In the Run

Photo by KitAy

Shine

Hop on the Bus

Photo by KitAy

Churches

Panther Hollow and the Parkway

Photo by ndanger

Civic Involvement

Magee Field

From the Connect Greenfield/Greenfield Organization Clean Up

Action

A View of Downtown

Photo by ndanger

Civic Involvement

Winter Sunset in Greenfield

Photo by KitAy

Civic Involvement

Who We Are

Connect Greenfield is an all volunteer community organization dedicated to making the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Greenfield a great place to live and do business. Whether you're new here or a life-long resident, we provide opportunities to get involved in your community.

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Final Mural Proposal and Block Party

Jul 3rd, 2009 by | 0

After some tweaking this month, the final version of the mural is ready!

Final Mural Proposal

Here’s a description of what the mural is about from the artist, Ian Thomas:

As a child growing up with a steel-working grandfather, I was drawn to Greenfield’s connection to our iron past.  I wanted to focus on the icon of the lunch box.  This form transcend trades and speaks to notions of “work” and the worker.  The juxtaposition of the rendered box with its abstracted counter parts (left) acts as a metaphor for the topography of the area.  I see the abstracted counter parts as layers of a neighborhood, not one singular form separate from one another, but a layered conglomeration, the whole of the neighborhood.  As the “homes” descend, the hammers leave, as if off to work.  As the image is read left to right, it is the present/future that is shown with Greenfield’s connection to the Rails to Trails represented by the icon of the bike.  As a whole, this mural is to celebrate the history of hard work and, with its contemporary style, hopes to serve as homage the future and what it may hold for Greenfield.

To kickoff the painting of the mural, Connect Greenfield, the Sprout Fund and Hough’s are throwing a block party on Saturday, July 11th from 3-6 PM.  It’ll be on Nantasket St next to where the mural will be painted (between Greenfield Ave and Alger St), and there’ll lots of activities:

  • Preparing the wall for painting
  • Bean Bag Toss Tournament
  • Kids’ Games
  • Live Music
  • Food and Drink
  • and most importantly…your neighbors!

There will also be speakers:

  • City Council President Doug Shields
  • County Council President Rich Fitzgerald
  • Curt Gettman from the Sprout Fund
  • The mural artist Ian Thomas

Hope to see you there!

The Black and Gold City Goes Green

Jul 2nd, 2009 by aurora | 0

You may or may not be aware that last year Pittsburgh City Council approved the Pittsburgh Climate Action Plan, Version 1.0 as a guiding document for the City of Pittsburgh.  The main goal this plan lays out is a Pittsburgh-specific greenhouse gas reduction goal — to reduce emissions 20% below 2003 levels by the year 2023. What does that mean exactly? It means that all sorts of sectors, organizations, and individuals around Pittsburgh are doing their part to reduce their energy usage and be more conscious about how many carbon emissions they’re putting in the air.

Why is this important for Pittsburgh? Basically, in the next 50 to 100 years, the climate of Western Pennsylvania could be similar to that of Atlanta — the least of which means hot, muggy, 100+ degree summers.

In an effort to locally contribute to making sure Pittsburgh’s climate doesn’t turn into Atlanta’s, Pittsburgh’s residents, businesses, government and institutions of higher learning are working together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through a collaborative effort called the Pittsburgh Climate Initiative.

How can you help?  Well, the community portion of this effort is aptly dubbed “The Black and Gold City Goes Green,” and they’re asking all Pittsburgh citizens and organizations to stand up and be counted for how they are personally helping Pittsburgh reach its goal.

the black and gold city goes green

How do you do that?  It’s easy.  Log onto www.theblackandgoldcitygoesgreen.com, create an account, and track your actions through every month.  You’ll get emails once a month letting you know what the recommended monthly actions are (everything from replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs to July’s action, which is to turn the thermostat on your air conditioner up 2 degrees).  You can check out all of the recommended activities (and get local, expert information about how to best implement the month’s recommended actions) online.

So, as we all try to “put the ‘green’ in ‘Greenfield,’” make sure what you’re doing is counted as contributing to a larger goal for greening all of Pittsburgh!  Log onto www.theblackandgoldcitygoesgreen.com today to let everyone know how much Greenfield contributes to making Pittsburgh the City of Green Champions.

This Week’s Events

Jun 23rd, 2009 by | 0

There are two events happening this week: a meeting with the Sprout mural artist and a public hearing about the proposed termination of the 56E bus.  Details below:

Sprout Mural Refinement Meeting
Thursday, June 25 @ 6 pm
Hough’s

Port Authority 56E Termination Hearing
Thursday, June 25 @ 7 pm
Greenfield Elementary

See you there!

Mmmm… Ice Cream

Jun 19th, 2009 by jesse | 0

As I got off the 53H this afternoon, it occurred to me how sunny skies and warm air add up to perfect ice cream weather. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to go far…just across the street from the bus stop to Bruster’s.

Bruster’s is a local chain, but each location makes its own ice cream on site, so the flavors are constantly in flux. One of my favorites is the Key Lime Pie: just enough graham cracker swirled through the lime ‘filling’ to serve as the ‘crust’–a winning combination in my book. Though, if I’m hungry enough to take down a two-flavor waffle cone, I’ll add a little Graham Central Station into the mix.

One tip: I’ve noticed that the bottom flavor in the waffle cone tends to have a bit more ice cream to it than the top flavor, so it pays to specify which one you want first, if you have a preference for which one you want more of.

Connect Greenfield Happy Hour

Jun 18th, 2009 by | 0

We’re going to start having regular happy hour gatherings every third Thursday of the month which translates to….TODAY!  If you can make it we’ll be at Hough’s starting at 6.

See you there!

Game Night : Pandemic

Jun 11th, 2009 by Shawn | 0

Pandemic Game Night

Ready to save the world? I hope so!

This is definitely the newest game I’ve discussed. Hitting the board game scene last year, Pandemic has already won 6 awards including Games 100’s Best Family Game. That said, what do I think of it? I love it! There are two main reasons: it’s cooperative and it’s really well designed!

So what is this seemingly great game with the ominous title? Well, the short quote is: “Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out.” Hummm… kind of deep stuff for a board game isn’t it? Well, yes, but that just makes it all the more engaging!

The board of Pandemic reminds me of Risk’s board, only more recent. Populated cities are highlighted with routes to and from each other. As each turn passes, the four deadly diseases spread from city to city using a really cool card mechanic. There are two decks of cards in Pandemic, the Player Cards and the Infection Cards. Infection Cards are used to, well, infect the cities. When you draw a city’s card, you put one infection cube on that city. If a city ever reaches 4 cubes, it causes an outbreak which causes the disease to spread one cube’s worth into all the surrounding cities. Hold on though, I’m getting ahead of myself…

Pandemic is a cooperative game. What does that mean? Well, it means the players are working together vs. the game, in this case, the diseases. The spread of disease is built ingeniously into the drawing of cards and it is up to the players, each of which has a special ability, to stop it and save the world! The five roles are: Dispatcher, Operations Expert, Scientist, Medic, and Researcher. I won’t get into the abilities or strategies here, but suffice it to say, the game is very different depending on the roles being played. During game play you are constantly discussing strategy with your teammates. Things like: “Ok, I’ll move here and heal this city.” “Perfect, that will let April fly me to you so I can cure blue on my turn!” “Done!”

Each turn has three parts. You use your action points, you draw your new Player Cards, and you play the role of the Infector. Action points are what allow you to move your pawn between cities, heal people, trade cards, and cure diseases. This is when the magic happens, when you put all your minds together to come up with an efficient plan of disease eradication!

Player Cards serve three purposes. First, they allow you to move directly between cities and create research stations, but you have to discard them to do this. This is balanced by their second function. You see, to cure a disease, you need have five cards of the same color and be at a research station; and that is the goal of the game, to cure all four diseases. The final purpose of Player Cards? Well, Epidemics lie within the Player Card deck.

You see, during the last phase of each turn your draw a number of Infector Cards, and infect those cities listed on the cards. Normally this isn’t a big deal, because, well, there a lot of city cards and each city only gets infected by one cube of one virus. Epidemics change all this. When a player draws an Epidemic card from the Player Cards, it causes a new city to explode with three cubes, but it also causes you to shuffle and put back on the top of the deck all the Infection Cards already used. That makes sure that cities already infected will become more infected, leading to outbreaks. Did I mention that when 8 outbreaks have occurred, you lose? In fact, the difficulty of the game is directly linked to how many Epidemic cards you shuffle into the deck at the beginning. In an “Introductory” game you use 4 Epidemic cards, a “Normal” game uses 5. And, in a “Heroic” game, you use all 6 Epidemic cards.

Wow, this is getting long and complicated, and I’m not going to lie to you, when you first open the box you will be overwhelmed by all the pieces and cards within. But don’t despair! The instructions are VERY good and easy to understand. There are even cheat-sheet cards that each player can keep with them as they play. I have played this game many times with new players, and while some have seemed daunted at the beginning, they all have loved it by the end are always eager to play again! The cooperative nature allows new players and seasoned players to work together and you are always interested in what’s going on, even when it isn’t your turn.

Ok, let’s recap. Disease is sweeping the Earth, it’s up to you and your friends to travel the globe helping inflicted cities and finding cures. It’s hard to describe the incredible feelings this game conjures up. You really, really feel invested in it. One particularly exciting game I played came down to one draw. We knew a city card that would lead to a cascading 3-tiered Outbreak was one of 6 cards we had just placed on the deck, and we had to draw 3 of them.
If we didn’t draw the deadly city, on the next turn our Scientist would cure the final disease and we would win. If we did draw it…well, let’s just say the results would be catastrophic! Everyone hushed as the Dispatcher flipped over the cards… good… good….WE WIN!!!! It was awesome!

Till next time, have fun out there!

Game Info
Name: Pandemic
Ages: 10+
Players: 2-4
Playing time: ~45 minutes
Price: $28-$35
Designer: Matt Leacock
Publisher: Z-Man Games
First Published: 2008
Expansions : Pandemic : On the Brink

Links: http://www.zmangames.com/boardgames/pandemic.htm

Also - have you just played a cool game, or heard about a neat game? Tell me about it! Email greenfieldgamenight AT gmail DOT com. (Replace AT and DOT with their symbols.)

Sprout Artist Selected!

Jun 8th, 2009 by alison | 0

After five artist presentations followed by an energetic community discussion weighing each artist’s design as well as ability to work well with the community, Ian Thomas was selected as the 2009 Greenfield Sprout Fund Muralist! His preliminary design, a semi-abstract reference to Greenfield’s past, present, and future, is pictured below.

mural2

As you can see, the right side of the design shows a large steel lunchbox, a reference to the containers the mill workers used to take with them each day to work. On the left side, the lunchbox morphs into a stacked group of similar shapes, becoming the homes in Greenfield which seems to “stack” on top of one another in the hills. The design also references stained glass, a nod to the lovely churches in the community. The transition between old and more modern also points to the progression the neighborhood has taken.

Ian grew up in Butler, PA, also a steel area, and feels a very strong connection to Greenfield–his ceramic work is sold each year during the holidays at the Ceramic Studio in The Run, and Greenfield is home to some of his close friends. He has completed a number of full-scale murals, including another Sprout Fund-sponsored mural in the Strip District. He is excited to work with the community to make the design even better, and would even consider community participation in painting the mural!

Our next meeting is a very important one–this will be the first Design Refinement meeting, where Ian will meet with us to discuss what should change and/or stay the same about his preliminary design in order to complete the final design which will be painted onto the wall on the side of Houghs. The meeting is open to any member of the Greenfield community who would like to participate. It will take place on:

SUNDAY, JUNE 14th,
12 NOON
BIG JIM’S IN THE RUN

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Greenfield Bus Route Changes

Jun 4th, 2009 by brett | 0

There was coverage in the Post-Gazette today about some of the changes being proposed by Port Authority, including the elimination of the 56E:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09155/974932-147.stm

Next Monday will be the second and last Port Authority Open House where information regarding the proposed changes will be displayed.  After taking a look at the plan’s website, there are also changes in the works for other Greenfield routes, including the 74A and 56U.  Please attend to help make sure our community’s voice is heard!

Port Authority Open House
Monday, June 8
University of Pittsburgh Alumni Hall
4227 Fifth Ave
2:00pm - 5:00pm & 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Connelly Ballroom

Yoga in Greenfield

Jun 2nd, 2009 by | 0

Becky is offering pay what you can yoga classes at the Magee Community Center every Monday and Wednesday from 7 to 8 pm. Beginners and drop-ins are welcome!  See her Craigslist posting for more information: http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/cls/1200234352.html.

Speaking of Craigslist, we just added a feature on our sidebar that shows stuff posted in the “For Sale” and in the “Community” section of Craigslist that is tagged with Greenfield.  Scroll down past the CG Update section to check it out!

Sprout Proposals Meeting Date Change

May 28th, 2009 by | 0

In light of the Pens playing their first home game against the Red Winds on June 2nd, we’re moving the Sprout Mural artist proposal presentation and final voting event to Wednesday, June 3rd.  Also, the meeting will start at 6:30 instead of 7.

Sprout Fund Mural Artist Presentations
Hough’s (563 Greenfield Ave)
WEDNESDAY, June 3rd
6:30 PM

See you there!