Upcoming Events
Last updated: July 18, 2010
Events are held on the second Tuesday of each month, FREE at 7:30 p.m.,
Effective September 2010
our new meeting location will be at
The Church of the Redeemer,
located at 5700 Forbes Avenue
If you have any suggestions or ideas for speakers or topics to put on our agenda, please email us.
YEAR 2010
August 2010 -- No Meeting, have a nice vacation!!
September 14, 2010 (Tuesday)
This meeting was originally set for February, but cancelled due to the snow.
"The Landscapes of Squirrel Hill, Frick and Schenley Parks.
GEOLOGY UNDERLIES IT ALL"
Speaker: Albert Kollar, M.S. Geologist
Section of Geology and Invertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History
From Website: Carnegie Museum of Natural History: Invertebrate Paleontology
INVERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY - A SUBDISCIPLINE OF GEOLOGY
In the past century the discipline of paleontology has grown and evolved from a science of "collect and name" to one that integrates sedimentological, ecological, and evolutionary principles into a cohesive discipline that merges life science and earth history. As such, modern paleontologists must be as proficient in geology as they are in the biological sciences. The history of invertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, its collections, staff, and their backgrounds parallel the history of paleontology.
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA DISCOVERIES:
The investigation continues of the rocks of the Pittsburgh region for evidence on late Pennsylvanian climate change and how it might affect tetrapod (vertebrate) evolution during the Carboniferous.
A reinvestigation of the holotype euryterid trackway in Elk County, Pennsylvania is underway.
October 12, 2010 (Tuesday)
"Getting to Know our Neighbors:
History of Greenfield"
Speaker: Author: Anita Kulina-Smith
In 1758, a large tract of woodland was purchased for $10,000 under the Treaty of Fort Stanwix made with the Native-Americans. This area included what became Greenfield and neighboring Hazelwood, which today are both part of the city's 15th ward. By the late 1800s, many of Greenfield's residents were of Irish, Polish, Slovak, Italian, Hungarian, and Carpatho-Rusyn descent. They resided in Greenfield and traveled to Hazelwood, Homestead and Duquesne to work in the steel mills.
Anita Kulina-Smith (an SHHS Member) is one of the 100+ kids who grew up on Haldane Street in the Greenfield section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the 1950's and 1960's. She is currently writing a biography of Pittsburgh's former mayor, Richard S. Caliguiri.
Anita last spoke to our group in 2005 reviewing her book "Millhunks and Renegades—A Portrait of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood"
November 9, 2010 (Tuesday)
"History of Wightman School"
This meeting will be held at
Wightman School Community Building
5604 Solway Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15217-1264
Speaker: Natalie Kaplan,
President and Co-Founder of the Carriage House at Wightman
Wightman House History
Ulysses J.L. Peoples built Wightman School as a sub-district of the Colfax Schools. The original building was only five rooms and an office. Later, the same architect was contracted to enlarge the building, adding eight rooms, a library, and a third floor gymnasium. The Romanesque style of the new wing is decorated with ornate cherubic friezes, intricate stained glass windows and a highly elaborate facade on the stage.
As owner of the building, Carriage House Children's Center, Inc., has developed a strong renovation plan focused on bringing the building into the 21th Century while preserving the 19th Century charm.
December 14, 2010 (Tuesday)
To be announced
The meeting that was scheduled for May 11, 2010 was cancelled and will be rescheduled.
"Getting to Know our Neighbors" -- HISTORY OF BLOOMFIELD
Speaker: Janet Scullion
Executive Director of the Bloomfield Heritage and Preservation Society
Website: Bloomfield Preservation & Heritage Society
About Janet Scullion (from Amazon.com)
Janet Cercone Scullion, a first-generation Italian American Bloomfield resident, is the executive director of the Bloomfield Preservation and Heritage Society. She is following in the footsteps of her philanthropic parents, Dan Cercone and Mary Damico Cercone. In 1990, Janet and her late husband, Robert Scullion Sr., began publishing the Spirit of Bloomfield Family Magazine, which is dedicated to collecting and sustaining historical data about the neighborhood. Her educational project entitled "Pittsburgh Pride: Keeping the Next Generation Here" was inducted into the Library of Congress in 2000. Her passion for history continues with important new projects. In September 2009, Arcadia Press published Janet's book "Bloomfield (Images of America)" a history of her much loved neighborhood.
From: Wikipedia
Bloomfield is a neighborhood in the East End of the city of Pittsburgh referred to as Pittsburgh's Little Italy.
The land here was claimed from the native Delaware tribe by Casper Taub, one of the area's earliest European settlers. Taub sold the land to his son-in-law John Conrad Winebiddle, whose descendants then broke it into lots and sold it beginning around the time of the 1868 annexation.
In the decades following 1868, Bloomfield was settled by German Catholic immigrants, who in 1886 built St. Joseph's Church. Beginning around 1900, these were joined by Italians from five towns in the Abruzzi region, who formed Immaculate Conception Parish in 1905 (that church was rebuilt in its present form in 1961). Descendants from both groups, with the Italians outnumbering the Germans, still give the neighborhood its character today.
This character can perhaps best be described as earthy, gritty, close-knit, and proud; as local author Chris Potter puts it, "Bloomfield has always taken pride in its modest working-class aspirations and a lack of...upper-class trappings." The local rowhouses, constructed mostly of wooden frames covered long ago by aluminum siding, have unpretentious exteriors that often conceal lovingly maintained interiors.
End of Data
Squirrel Hill History
