WINTER 2002

The Magazine of The Endowments

Andy Warhol Gets Tough ’s pop culture museum uses a painful exhibit to promote a civic dialogue on racism.

INSIDE: Why Design Matters BioBurgh Youth + Art = Work message

inside Volume 2 Number 1 Winter 2002 To our readers 

Founded more than four decades Our fields of emphasis include n our cover story for this issue, Andy Warhol Museum In various ways, the museum has sought to rise to that apart, the Howard Heinz Endowment, philanthropy in general and the 1 director Tom Sokolowski recounts the question that challenge. Nothing the Warhol has done to date has been so established in 1941, and the disciplines represented by our grant- people often asked when informed that the museum bold—or so carefully considered—as its staging of Without Vira I. Heinz Endowment, established making programs: Arts & Culture; To Our Readers I would be hosting an exhibit on lynching and racial violence: Sanctuary. But it has presented forums for political candidates in 1986, are the products of a deep Children, Youth & Families; family commitment to community Economic Opportunity; Education; Why the Warhol? to discuss their support for the arts. It has staged discussions, and the common good that began and the Environment. These five 2 A little more than a decade ago, when Senator , presentations and exhibits that raise tough questions about with H. J. Heinz and continues programs work together on behalf of who was then chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment, racism and homophobia. And Sokolowski himself frequently to this day. three shared organizational goals: Without Sanctuary and his wife, Teresa, were working to bring the museum to wades into community debates about aesthetics, civic design, The Heinz Endowments is based enabling southwestern At Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol museum: brutal art leads to Pittsburgh, a similar but even more fundamental question was and the role and quality of public art. in Pittsburgh, where we use to embrace and realize a vision of heartfelt conversations on racism. asked: Why a Warhol? Why a museum dedicated to the glitzy All of this can be disconcerting. It can upset people who our region as a laboratory for the itself as a premier place both to development of solutions to chal- live and to work; making the region pop culture sensibilities of a single controversial artist? prefer their art tame and their cultural institutions austere and lenges that are national in scope. a center of quality learning and Teresa Heinz answered that question definitively at the quiet; just as it can trouble purists who fret about art being Although the majority of our giving educational opportunity; and making 18 museum’s opening in 1994. “To me,” she said, “all art poses dragged down by demands for educational value and commu- is concentrated within southwestern diversity and inclusion defining Designing the Future the same questions as Paul Gauguin’s masterpiece, which the nity engagement. But, in a very real sense, that discomfort Pennsylvania, we work wherever elements of the region’s character. artist titled, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where is a measure of the Warhol’s faithfulness to its mission. necessary, including statewide and Space designs that please architects also need to please Are We Going? Andy’s work asked those questions of our entire By staging Without Sanctuary, the Warhol did not erase nationally, to fulfill our mission. That the people who use them. mission is to help our region thrive culture, on behalf of an entire generation.” the racial divide that exists in Pittsburgh as in so many other as a whole community — economically, Implicit in those words was a challenge to the Warhol for cities around America. That was never its expectation. But as ecologically, educationally and 20 the future. A museum celebrating the works of this probing our cover story shows, it did challenge people. It did open culturally — while advancing the artist could not become a mere repository for his art and more than a few minds. It did shine back a mirror not just on state of knowledge and practice in The Business of Bioscience remain true to his spirit. Like the artist himself, it would need the past, but also on the culture of the present. In the process, the fields in which we work. Economic Opportunity grantmaking is speeding the flow to be curious, provocative and willing to challenge us with it showed how valuable a cultural institution can be in helping of scientific advances from laboratory to marketplace. ideas about what our community and society stand for: who a community to grapple with an issue for which the only 26 we are, what we believe and what we think the future holds. solutions, in the end, are knowledge and understanding. Art Works Grant Oliphant At-risk youth embrace arts programs as paid apprentices Director of Planning and Communications and learn basic employment skills. 30 Here & There

Comments: The staff of h magazine and The Heinz Endowments welcome your h magazine is a publication of The Heinz Endowments. At the Endowments, comments. All print and email letters must include an address with daytime and we are committed to promoting learning in philanthropy and in the specific fields evening phone numbers. We reserve the right to edit any submission for clarity represented by our grantmaking programs. As an expression of that commitment, and space. Published material also will be posted on The Heinz Endowments’ this publication is intended to share information about significant lessons web site, which offers current and back issues of the magazine. and insights we are deriving from our work.

Editorial Team Linda Braund, Nancy Grejda, Maxwell King, Maureen Marinelli, Grant Oliphant, Douglas Root. Design: Landesberg Design Associates By Jim Davidson Photography by Lynn Johnson

On the way to The Andy Warhol Museum to see the Without Sanctuary exhibit of lynching postcards and photographs, 15-year-old Matt Mayger was thinking about his family history in Georgia three generations ago. He knew his great-grandfather had been a Baptist minister and a pillar of the community in Athens, Savannah and Marietta. That much was apparent from the old photographs that had been passed down through the family.There was also talk that the Rev. Oscar Nash had been a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan in without sanctuary the 1910s—or so said Mayger’s grandmother, At Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, a wrenching exhibit on lynching helps a the youngest of 14 children in the family. young man confront his family’s past— and a reluctant community examine Before her death a few years ago, she had its feelings about race. talked about witnessing a lynching as a little girl, and about her father’s role in the Klan.

Jim Davidson is a Pittsburgh-based writer who teaches journalism at Carnegie Mellon University and edits FOCUS, the faculty newspaper. Two high school students are transfixed by a graphic picture of a lynching victim, one of 98 postcard photographs in Without Sanctuary, an exhibit at Pittsburgh's Andy Warhol Museum. A museum record 31,400 viewed the unflinching history of racial violence in America.

n that morning in October, Mayger was just others vented shock and other feelings they couldn’t begin to one of the 60 students from Greater Latrobe name. Finally, Mayger spoke up and began peeling the family Senior High School visiting the Warhol onion, telling not only about his grandfather’s grand wizardry, because they had volunteered to work on a but also about his father who “woke up” to the reality of project to combat racism. With the faces of racism while serving in Vietnam and afterward, moving to Ohis grandmother and great-grandfather imprinted on his California where people mixed more freely with one another. mind, Mayger set about looking for evidence that the family His father had learned to respect all people, rejecting much stories were true. of his Southern upbringing, and he had taught his son to Mayger walked solemnly past 98 postcard images showing do the same, Mayger explained. the grisly spectacle of human beings who were whipped, And there it was. More than 86 years after the fact, a polite, beaten, stoned, stripped, gouged, burned, mutilated, shot cheerful teenager from Pennsylvania was implicating his and then hanged by their necks from trees, from lampposts, great-grandfather in the killing of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory from bridge railings. owner who had been railroaded and lynched following the The great majority of the victims in the postcards are black killing of a young woman worker. men, their faces and bodies contorted in death. All around Mayger’s discovery—and the ongoing discussion that them, in many cases, are the beaming faces of white men and followed—was likely the most dramatic episode during the the occasional child, grinning at the camera to proclaim baldly exhibit, yet it was not the only occasion for tears of anger and the carnival atmosphere that so often accompanies the mob regret as dozens of school groups and thousands of visitors murders. Mayger examined one photograph after another filed past the photographs. Without Sanctuary sparked a lot of until finally coming to the last postcard, where a familiar face candid discussion on the taboo subject of racial violence, and stared back. played a significant role in keeping the history alive. There, just above white block letters proclaiming “The End For four months—September 22 through Martin Luther of Leo Frank, Hung by a Mob at Marietta, Ga., Aug 17, 1915,” King Day, including a three-week extension—Without was a square-jawed man with a brush mustache and fedora, Sanctuary haunted the sixth-floor gallery of the North Side standing nearly a head taller than the four other men gathered museum, breaking attendance records and broadening public around Frank’s manacled and lifeless body. “He just kind of perception of the Warhol’s mission as a contemporary art stuck out,” Mayger says, explaining how he linked the man museum that does not shrink from heavy issues and hard with a mustache to a family photograph that shows his grand- questions. With broad support from foundations, agencies, mother as a girl no older than five. In that image, datable to the schools, community groups and individual artists, Without early 1920s, Mayger’s great-grandfather is a tall man with the Sanctuary served as a catalyst for a civic dialogue about same square jaw and the same brush mustache, only a shade race in a setting that was civil and even—some sophisticated grayer than the one he wore the night Leo Frank was killed. museum-goers might say—artistic. The horrific images On that morning at the Warhol, Mayger and about 15 prompted the kind of talk usually reserved for front porches classmates filed into an adjoining room for a “dialogue” with in segregated neighborhoods. Without Sanctuary trampled two artist–educators trained by the Warhol to help viewers the polite boundaries of public discourse on race. On its digest the exhibit. For nearly a half an hour he sat quietly as good days—and there were many—the exhibit provoked some heart-to-heart talks, most of them long overdue. Many museum-goers were so concerned about their reaction to the grisly lynching photographs that they preferred to view the exhibit alone.

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Mayger had known his late grandmother, who lived on the “We talked about how you can stop it, even though there’s into the creation of the Warhol from 1992 family homestead in Latrobe during the last decades of her a pattern,” he remembers. through 1994, and the Heinz philanthropies life. She told the family about lynchings she had seen as a “We talked about how Matt was breaking a cycle,” have continued to support the mission of the little girl, so “it wouldn’t have been surprising to see her in the remembers his English teacher, Allison Duda, who accom- museum. A $25,000 grant from the Vira I. photographs. I knew she had witnessed them,” Mayger said. panied the students to the Warhol and also had helped to Heinz Endowment enabled the Warhol to After her death, when the family thumbed through her organize the anti-racism group, Activists for Community document all aspects of the exhibit, and papers, they wondered what they would find. But like most Tolerance. “He expressed ‘I’m not this way. I’m not like my partially underwrote the cost of free Tuesday people in most families, his grandmother did not preserve great-grandfather.’” And that was the message, she says, that Center. The Warhol, competing in such grand company, admissions during the Without Sanctuary exhibit. The Warhol any evidence, photographic or otherwise, of events later to be he carried 45 miles back to Latrobe and to the majority gained some new heft by hosting Without Sanctuary. The staff showed bold initiative, too, in knocking on the doors judged horrific and shameful. His own father didn’t go into of his classmates who hadn’t joined the racism project and museum already had captured the sense of adolescent whimsy of African-American and white power centers and coaxing much detail about the family’s history—“He wants to forget weren’t on the Warhol field trip. that suffused Pop Art and Andy’s celebrated New York studio, their participation. more than anyone,” Mayger says. As a result, he says, “I had The Warhol itself is in the refurbished Volkwein Music the Factory. Among the permanent exhibits are such items as “The Warhol Museum does what cultural institutions are never really given it much thought.” Building on Pittsburgh’s North Side, a few blocks from the Warhol’s fanciful drawings of shoes that he completed in his supposed to do,” says Janet Sarbaugh, director of The Heinz The visit to the museum not only filled in missing details scrap metal yard operated by the artist’s brother, Paul Warhola, early days as a graphic illustrator, and temporary exhibits that Endowments’ Arts & Culture Program. “It challenges us and about the past, but brought the dilemma of racism into the under the authentic family name. In fact, the Warhol is posi- have chronicled the artist’s shopping sprees and the many makes us think. It evokes all sorts of conflicting emotions and present. Mayger, an easygoing student who can joke about his tioned at an intersection of old and new. There are immigrant permutations of celebrity culture, including the upcoming gives us a safe place to discuss all sorts of complex issues.” grades in sophomore English, was presented with an oppor- eastern European, Irish and African-American neighborhoods. exhibit of artwork from record album covers. Sarbaugh calls the Warhol “a 20th- and 21st-century tunity to hear a Jewish classmate and an African-American And there is the exquisitely designed PNC Park opening up Slapping Without Sanctuary on top of all the frivolity was iteration of the Heinz family’s long-standing support of the classmate—one of three or four at the high school—speak onto the Allegheny River, a North Shore Park, the new football like slapping stories of the September 11 terrorist attacks on Carnegie Museums,” which dates back to the 1890s. Senator from the heart about racism. Mayger responded in kind. stadium known as and The Carnegie Science the cover of Andy’s old celebrity-worshipping Interview John Heinz and Teresa Heinz “championed the idea of magazine. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest Without bringing the Warhol to Pittsburgh and of associating it with Sanctuary would have made him uncomfortable if he had the Carnegie,” Sarbaugh says. “They grasped intuitively why it “The Warhol Museum does what been running his own museum. While the exhibit certainly was important on so many levels. It was right in terms of the attained the shock value the artist was famous for, the lynching Andy Warhol connection to Pittsburgh. It was right in terms cultural institutions are supposed to do. photographs carry historical weight he might have been afraid of economic development and tourism. It was right in terms to shoulder. For all of his New York pretentiousness, Andy of the North Side neighborhood and it was right in terms of It challenges us and makes us think. was a North Sider at the core: eyes-on-the-ground shy and an institution that represented not only Andy Warhol but also It evokes all sorts of conflicting slow to open up to strangers. Without Sanctuary came barreling American pop culture. I believe that Teresa Heinz still sees into a neighborhood where generations—both black and that as one of the most important functions of the Warhol— emotions and gives us a safe place to white—embraced a “let’s not go there” policy in discussing representing popular culture and interpreting it expansively race relations. and creatively.” discuss all sorts of complex issues.” Given its history and surroundings, the Warhol could not Sarbaugh acknowledges that a Pittsburgh museum devoted have made the leap to a Without Sanctuary without strong to one artist seemed risky in the early 1990s. With arts dollars Janet Sarbaugh Director, Arts & Culture Program, The Heinz Endowments public support. Some of that came with civic foundation stretched tight, there were voices saying the city didn’t need imprimaturs, from The Ford Foundation’s Animating Democracy another major cultural institution. But Senator Heinz, she Initiative, The Heinz Endowments, and the Jewish Healthcare, says, “saw the value and stuck with it,” and that decision has Lannan, Grable, and Three Rivers Community Foundations. been vindicated under director Tom Sokolowski. About $2.5 million in Heinz Endowments support went High school students wear earphones as they view video commentaries from others who have toured the exhibit. The Points of View section offered a video booth and a public journal where museum-goers could record their reactions. The goal was to encourage participants to see the exhibit through the eyes of those with strikingly different racial, ethnic, economic and religious backgrounds. Top: Students listen to a classmate’s emotional reaction to the exhibit. Below: Greater Latrobe High School student Matt Mayger becomes a lightning rod for class discussions after discovering his great-grandfather posing proudly next to the body of a lynching victim in one of the photographs. For the 15-year-old Mayger, the historical record has become part of his family record.

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“The programming has been exactly right, and it will The same question arose repeatedly—“Why the Warhol?” images of man’s inhumanity to man. Sokolowski feared the continue to put the museum on the map,” Sarbaugh says. Or, as Sokolowski remembers it, “What does the Warhol steady drumbeat of terrorist news would send museum patrons “Without Sanctuary shows they can take on controversial subjects Museum have to do with issues of race?” His reply was direct: running for Monet waterlilies or Norman Rockwell family with sensitivity and without pulling punches. This gives them “Where else in town would it be done?” As a young museum, scenes, but that didn’t happen. permission to attempt even more as they continue to explore he explains, the Warhol could host an exhibit that did not “Here’s a show that’s sober, that’s disturbing, that’s not a popular culture.” automatically presume the curators knew more than the pleasant experience, and people come to it. One of the most James Allen, the Atlanta antiques dealer and self-described audience about the subject at hand. gratifying things is to show that the public isn’t a bunch of “picker” who combed flea markets and ephemera auctions to In effect, the museum was repositioning itself. From the dullards. People want to think. They don’t want pablum.” purchase the Without Sanctuary postcards, said at the Warhol beginning, The Andy Warhol Museum has known who it Sokolowski adds, “People really have used the experience opening on September 22 that he was “thrilled to see what was—a part of the Carnegie that happened to have a different in an expansive way to talk about other events.” is happening here,” with an exhibit that is patently too con- focus and happened to be on the North Side, not in Oakland. troversial or too disturbing for most museums to consider Today Sokolowski is delighted that the wider Pittsburgh OPENING HEARTS AND MINDS mounting. The Warhol is the third place it has been shown, community grasped that Without Sanctuary was exactly what following exhibits last year at the tiny Roth Horowitz Gallery a contemporary art museum should be doing. “Once we eeks before the exhibit came to town, the in Manhattan and then at the New York Historical Society. showed people we were not doing this exhibit in a patriarchal Warhol’s outreach education staff worked to Without Sanctuary will open this spring at the Martin Luther way, telling them to take it or leave it, they responded. And W enlist community support for Without Sanctuary, King Jr. Memorial in Atlanta, a downtown facility maintained now people are saying ‘Why not the Warhol?’” partly through formation of a broad-based community by the National Park Service, but to date there have been no Without Sanctuary opened the week after the World Trade advisory committee. The work paid off on opening day— other engagements. Center attacks, hardly an opportune time for showing graphic Saturday, September 22—when as many as a thousand The core of Without Sanctuary is the picture postcard collection by Allen, who is white. “This was an American often with smiles on their faces. “Lynching is not a tale of story that needed to be told,” he said at the Warhol opening, spontaneous rage or lower-class criminality or night riders,” Without Sanctuary trampled the polite recalling how the mother of 14-year-old Emmett Till had, in Allen said. “It’s always, and most clearly and simply, savage 1955, demanded an open casket for her son, “putting a face murder on a savage’s level.” In some photographs, children take boundaries of public discourse on race. on race hatred and race murder for all to see.” their lead from the adult men around them and pose proudly. The postcards, Allen learned, were frequently disseminated Women are prominent in photographs from such places as On its good days—and there were many— as lynching mementos by photographers who set up portable Marion, Indiana; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Okemah, studios at lynching sites. The postcards passed from hand to Oklahoma. The Okemah image shows dozens of men and the exhibit provoked some heart-to-heart hand and were allowed in the U.S. mail until 1908. Allen women standing on the bridge from which Laura Nelson talks, most of them long overdue. found the photographs in obscure corners of white America, and her 14-year-old son, L.W. Nelson, have been hanged. locked in trunks and thumbtacked to service station walls. The postcards show graphic images of hangings and other vigilante CAPTURING THE EXHIBIT killings, all of which are considered lynchings. The postcards in the exhibit stretch across more than a half-century, from ast year, Sokolowski explained to the Pittsburgh 1878 to 1935. The collection preserves images from lynchings Post-Gazette that Without Sanctuary was arriving in the in at least 18 states, including West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, L right place at the right time. “It’s a good way to bring Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and California. Most of heightened awareness of race to Pittsburgh, where race issues the apparent killers are not hooded vigilantes and Klansmen, have not been so openly discussed.” but proud white men who are staring straight into the camera, “It’s hard to get past the initial shock and the brutality of the photographs, but most dialogues do go beyond that.”

Carrie Schneider Warhol Artist–Educator

Students break into pairs to discuss their thoughts on racism as part of a dialogue session connected to the Without Sanctuary exhibit. Activities in the sessions included writing out phrases connected to racist behavior. Students also challenge one another in developing practical solutions to acts of racism. Warhol Museum artist–educator Sarah Williams, center, and Latrobe Area High School students listen as a classmate makes a point about generational inheritance of racist behaviors and how family experiences prove that it can be stopped.

 visitors circulated through a morning-to-night shindig that DELIVERING THE MESSAGE rocked the rafters for as long as the voices of the Warhol hat you’re doing is hard. You’re facilitating a Choir filled the entrance lounge. dialogue on race,” Sherry Cottom is telling “For me, the most telling reaction was from young people,” “ the group. Cottom has a long title—trainer/ says Lavera Brown, executive director of the Pittsburgh W facilitator at the Center for Race Relations and Anti-Racism NAACP. The “gray hairs” in her generation, she says, heard Training at the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh—and on this stories about lynching and racial violence from their extended Friday morning she’s sitting at a table in a windowless room families, but her own children, raised in a more mobile society, at the Warhol, bringing a measure of good sense and comfort have not heard the same stories from their grandparents. to about 15 artist–educators. A mixture of staff and contract Still, Brown says, some African-Americans initially workers, all with backgrounds as artists, they are the front- questioned the wisdom of an exhibit about lynching. “Some line troops of the Without Sanctuary exhibit. They run the people were there when the hoses and dogs were out, and they “dialogues”—the 45-minute groups in which students or said, ‘Do I have to put myself through this pain again?’ I read ordinary visitors have an opportunity to discuss the devastating them the letter I sent, commending the Warhol for putting images they’ve just seen. this on. I’m of the firm belief that change will not occur if we The hitch is that the images are devastating for the artist– do not have white allies along with people of color.” educators, too, and keeping the dialogue on track is doubly Brown concluded that the Warhol was the right place difficult. There are ground rules to enforce, known officially to broach the subject. “I probably would not have supported as the “dialogue agreement.” Participants are asked to use “I” the exhibit as strongly as I did if it had been in an African- statements and speak from their own perspectives; to respect American museum.” It’s necessary, she says, for the discussion one another’s experiences, feelings and points of view; to to take place not in a white neighborhood or a black neigh- share airtime; and to listen to one another. But there’s no rule borhood, but in a place where all will feel welcome. about keeping the artist–educator from feeling the pain that Terry Miller, deputy director of the Institute of Politics at goes with this particular territory. “I don’t know if I can do the University of Pittsburgh, worked hard to organize a dialogue this,” one artist–educator tells the group. “In a professional that was to involve political, corporate and religious leaders. environment, you can’t sob in your office. But I have.” But with only one commitment from the leader of a major Another talks about fears the show is taking over her life and institution—Bishop Donald Wuerl of the Catholic Diocese — her head, and yet another says, “I don’t want to go into the the Warhol had to call off the event. “I’m sorry it didn’t gallery and start wailing my head off.” happen,” Miller says, “but that doesn’t mean it’s off the table.” Cottom has led some of the Without Sanctuary dialogue Brown served on the community advisory committee that sessions, so she knows whereof she speaks. On this Friday was largely thwarted in its efforts to bring elected officials morning she praises the artist–educators for the good work and corporate movers and shakers to the exhibit. “It would be they’re doing. She reassures them about feeling upset. She criminal if this exhibit went away and left no continuing delivers practical advice about keeping the dialogues on track, impact in this community,” she says. Mentioning the YWCA’s and for dealing with 15-year-olds who make insensitive study circles about race as well as programs of the National statements about the ever-hazardous topic of race, confidently Council of Christians and Jews, Brown says, “In terms of assuming they know what “some people” or “those people” follow-up plans, we need to strongly encourage faith-based organizations to have continuing discussions.” At the Hands of Persons Unknown From the collection of James Allen

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think. To explain issues of racism to a young white audience, magazine, Serendipity—while an African-American student The August 1915 lynching of Leo Frank carries its own local significance Cottom suggests using the analogy of left-handed people said she felt proud that her people had survived the decades of for a Latrobe family’s coming to terms with racist ancestors unearthed trying to cope with a right-handed world. “As a right-handed lynching. The word quickly spread through the group from in The Andy Warhol Museum’s Without Sanctuary exhibit on lynching. person,” she explains, “you don’t know there’s a problem.” Latrobe. “By the end of the day, it had gotten around to all 60 But the death of Frank, a white, Jewish New Yorker, is viewed ironically as Sarah Williams, an artist–educator who graduated from kids,” Mayger said. “It got distorted. By the end of the day, it a pivotal case in the long history of brutal murders whose victims were Seton Hill College in 2000, has been moved and surprised was my dad in the picture.” overwhelmingly African-American. by what people have said. The best dialogues, she says, happen Mayger’s vindication came a week later in Allison Duda’s In the recently published At the Hands of Persons Unknown, a full and when people seem to forget where they are. “They drop sophomore English class. Mayger passed around the family devastating history of lynching in America, author Philip Dray describes the ‘I’m-in-a-museum’ and start telling stories about their experi- photograph, along with a copy of the Frank lynching photo- Frank case as “... one of the great national criminal dramas, on a par with ences with racism.” Williams has heard stories about segregated graph that he had downloaded from the Without Sanctuary the Lizzie Borden trial, the Lindbergh kidnapping, and the O.J. Simpson case.” buses, and she’s heard children talking about their parents’ web site. “At first, no one really believed me. But when I Frank, a Cornell graduate in mechanical engineering, sent to Atlanta to interracial marriages. “For some people, the dialogue has brought in the picture, what can you say? I had photographic manage his uncle's pencil manufacturing plant, was charged in the become a forum for their storytelling. When that happens, it’s evidence,” Mayger said. Speaking to students who had not strangulation killing of Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old worker at the factory. an incredible thing.” seen the exhibit and to a few who had, he again shared the The great-grandfather of Frank was arrested on shoddy evidence and sloppy police work. He was eventually convicted Cottom has been drawn to the work from the painful story of his great-grandfather’s Klan activity and held up his Latrobe Area High School in a trial influenced by unruly mobs of spectators. The case, writes Dray, “was like a powerful student Matt Mayger, far lynching stories passed down from generation to generation father as an example of “how you can stop it.” His father was searchlight illuminating several themes then current in the life of the South—the resistance to right, mustached and change as represented by a Northern capitalist, a strain of anti-Semitism that had evolved out in her family. But at the exhibit’s halfway point, she had yet willing to break with his own family to break the cycle, sporting a wide-brimmed of the Populist distrust of the urban North and ...the continuing will to rely on sensationalism to view it. “I’m not ready or willing to let the public see my Mayger said. Now, he told his classmates, here he is, a mem- hat, poses prominently near emotions, and they’re not going to close down the exhibit just ber of the Mayger clan, moving in the opposite direction and the body of lynching victim and mob intimidation, including lynching, to enforce regional codes of justice.” so I can walk through it myself,” she said in mid-December. helping to found Activists for Community Tolerance. Leo Frank in this 1915 The chief witness against Frank, a factory janitor named Jim Conley, also turned out to be “I remember getting chills at that moment in the class,” photograph. the likely killer. Conley, an African-American, testified that Frank had killed Phagan and ordered Duda recalls. “The other students respected him for what he Conley to help him burn the body and write two misleading notes about the crime. This played SINKING IN was saying.” directly to the jury’s twin prejudices, Dray observes—that Frank, as a Yankee Jew, would be fter Matt Mayger discovered his great-grandfather’s When Mayger was finished, one of his friends started unable to resist taking advantage of the factory’s female workers ... and that Conley, as a black photograph in Without Sanctuary, many of his clapping. It was an awkward situation at first, the sound of man, would be incapable of devising so sinister a plot without a white man’s guidance.” classmates were shocked and openly skeptical about one person clapping from the back of the room. For a The Frank case became a national cause celebre, with newspaper editorials, million-signature A petitions and state resolutions demanding Frank's release. The national uproar, Dray points out, his disclosure. “They were just kind of like, whoa—they didn’t moment, he was alone. Then another started up and then expect something like that,” Mayger remembers. Suddenly another until the room was filled with the powerful, celebratory angered many blacks, who “resented the ease with which the cause of an unjustly accused white lynching was not just something abstract and distant. Its sound of a classroom full of students thunderously clapping. h man marshaled such tremendous public sympathy and concern.” It also proved to be a blunt lesson heritage reached even into a predominantly white suburban for black anti-lynching activists about the lack of federal government power in the South. community many miles from the real horrors inflicted upon Less than two months after the courageous governor, John M. Slaton, judged the trial a travesty African-Americans. On that October morning at the of justice and commuted Frank's sentence, vigilantes calling themselves the Knights of Mary museum, Mayger spoke of his own shame about his family’s Phagan, stormed the jail, grabbed Frank and drove him to the outskirts of Marietta where he was racist past—a point he amplified in a story in the high school hanged from a tree. That group spurred the reinvention of the Reconstruction-era nightriders as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan who became famous for their white-hooded costumes, cross burnings and murderous violence through the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s and beyond. Designing theFor architects future and planners, civic excellence should be the goal.

By Teresa Heinz 

n our efficiency-minded modern era, excellence in Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design-certified of a community goes far below its surface. The hearts of design so often has been dismissed as a luxury, buildings than any city in America. That’s an accomplishment buildings, like the hearts of communities, like the hearts of something to pursue if you can afford it and if you that should make other cities across the country, if you’ll people, are more hidden than manifest. The terrorists’ acts happen to care about that sort of thing. I believe the forgive the expression, green with envy. opened for us a frightening window into the heart of darkness. opposite. I believe that, for our community, design And it should make us proud. The geography, the history, But, everywhere in America the instinctive reaction was over- Iexcellence—adherence to the high standards celebrated by the economy and the character of the region have, in the flowing compassion. this award—is not a luxury, but an absolute must. past, made Pittsburgh an The point of terrorism is to isolate people—to make This is a conviction that has long been held by the Heinz architectural melting pot. them fearful, and to make them flee. What we saw happen family. When my late father-in-law, , had the notion Now they are combining to in New York was the opposite. Instead of fomenting fear of a revitalized downtown being reborn around a thriving place us in an architectural and increasing isolation, the attack stimulated the desire for cultural district, he was adamant that the place itself—the avant garde. communion—for community. physical design of the district’s buildings and streets and parks— Today, thanks to the And that desire was nourished, quite clearly, by the had to be as inspiring and superb as the artistry it housed. creative collaboration of physical infrastructure of the city. As a former garden designer Both he and his son, my late husband, John, were adamant business and civic leaders, for two New York parks wrote in The New York Times, on another point as well: Design excellence doesn’t just mean academics, architects, activists Union Square, at most times a neighborhood park, became creating spaces that inspire other architects and other designers; and, of course, the ultimate “a sacred meeting ground.” it means creating places that inspire the people who use them. consumers—the citizens— People gathered on street corners, met in cafes, found quiet Ultimately, it means creating places that make our cities better a new vision for our city is solace in parks. They gazed out on the mutilated skyline of and more desirable places to live in. Not just to look at, or rising up around us: a vision their city and discovered enduring beauty—architecture that to read about in architectural magazines, but to live in. of a place that is comfortable still soared, buildings that still spoke of pride, public spaces For Pittsburgh, this has never been more important than it and safe, but also exciting that still inspired hope. is today. In the modern economy, quality of life plays a major and fun; a place where people Fred Kent, the director of the Project for Public Spaces, role in determining which regions will thrive, and which will actually want and like to live put it very well. He wrote, “The need to gather, to share not. And nothing shapes quality of life so definitively—and and work and go to school stories, to celebrate, protest and grieve in a common place is so enduringly—as the design of the public realm. and raise families. basic, human and universal. We must continue to allow— That is why, at The Heinz Endowments, we have created a In these newly and so and encourage—the diversity, culture and commerce of the multi-program focus on promoting superior civic design. It is terribly troubled times, such United States to thrive in healthy, livable cities, markets, why we underwrote the design competition for the David L. efforts might seem small and secondary. They are not. parks and neighborhoods.” Lawrence Convention Center, and why we have aggressively If anything, the events of September 11 and its aftermath That is why I say the work you do—the work of our supported the efforts of the Riverlife Task Force to help have dramatically underscored their importance. planners and designers and architects—has never been more Pittsburgh make the best possible use of its magnificent rivers What terrorism seeks is to destroy community —our belief important. and riverfronts. in one another and ourselves. Terrorism’s goal is to drag down I believe Pittsburgh is at the forefront of an emerging

And it is why we support the work of the Green Building the institutions, customs and lifestyles that are at the core of Jack Wolf national movement that is recognizing the importance of good Alliance and others to promote sustainable urban design. American life. design to our lives. You are designers not just of our buildings

Pittsburgh has become a leader—arguably, the leader — in I don’t have to tell this audience that the architecture of a A lunchtime crowd takes in the sun in the courtyard behind Pittsburgh’s premier and our streets and our parks; you are designers of our future. the green design architectural movement. We now have more building goes far deeper than its façade. And the architecture performing arts center, Heinz Hall. The space is a homage to function but also And in designing the future, excellence should always be designed for people. our standard. h Teresa Heinz, chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment, recently became the first civic leader to receive a gold medal from the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Institute of Architects for her efforts to promote quality design in the built environment. This essay was adapted from her acceptance speech. In the emerging life sciences industry, the stakes are high and the competition is stiff. But for those companies that succeed and for the regional economies in which they are located, the rewards could be breathtaking.

By Douglas Root Photography by Annie O’Neill

The Business of Bioscience f the officers of TissueInformatics, one of the high- One apparent nod to people is in the hallway wall art— techiest of Pittsburgh’s emerging bioscience firms, what appear to be abstract prints of globs and blobs splashed wanted to give the impression they’re running a in outrageous colors. But no, even the office décor is all about no-frills, it’s-all-about-the-work operation, they’ve the work. These are actually blown-up photographs of micro- succeeded. scopic images of all kinds of tissue—from shavings of ketchup IEach day, a dozen of the country’s smartest computer and tomatoes to slivers of a human hip bone. Company officers biology wizards bounce their cars over ruts in a dirt parking have set an ambitious goal: to become the national information lot surrounding a nondescript cinderblock building on the clearinghouse for digital information extractable from tissue, city’s edgy South Side. They report to a warren of tiny offices providing comprehensive analysis of tissue data that will on the second floor where comfort and design considerations revolutionize work in businesses ranging from pharmaceutical are focused on the needs of bioscience engineering’s most research to synthetic organ development. sophisticated equipment. While the office space is comfortable The company, begun in 1997 by three University of and fosters a close-knit working environment, frills for the Pittsburgh scientists and a business entrepreneur, is one in a staff are kept to a minimum. For TissueInformatics workers, fledgling pack of bioscience companies emerging in Pittsburgh. satisfaction comes in exploring uncharted territory, pushing Most of the for-profit companies—and for-profit wannabes the boundaries that separate pure science from the high-tech —have spun off from raw research at the region’s premier marketplace. universities, primarily Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University.

Douglas Root is the communications officer at The Heinz Endowments and a member of hmagazine’s editorial team. He last wrote about Pittsburgh’s Nine Mile Run brownfield transformation for the inaugural issue. TissueInformatics staff prepare tissue samples for digital imaging and for extracting genomic data. Images are processed and analyzed by way of proprietary software packages that map structural and functional features.

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more commercial development which leads to more jobs. A market study by two consultant groups on the viability of the greenhouse concept estimated the plan would create 5,000 bioscience jobs based on the founding or recruiting of 110 companies. Another 10,600 jobs would mushroom from the core businesses in the first few years, with thousands more to follow. These job creation estimates also considered the benefits of a Pitt–Carnegie Mellon initiative known as BioVenture, which will find strategic uses for the latest bioscience advances, especially the information treasure trove from the Human Genome Project. TissueInformatics needs to be all-business because, in the “A Life Sciences Greenhouse is just the kind of well- international leader in the emerging field of tissue engineering. The management executive facing the enormous challenge emerging life sciences industry, the stakes are high and the thought-out structure that is essential if we’re going to be able For funders like Kelley, it’s job creation at an unprecedented of getting the new Life Sciences Greenhouse off the ground competition is very stiff. But for those companies that succeed to jump-start the industry here and not lose the opportunity scale for an economy that just a decade ago was struggling to is Dennis Yablonsky, already a familiar face in the region’s and for the regions in which they are located, the rewards to some other city,” says Dr. Peter Johnson, chairman right itself from the demise of heavy manufacturing like steel high-tech, entrepreneurial circles as chief executive of the could be breathtaking. Billions of dollars and thousands of and chief executive of TissueInformatics and founder of the production. In fact, the job losses have been so great that the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse. That two-year-old regional jobs are expected to flow to those communities that can attract Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative. “This region has Pittsburgh region’s current population is the same as it was in organization has been credited with some success in moving and grow companies able to process raw laboratory research tremendous assets that could make us a center for bioscience 1940. “We have a lot of ground to make up,” says Kelley. Pittsburgh closer to experiencing a critical mass of technology- into marketable products. That, and the opportunity to pioneer industries. But we need to have this organization backed One of the surest paths to recovery may be through bio- related companies by developing support bases similar to the development of astonishing medical advances, are the by leaders from every sector so that it can aggressively go science, where Pittsburgh universities are being flooded with what are needed for the bioscience effort. The choice of the reasons behind the formation in December of an enormously after funding dollars and identify worthy prospects.” federal research contracts. More research dollars lead to 49-year-old Yablonsky, who has run software-related companies ambitious bioscience initiative for western Pennsylvania, the Johnson, a plastic surgeon and cell biologist at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse. The new organization University of Pittsburgh Medical School before founding has been tasked with raising an eye-popping $600 million TissueInformatics, is just the type of medical research “This region has tremendous assets that funding pool over the next decade. entrepreneur a Life Sciences Greenhouse would be positioned could make us a center for bioscience The goal, according to the new leadership team, is to use the to attract, says Brian Kelley, Economic Opportunity Program funds to provide seed capital for dozens of TissueInformatics- director at The Heinz Endowments. “To flourish in this industries. But we need to have this style companies—and to help grow those already under way. region, talented bio-researchers need to be able to access local The ten-member governing board, co-chaired by Pitt venture capital and research lab management expertise to turn organization backed by leaders from every Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and Carnegie Mellon President their results into a business plan. Given the strength of the Jared Cohon, draws from the top leadership ranks of the national competition, if we’re going to be successful at this, sector so that it can aggressively bioscience industry, from economic development groups and we need to make the process as accessible as possible—from from government and academic research. But taking a strate- funding to business development to marketing,” says Kelley. go after funding dollars and identify gic role in funding the organizational and start-up process are “We need a one-stop shop in turning university research into worthy prospects.” regional philanthropies, including the Economic Opportunity commercially viable products.” Program of The Heinz Endowments, which has committed to What’s behind all the strategizing over bioscience entrepre- Dr. Peter Johnson CEO, TissueInformatics long-term funding. neurs? For Johnson, the goal is to position Pittsburgh as the John Freund, a senior laboratory technician at TissueInformatics, confers with a colleague on a project that could lead to new drug targets or develop new indicators to allow for earlier diagnosis of disease. If there is going to be a bioscience boom in the Pittsburgh region, research scientists and computer programmers will have to collaborate closely in the workplace.

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in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, was an early joint decision by While some of these challenges appear daunting, the Bioscience boosters say that the Life Sciences Greenhouse the two university heads. Carnegie Mellon’s Cohon and Pitt’s prospectus refers repeatedly to Pittsburgh’s enormous strengths initiative is the first concerted effort in years to take the kind Nordenberg were so impressed with Yablonsky’s management in bioscience research and its position on the front lines of of dramatic action urged in the report. “This is the first time of the Digital Greenhouse that they pushed the board to hire significant medical advancements like transplantation special- that universities are at the center of the economic development him on a split-time basis between the two endeavors. But the ties and clinical treatment methods. The report describes these cycle,” says The Heinz Endowments’ Kelley. “This is clearly a bulk of his time will be spent setting the best conditions for as powerful assets in helping Pittsburgh to develop its still massive repositioning of regional, academic, economic devel- growing the Life Sciences Greenhouse. nascent bioscience industry base. opment and state funding assets. This is not easily done, and It will be Yablonsky’s critical first test to land a $40 million “The final, unfinished business in Pittsburgh’s bioscience it’s a long way from getting done.” chunk of a $100 million funding pool set aside last year by story is taking full advantage of its research and health care Johnson of TissueInformatics likens the challenge to former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge—part of the state’s Yablonsky cites an exhaustive prospectus prepared by base to help further diversify Pittsburgh’s economy and create picking the tumblers on a lock. The single-minded focus has proceeds from settlement of its lawsuit against tobacco Cleveland-based Battelle Memorial Institute’s Technology good, well-paying jobs for the region’s workers,” the Battelle to be in place, as does the community will to be patient, he companies. The Ridge administration plan was to fund bio- Partnership Group for an 18-member steering committee consultants wrote. “At the end of World War II, Pittsburgh says, as each element needed to grow the industry falls into science greenhouses in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and central exploring the idea of a greenhouse. The plan, he says, is so was advised to diversify into aerospace, electronics defense, place. A final “tumbler” involves increasing the availability Pennsylvania, an initiative still under way despite Ridge’s thorough, so solidly backed up with detailed economic and R&D, but failed to heed the call. It would be unfortunate of venture capital for local bioscience businesses, a process departure for Washington and his replacement by Lt. Gov. information on the region and its ability to generate bio- if, 50 years later when presented with the opportunity to be Johnson believes will occur during the next two years. “It’s Mark Schweiker. science industries “that we’re miles ahead of where we were a leader in the bio and digital revolutions…the region again only when that last tumbler falls and the lock springs open,” Sure to give Pittsburgh’s Life Sciences Greenhouse a quick at this point with the Digital Greenhouse.” fails to take dramatic action…not just for jobs, but for a he says, “that we’ll experience the explosive growth we all start out of the gate is its powerful university partnership, a Still, the prospectus identifies six areas that Pittsburgh healthy quality of life.” want to see.” h long-established federal research grant funding stream in the and western Pennsylvania will have to improve upon to come hundreds of millions of dollars annually and early underwriting out ahead of other regions in the competition for bioscience from the foundation community. “This region is fortunate investment dollars and companies: “We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and to have a foundation support base that is much larger than a • Upgrading the region’s technology commercialization let other cities go after this new sector. region the size of western Pennsylvania would normally attract,” capabilities; says Yablonksy. “The fact that [foundations] are committed to We’ve done more detailed research on this investing in the region and that they know how important • Enhancing the region’s research and development base, this kind of initiative is to Pittsburgh’s future makes my job especially in core focus areas like tissue engineering; project than on anything else I can think much easier.” • Establishing a critical mass of firms through entrepreneur- Yablonsky likely will be making more requests for ships and alliances with the pharmaceutical industry; about, and all the evidence says the time philanthropic backing as he embarks on fundraising trips to Washington. He’ll also be traveling to other regions to attract • Creating a business climate supportive of the biosciences, to execute is now.” including addressing capital gaps; private venture capital groups. Some critics have worried that Dennis Yablonsky President & CEO, Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse too much of western Pennsylvania’s funding “asks” are being • Developing a bioscience brand name and image for tied to bioscience. But Yablonsky disagrees. “We can’t afford the region; to sit on the sidelines and let other cities go after this new • Assuring that the talent and workforce are present to sector,” he says. “We’ve done more detailed research on this sustain bioscience development. project than on anything else I can think about, and all the evidence says the time to execute is now.” Pittsburgh’s Youth ArtWorks is designed to take teens through student instruction and paid apprenticeships to eventually turn them into full-time employees as mentors and instructors Art Work s to new students. By Douglas Root Photography by Ellen Kelson and Suellen Fitzsimmons

he world-renowned DanceBrazil dance troupe performed three world- premiere works in New York City’s Joyce Theater last year. One of them, Unspoken ...Unknown, is a duet in the African-Brazilian form of Capoeira, aT mix of pure dance blended with the raw athleticism of martial arts. Its history is represented in the movements imported to Brazil from Africa. Created by DanceBrazil artistic director Jelon Vieira, Unspoken ...Unknown tells the story of a friendship between two teenagers. As friends and fellow Capoeiristas, the two male dancers share everything—hopes, dreams and the Capoeira circle. The story line is a metaphor for how young people are drawn to Capoeira, in part because of the urban coolness inherent in the heart- pounding gymnastics and defensive fighting technique. But students also are captivated by the power of the movements to convey complex feelings of conflict, anxiety and isolation that teens often find difficult to verbalize. That power, which drew hundreds of young people to the New York dance theater, is on full display in a program now under way in Pittsburgh. The performances here are less grandiose—they are played out in school gymnasiums Nego Gato instructor Justin Laing helps a student with his form in and bare bones community centers—but no less energetic. And here the a Capoeira movement. Laing is teacher, counselor, coach and metaphor is being translated into real life: Capoeira devotee Justin Laing, who mentor to at-risk youth in an arts teaches out of the Nego Gato movement, uses his art to connect with employment program that is just beginning to come into its own. Pittsburgh’s at-risk teens.  

Tresa Varner, assistant curator of education at The Andy plan to expose students to a wider range of creative and Warhol Museum on Pittsburgh’s North Side, who directs the administrative opportunities in the arts. But overall, they “I get to spend more of my magazine publishing program, says the arts instruction process found the programs promising. is labor-intensive. Youth often come into the program full “Youth ArtWorks has the potential to be a powerful, time helping students improve their of ideas but unprepared for the amount of work involved in positive influence in young peoples’ lives,” the OMG evaluators making them happen. “We’re trying to encourage creative wrote in their report. “That potential can be achieved by skills, and that’s more opportunity to writing, poetry and photography,” says Varner, “but we’re also ensuring all sites reach the status of the few best-practice sites. showing them that the creative process can’t happen without An additional challenge for the consortium is to take the basics like showing up for work on time and staying focused.” program to scale without compromising that quality, for transfer that focus, discipline and Backing up Braun’s small-scale, success-building strategy that is required if the program is to make a difference for a is independent evidence that says the arts-for-pay mix has a significant number of disadvantaged Pittsburgh youth.” caring into other areas of their lives.” significant impact on youth who stay with the program. An The evaluators also cited instructor–artists for taking qual- Justin Laing Instructor, Youth ArtWorks OMG Center for Collaborative Learning’s evaluation of Youth ity seriously. The difference they make in the lives of Youth ArtWorks, commissioned last year by The Heinz Endowments, ArtsWorks apprentices often has as much to do with helping gave the four main programs high marks. Findings were based them develop life-coping skills as in improving their talent for Nego Gato is one of four arts-centered programs in technology skills, and a portfolio of work to help them in on class visits, benchmark comparisons with similar programs painting or music or dance. The arts can serve as safe ground, Pittsburgh’s Youth ArtWorks, which promotes the use of the future job searches. New this year is the Steelpan Careers in other cities and feedback from apprentices and mentor– the instructors say, for students to open up on serious issues arts as a tool for youth development. Its thesis—supported by Training Program, which prepares young people for jobs in instructors. In an assessment interview process where partici- related to home life, school performance and relationships. experience both here and elsewhere—is that arts instructors music including performance, instruction, composition pants remained anonymous to encourage candid judgments, “Many of the students refer to me as ‘Mr. Justin,’ which is like the 31-year-old Laing may sometimes influence youth and management. one 16-year-old apprentice artist said her experience with a mix of the informal and the formal,” says Nego Gato’s development to a degree that many larger and more expensive The Pittsburgh arts-employment program is just beginning to Dance Alloy had given her a sense of purpose for the first time Laing. “I like that because it says I play several different roles youth intervention programs would be hard-pressed to match. come into its own, with funding that allows about 50 apprentices in her life. “I never knew I had such a strong connection with for them, some deeper than others.” h Youth ArtWorks is a component of YouthWorks, a youth to be served each year. “Our goal is to develop quality programs children,” she said, “and a passion for teaching them to love employment and training initiative that receives significant at a reasonable cost and have a lot of success stories at this smaller dance as much as I do.” support from The Heinz Endowments. The ArtWorks program scale so that we can make the best case for moving to the next The evaluation also was supported by YouthWorks’ partners Nego Gato is just one of the arts opportunities available to at-risk students who was started three years ago, based on the model of “Gallery level,” says Robin Braun, YouthWorks operations manager. in city and county government, and by the Three Rivers are put on a track to become paid apprentices. Left to right: publishing a home- 37” in Chicago. That internationally respected, youth arts- “We’ve discovered that one of the key factors ensuring success is Workforce Investment Board, which administers federal funds town version of artist Andy Warhol’s famous Interview magazine at Pittsburgh’s employment program has served several thousand young to have one person dedicated to assisting every program with for the region. The consulting team did identify some challenges Warhol Museum; practicing ballet and modern dance at Dance Alloy’s Friendship people each year during the past decade. Youth ArtWorks is proposals, contracts, planning and program implementation. for the program, in particular a need to formulate a detailed studio; talking over technique in the Steelpan Careers Training Program in the city. designed to take teens through paid apprenticeships in creative This allows Youth Artworks to be well managed while freeing and commercial art forms. The end goal is to provide them up instructors to do what they do best—teach.” with significant work experience and the job skills necessary Laing, who works full-time in the Pittsburgh city schools, to be successful in any work environment. community centers and at the University of Pittsburgh, In addition to Nego Gato, students can find modern dance says the management assistance from YouthWorks is critical. training at Dance Alloy’s Penn Avenue studio. For aspiring “I get to spend more of my time helping students improve writers, photographers and graphic designers, there’s The their skills, and that’s more opportunity to transfer that focus, Andy Warhol Museum’s Urban Interview magazine publishing discipline and caring into other areas of their lives.” program, where students get job training, writing and New Web Site Unveiled Heinz Endowments Partners In 1995, The Heinz Endowments became with Meet the Composer one of the nation’s first foundations to Two Pittsburgh-based composers are now go online with information about its guide- offering their talents to regional schools lines and grantmaking. In January, the and cultural groups after being awarded a Endowments unveiled the newest generation three-year Meet the Composer New Residencies grant. Efrain Amaya and of www.heinz.org, encouraging southwestern  R. James Whipple will work with Gateway to the Arts, Renaissance City Pennsylvanians with the thematic message Winds, Shaler Area School District and WQED-FM, the area’s classical music derived from its grantmaking: Dream Big. station. Amaya and Whipple are part-time faculty members in Carnegie The redesigned site attempts to provide Mellon’s School of Music. Their appointment resulted from a regional users with a one-stop, easy-to-navigate competition made possible by The Heinz Endowments in collaboration with resource for reading about the Endowments’ the national Meet the Composer organization. activities or learning about its areas of focus. Meet the Composer, founded in l974, was created to increase opportunities for composers by fostering the creation, performance, dissemination and appreciation of their music. The New Residencies program focuses specifically on building composer/community collaborations. Amaya and Whipple will compose works for the Shaler Area School District, help students write their own works and create special programs for WQED-FM. here&therThe site is specially designed eto guide grantees, prospective applicants and other funders. In addition to background on the Clean Energy Choice Window Opened average consumer bill down about 16 per- PennFuture, an Endowments grantee. Endowments’ history, staff, founders, with Heinz-Sponsored Ad Campaign cent according to PUC calculations. “That’s where the foundation community programs and guidelines, the new site offers Duquesne Light Company’s early payoff of The goal of the $500,000 ad campaign can make a significant difference,” says a historical timeline, a resource library what is known in the industry as “stranded is to reduce consumer dependence on fossil Hanger, also the energy coalition spokesman. and a grants database that can be sorted costs” has provided a limited opportunity fuels. The coalition calculates that the The coalition is made up of environmental by program area or by organizational goal. for a regional media campaign to convince average Pennsylvania residential customer groups, green businesses, nonprofits and There are also links to grantees, funding consumers to invest some of their savings in switching to renewable energy prevents an government agencies working to build con- partners and other sources of information. alternative clean energy suppliers. amount of pollution each year equal to sumer interest in renewable energy sources. The Endowments recently completed a In a series of catchy TV, radio and print driving the family car 20,000 miles. The strategic planning process that reaffirmed ads, the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy campaign, developed by Elkman/Alexander the foundation’s commitment to the region Coalition will begin this month to pitch & Partners of Philadelphia, and identified three organizational goals Duquesne Light customers who are seeing is being underwritten by that now guide the efforts of all five of its significant reductions in their monthly bills, The Heinz Endowments and grantmaking programs. Those goals are thanks to the end of a customer surcharge. four other foundations. featured prominently on the site’s homepage: The state’s Public Utility Commission “TV ads can be very “Our dream is for southwestern Pennsylvania allowed the stranded costs charge for years effective in moving con- to prosper as a premier place to both live based on utilities’ unprofitable investments sumers toward the idea of and work, as a center of learning and in power plants before the onset of electric- investing in cleaner energy educational excellence, and as a home to ity deregulation. In November 2000, the generators, but their high diversity and inclusion.” PUC voted to end the stranded costs when cost is beyond the reach of You can visit www.heinz.org to learn more Duquesne Light reported its investment had most environmental groups,” about the Endowments or to comment on been recouped. The utility also agreed to cap says John Hanger, executive the site’s design, content and relevance to rates for distribution of electricity through director of Citizens for your work and interests. 2003. Those two actions will bring the Pennsylvania’s Future—

Tom Gigliotti here&there Rivers of Opportunity Waterfront Development Plan Wins Top National Design Honor Central Europe Links To Pittsburgh “This is just the kind of thing that What should Pittsburgh do with what the national Honor Awards, which are the way and delivered the city to this moment. Environmental Gains Pittsburgh went through 50 years ago and historian David McCullough has described profession’s highest recognition of excellence At the dawn of the 21st century, Pittsburgh In the United States, Pittsburgh sometimes why our experience is so valuable to indus- as a “once-in-a-century” opportunity to in design, will be presented in May in is ready. It’s time to build Three Rivers Park.” has to battle an outdated image as America’s trial cities all over Central Europe,” says revitalize its riverfronts? That question drove Washington, D.C. “The plan presents a Riverlife’s plan was the product of 18 “Smoky City,” but in Central Europe, the Linkages program director William Lafe, Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy’s creation bold, simple vision in a clear and compelling months of detailed design work, including region is known as a model of environmen- who organized the visit of a recent Pennsyl- two years ago of the Riverlife Task Force, manner and unequivocally establishes the more than 120 public meetings with neigh- tal transformation. Dozens of cities there are vania delegation to Poland, Slovakia and a coalition of waterfront property owners, riverfront as public domain,” the awards borhood and community groups, river users, hoping to learn from the region’s experience the Czech Republic. Heinz Endowments’ and philanthropic, civic and business leaders. jury wrote. “It is significant for the breadth and other organizations with a stake in the  in overcoming a heritage of industrial Environment program director Caren Now, Riverlife’s answer — a recently and simplicity of its vision and the care with future of Pittsburgh’s three rivers and its pollution. Glotfelty and program officer Melisa unveiled plan for developing the downtown which details are addressed. … Of equal miles of waterfront. It lays out the principles To help, The Heinz Endowments is Crawford participated in the delegation. waterfront as a single, continuous park — has importance, the planning process appears to that will guide development of the park, supporting the Central European Linkages Because of southwestern Pennsylvania’s been awarded the 2002 American Institute have forged a community consensus suffi- its specific components, design standards Program, which works with nonprofit impressive track record in re-use of former of Architects Honor Award in the category cient to implement the recommendations.” and anticipated next steps. organizations in three industrial cities in industrial sites, several of the delegation’s of outstanding regional and urban design. The jury’s finding echoes the sentiment To view the complete Vision Plan, Central Europe to carry out environmental members were center stage at a regional The jury called the plan for Three Rivers expressed by local community leaders and or the overview published by the task force demonstration projects. Western Pennsylvania brownfields conference in Ostrava, Czech Park, which was developed by Boston urban media in the days following the plan’s release as a circular in the Post-Gazette, visit experts in energy conservation, urban plan- Republic. The international seminar was planning firm Chan Kreiger & Associates in late last year. “It’s an idea so disarmingly www.pittsburghriverlife.org. ning and brownfields development have organized in part by The Brownfields a process funded by The Heinz Endowments obvious, for a city built along three rivers, helped implement more than seven projects, Center, a collaborative partnership between and other area foundations, “a compelling that it’s a wonder Pittsburgh hasn’t several of them potential models for the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie and exceptionally well-communicated vision attempted it before now,” the Pittsburgh national initiatives. Mellon University. for the rebirth of Pittsburgh’s riverfront.” Post-Gazette editorialized. “But three and One involved introducing the concept The benefits of the Linkages program The plan was one of four projects select- a half centuries of history, pioneering, of community volunteerism with a park- flow both ways, says Glotfelty, not just from ed from 63 submissions in that category. The growth and industry have both gotten in the building project in Spalene Porici. More Pennsylvania to Central Europe. One technical expertise was needed in another challenge being addressed by the program project involving the transformation of involves upgrading wastewater treatment residential heating systems in the tiny town systems in small rural communities of Marklowice, Poland. Officials there are throughout Slovakia with low-cost, ecologi- in the throes of figuring out how to replace cally sound designs, an effort that could coal burning heating systems with cleaner be instructive for the Pittsburgh region. but more expensive natural gas furnaces. In Allegheny County, which has a terrain Linkages participants proposed creating a similar to Central Europe’s, more than revolving loan fund that allows residents 83 communities are facing a multi-billion- to borrow money for installation in order dollar bill to repair antiquated sewer systems. to increase the pace of conversions and have Part of this problem includes small, finan- the entire community breathing easier. cially strapped, rural communities that rely on failing septic systems. The residents of Spalene Porici of the Czech Republic built this community park after coaching from a Pennsylvania’s Department of southwestern Pennsylvania delegation on organizing Environmental Protection has begun to a volunteer project. The Heinz Endowments’ Caren evaluate the potential for transferring the Glotfelty and Melisa Crawford are joined by Central approach being developed in Slovakia back European Linkages program director William Lafe to southwestern Pennsylvania. “We want in a tour of “At Snakes,” the name given by children to pull together the people doing low-cost to a series of serpentine play structures. water treatment demonstration projects in Slovakia and bring them to our region,” says Lafe. “I think people will be surprised at what they can show us about sorting out priorities and developing workable policies.”

Jack Wolf THE HEINZ ENDOWMENTS NONPROFIT ORG

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Not so weird science. page 20

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