(Apologies for late notice) The Highland Park Community Council will hold its September Community Meeting via Zoom.
Agenda items:
HPCC Updates
Zone 5 Update
Tree Pittsburgh
Megan Rose will talk about the services available from MomsWork. MomsWork is a project of the National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh, a nonprofit that has operated in the city for more than a century. All MomsWork programming — including advocacy, educational, and networking opportunities — is free and open to women from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
What: September HPCC Community Meeting
When: September 15, 2022 7:00 PM Eastern Time
You MUST register in advance for this meeting by clicking this link.
After registering you you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
The meeting will be chaired by Howard Degenholtz, Treasurer.
First a Presbyterian church, then a Baptist church, now an organization designed to use the arts to bridge gaps between communities, the church on the corner of N. Negley and Stanton has a rich history. Some of that history will be shared during an open house event on Sept. 21 celebrating 20 years of the Union Project, the current stewards and occupants of the church, that will include details of future building preservation projects.
Once inhabited by the Adena Tribe, the Hopewell Tribe and the Monongahela People, and later refugees from tribes including the Delaware, Shawnee and Iroquois, the corner of Negley and Stanton was later the site of a red brick farmhouse built in 1808 and occupied by Jacob Negley and his wife, Anna Barbara Winebiddle. It was their daughter, Sarah Jane, who married Thomas Mellon, founder of the bank.
The house was gone by 1889 however, and just a few years later the Second United Presbyterian Church was built, completed around 1902, and now housing the Union Project. It was one of only three churches that ultimately served Highland Park and one of only two remaining, the other being St. Andrews on Hampton.
In 1936, Second United Presbyterian changed hands. Its congregation joined that of East Liberty Presbyterian, and East End Baptist Church moved from its location on Shady Ave. into what’s now the Union Project. East End Baptist later changed its name to Union Baptist around 1960 but by 2000 the church no longer had enough participants to support it.
The Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation bought the building in 2002 for $145,000 and leased it to the Union Project until 2006, when the organization took over the lease.
Jeffrey Dorsey, the executive director of the Union Project, finds that history of the building — transitioning from supporting a predominantly white congregation to a predominantly black congregation — fitting given the mission of the Union Project. “The history of the building has been half white and half black,” he said. “And the Union Project got its start with thinking of how to be a place that bridges ethnicities, races and socio economic backgrounds, and to use the arts to build more inclusive communities.”
The story of the stained glass windows and the Union Project’s efforts to restore them is well known locally and farther afield. Through trial and error, including training young people aging out of the foster system and neighbors to repair the windows, the organization figures it saved $1.3 million by leveraging the community to bring the windows back to their current beauty. The Union Project still gets calls from organizations in Pittsburgh and beyond looking for tips on how to affordably restore stained glass windows in historic buildings.
The Union Project’s windows, unique in their predominantly green hue, bring people together in other ways. Dorsey noticed that the building had become a popular spot for same-sex couples to get married and didn’t know why until one couple told him that they wanted to be married in a church but didn’t feel comfortable doing so in one with traditional religious iconography that implied judgement on their marriage. The Union Project windows exude beauty but no judgement.
Admire the windows for yourself, as well as the recently built exterior kiln shelter, during the celebration from 4 – 6 on Sept. 21.
The HPCC Super Playground Committee is excited to announce that the new Super Playground will officially open on the afternoon of Saturday, August 27th at 1pm sharp. The formal celebration will go from 1 – 4pm, kicking off with a ribbon cutting, followed by open playground play, face painting, and cool treats from Vinnie’s Shaved Ice.
We invite everyone to join the celebration!
As part of the reopening, we’ll also be unveiling new mosaic artwork at the playground, created in partnership with the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and showcasing colorful balloon displays from Von Walter + funkBALLOON.
Come help us celebrate the City and community efforts that made this new playground possible.
PARKING: Please note: Reservoir Drive is closed due to the tunnel/bridge reconstruction near the playground. We recommend walking to the playground if possible. Limited parking is available on the road near the playground, which we would like to use for our handicap visitors. There is additional street parking at the park entrance and on N. Highland Ave. Reserved handicap parking is available in the small lot located at the intersection of Farmhouse Drive and Reservoir Drive.
The Reservoir of Jazz is back in Highland Park during the month of August. The last 2 weeks have been great! These weekly Sunday concerts, presented by the City of Pittsburgh Office of Special Events, are free to the public and sponsored by the HPCC and RAD. The HPCC also hosts a children’s activity and a 50/50 raffle each Sunday. Please join us for this fun event in the park throughout August! See more details from below.
Below is the information from the city:
RESERVOIR OF JAZZ TO ENTERTAIN MUSIC LOVERS IN AUGUST
This summer music lovers can once again relax on the lawn at Highland Park to the sounds of jazz performed by Pittsburgh’s finest musicians at the “Reservoir of Jazz” concert series presented by the City of Pittsburgh Office of Special Events.
This free showcase of the area’s extraordinary talent of jazz musicians will take place each Sunday in August from 5 – 7 p.m. on Reservoir Drive in Highland Park.
August 7 JOHN SHANNON’S FOURTH RIVER
August 14 FUSION ILLUSION
August 21 MCG JAZZ PRESENTS AURORA
August 28 LILLY ABREU BRAZILIAN JAZZ QUARTET
“Reservoir of Jazz” is sponsored by Highland Park Community Council and RAD.
DOUBLE THE FUN — Stay after the concert each week to join in SUMMER SOUL LINE DANCING sessions near the fountain. Instructor Roland Ford incorporates R&B music in free classes that begin with basic steps and finish with more advanced moves. Summer Soul Line Dancing takes place 7 – 9 p.m. on August 7, 14, 21 and 28.
Please note: A large section of Reservoir Drive in Highland Park will be closed during the weeks this concert series takes place. Parking will be limited and patrons are encouraged to arrive early and seek alternative parking options.
For more information, visit www.pittsburghpa.gov/events, follow @PghEventsOffice on Twitter or LIKE @PghEventsOffice on Facebook. Inclement weather may cause cancellations. For cancellation updates, follow @PghEventsOffice on Twitter or LIKE @PghEventsOffice on Facebook.
There is a quiet confidence about HP resident Daria Loshak as she calmly recounts the displacement and the injuries; the days and nights sheltering in a root cellar; the constant struggle for existence that her family members back home in Ukraine have experienced during the past five months of Russian military aggression.
She last saw her family when she visited in January.
“We did not believe it would happen,” Daria said of the invasion that came with the dawn of Feb. 24, 2022.
At the time, Daria’s father, Yuriy Loshak, a general in the Ukrainian navy, was stationed in Crimea, where the family had lived for 20 years. While he evacuated aboard a ship going north to Mariupol across the Sea of Asov, Daria’s mother made her escape westward over land, having had just four hours to assemble the few belongings that she would take with her. As Yuriy’s ship neared port, it hit a mine; his resulting injuries required 19 surgeries, after which he went right back into uniform.
Daria, Anton and their daughter Varvara in Pittsburgh on Ukraine Independence Day.
Together with Daria’s brother, a commercial seaman sidelined by the war, her parents relocated to Kyiv. There, her mother does administrative work while her brother does aid work for a volunteer organization called SUVIATO, filling the constant and too-often sudden need of medical equipment, food and supplies for defense forces and volunteer medical personnel who have no time to wait for the bureaucratic processing of large, international aid funds.
Last March, Yuriy, dressed in civilian clothes, drove to a Kyiv suburb to retrieve a friend and his three children from an area of heavy attack. On the road, a Russian tank fired on the car. As the five occupants exited the burning vehicle, a Russian sniper opened up on them, wounding two of the children and killing their father. Once again, Daria’s father underwent surgery, this time to remove shrapnel from his eyes. After two weeks, with his vision restored but metal shards still lodged in his ears, he refused further treatment and went back to work.
Daria’s phone is filled with photographs of devastation, including the rubble that was her alma mater, the National University in Kharkiv; but there are also plenty of smiling faces, both civilian and military, gathered around an ambulance or a site of aid being distributed. In her grandparents’ town to the northwest of Kyiv, during a period of heavy shelling, neighbors did their grocery-shopping for them for the two months that they dared not venture past their own front yard.
“This situation shows how united people can be,” said Daria. Daria herself shows it, too.
Two years ago, she and her husband, Anton Ulianenkov, brought their then-four-year-old daughter, Varvara, to live in Highland Park on the second floor of a house on N. Euclid Avenue. Daria soon realized that the first floor apartment was occupied by an elderly man with no family and no visitors. She began knocking on his door with offerings of food. He was grumpy, she said, but she didn’t let it bother her. One day, he didn’t answer the door. Unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong, she called the police. The neighbor was found in critical condition, rushed to the hospital and stabilized. Not strong enough to return home on his own, he now lives in a nursing home, where Daria visits him regularly, still bringing food.
Their green cards are good until 2027, so Daria, a pre-school teacher, and Anton, an IT program developer, have time to decide whether they will stay in the US or return to Ukraine. Whether or not they will remain in the neighborhood, as they hope to do, is a more immediate question; the house where they live will be sold and they must relocate in October. By the time she learns of an apartment for rent in Highland Park, Daria said, it’s always already taken.
In the meantime, and as long as necessary, Daria will continue her efforts to help her countrymen by spreading awareness of SUVIATO and encouraging others to write letters of support to Ukrainian military personnel.
Once quick to tears and worry, Daria has embraced the same determined optimism that her family has shown her, and that the Ukrainian people have shown to the world.
“They always say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re fine,’” Daria said. They phone her every day to reassure her.
“I have them trained,” she added with a smile.
Daria Loshak welcomes letters to Ukrainian soldiers via her own email address, loshakdasha91@gmail.com. Contributions to SUVIATO can be made through PayPal to suviato@ukr.net. The organization has a presence on Facebook.
In anticipation of the arrival of Ukrainian refugees in Pittsburgh, local nonprofit Hello Neighbor will host a virtual community update on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 12:00-12:30 p.m. To register, visit helloneighbor.io.
