook today, “Anyone else think that because we have an African-American President that we’re now somehow post-racial?” with a link to this story.

Young man may have been involved in attack on elderly Mt. Washington woman

As I was writing this post, someone informed me that the young man that was targeted in this racial incident could be one of the people that attacked a 66-year old woman about six months ago on Woodruff Street. There was a lot of talk about this poor woman on the message boards as we followed her recovery and the trial. Supposedly, the young man is under house arrest now. We can’t corroborate this information and it wasn’t included in WPXI.com’s initial story so it is still speculation as far as we here at 15211.org are concerned.

We don’t do that in this neighborhood

Attacking that woman was awful and wrong and an affront to everything we love about this neighborhood. But it doesn’t change the fact that leaving a black-faced voodoo doll at the doorstep of an African-American family is just plain racist. What precipitated that act is not what we’re discussing. Getting upset about a slap-on-the-wrist penalty for what these kids did is completely understandable, but resorting to racial intimidation to express this frustration is unacceptable. It reminds me of what a woman once said at a MWCDC meeting I attended and it was one of the few times most of the heads in the room were nodding in agreement (imagine that!). She was talking about how she had confronted kids on her street that were throwing rocks. She walked up to them and simply said, “We don’t do that in this neighborhood.” And we don’t.

I think it’s interesting to be able to see where the murders seem to congregate. Unfortunately one of those murder clusters is in the Mt. Washington/Beltzhoover area and hits a little too close for comfort. This map was built in conjunction with the Post Gazette article Trends emerge when mapping out county’s murders.

It was the second bloodiest year on record for the county as a whole, but the violence barely touched many municipalities and Pittsburgh neighborhoods. Others experienced a relentless barrage of gunfire. …

Pittsburgh remains a segregated area, despite decades of improvements. In 2001, a report from the Brookings Institution said more than 68 percent of the metropolitan area’s black residents would have to move to achieve an even representation of race in every census tract. The report called such a percentage “hypersegregation.”

Feel free to use this site to exchange ideas or share thoughts after the meeting. See you soon.

At the scene I heard that there was no one in the house at the time the fire broke out. More details to come and as always, let us all know if you have more information. Thanks.

According to an article in today’s Post-Gazette, Councilwoman Payne offered her opinions on where the first cameras should be installed.

“I think we want to put [cameras] where we see the majority of crimes taking place,” said Councilwoman Tonya Payne, citing the North Side, Hill District, Homewood, Garfield and East Liberty as starting points.

I can only hope she was speaking off the cuff and that elected officials will use crime statistics and other quantitative measures to determine placement rather than put cameras in neighborhoods based on perceptions of certain areas. As you can see below, Mt. Washington suffers from more personal crime than Garfield and more property crime than North Side and part of the Hill District. I pulled these stats from homefair.com. I’m sure the city police have more detailed and up-to-date statistics that council members can use as a guide.

                                                *Personal Crime Risk              **Property Crime Risk

Mt. Washington                      255                                          168

North Side                              264                                          156

Hill District (15219)                176                                          156

Hill District (15213)                245                                          114

Homewood                             270                                          230

Garfield                                   236                                          199

E. Liberty                                270                                          203

Risks are in Index (100=National Average) and Homefair cites the following sources:
The data is drawn from an array of sources, and is updated at least once a year:

• U.S. Census Bureau estimates and projections, including latest monthly estimates for population at the city level.
• Bureau of Labor for employment data by industry and occupation.
• Internal Revenue Service statistics on tax filers and year-to-year migration.
• Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police departments and municipalities for crime information.  

*Personal Crime Risk (in Index) – Index score (100=National Average) that represents the combined risks of rape, murder, assault and robbery.
**Property Crime Risk (in Index) – Index score (100=National Average) that represents the combined risks of burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft.

According to preliminary reports, two groups of people got into a fight at Sonny’s Place and someone was shot as things escalated. Sonny’s management cannot be blamed for the shooting. That responsibility falls solely on the man that pulled the trigger. However, Sonny’s should take ownership of the kind of clientele that they are tolerating in their establishment. We all know that this isn’t the first incident that’s happened in or around that bar. Everyone has heard the rumors about seedy activities going on there and other unsavory businesses cropping up around this corner.

While I don’t relish in taking part in an initiative to declare a local establishment a nuisance, I don’t see that we as a community have much of a choice at this point. If there is any way Sonny’s could commit to cleaning up its act, maybe they’d get some support from the community. After all, vacant storefronts are not the ultimate goal of any business district.

We know that not all of the people that frequent Sonny’s are bad, but when the few start making our neighborhood unsafe for the many, something’s got to be done. Not only has Sonny’s become dangerous for residents, it’s not helping us combat some of the negative perceptions about Mt. Washington and city living in general.

We’ve been flooded with requests about where to go and what to do about this so here are some ways you can take action right now.

Call the Nuisance Bar Hotline: 412-323-7777 (according to Amanda, we can ask to speak with John McBurney or Sgt. Craig Campbell).

Attend tonight’s MWCDC meeting at 7PM at the Senior Center on Virginia Avenue and voice your concerns.