Sculptures, lofts approved for Pittsburgh's cultural district
Thursday, July 26, 2001 at 12:00PMPittsburgh Post-Gazette - July 26, 2001
By Patricia Lowry
If Downtown loft developer Eve Picker has her way, the cultural district soon will have a big jazz quartet performing outdoors year-round, through rain, sleet, snow, hail and the occasional ray of sun.
How big?
BIG.
The musicians -- each about 3 feet wide by 15 feet tall -- will form a sculptural gateway to the forecourt of a building Picker wants to erect on a narrow, vacant lot at 947 Liberty Ave.
The three-story building, to be built at the rear of the lot, would house first-floor commercial space and two floors of rental lofts above. Picker envisions a restaurant that would spill out into the courtyard -- or, in her wildest dreams, a jazz club.
"I would love it to be a jazz bar," Picker told the city Art Commission, which yesterday gave conceptual approval to the project.
"You're giving up space you could be using to make money to provide an amenity for that difficult block," said an enthusiastic commission chairman, Lockwood Hoehl.
Picker plans to commission Pittsburgh sculptor James Simon to design and build the whimsical jazz giants, in steel-reinforced concrete that will be stained an earthy color compatible with the brick walls of adjacent buildings -- including the Bruno Building at 945 Liberty, which Picker converted to lofts.
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