Windows Smashed, ‘A Lot Of Damage’ In Shadyside Protest

Pittsburgh police are trying to identify a group of about 30 people who donned masks and ran through Shadyside on Friday night, smashing the windows of more than a half-dozen businesses and an unknown number of automobiles.

There were no injuries in the vandalism spree that began shortly after 8:40 p.m., when police first spotted the group, marching peacefully near Liberty Avenue and Baum Boulevard in Bloomfield, holding candles and telling officers they were holding a funeral procession for a friend, city Public Safety Department spokeswoman Sonya Toler said.

A few minutes later, there was chaos a few blocks away as the group turned onto Walnut Street and marched past the shops and restaurants filled with patrons.

“I saw a group of nine or 10 guys. I couldn’t see their faces because they all were wearing hoodies,” said Miranda Leanos, 18, a waitress at the Thai Place Restaurant.

Read more: http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/8149253-74/group-windows-police#ixzz3X0VEOheR
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PLCB’s Biggest Store Opening In Shadyside Neighborhood

Locator map with the Shadyside neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania highlighted. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania’s largest wine and spirits store, a 17,000-square-foot mega-outlet, will officially debut today in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood.

The renovated store, built around an existing state store at 5956 Penn Circle South, has been enlarged by about 35 percent, LCB officials said.

The larger, more upscale store is opening in an area experiencing residential, retail and restaurant growth for several years.

With that upswing continuing, LCB officials have pinned their hopes on history repeating itself with the renovated space. The agency has seen sales typically increase about 20 percent to 35 percent at revamped stores, in part because the layout and organization of products encourages shoppers to browse longer, according to officials.

Read more: http://triblive.com/state/pennsylvania/6642390-74/store-lcb-stores#ixzz3B2vjsvkw
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Bloomfield, Friendship Neighborhoods See Real Estate Price Upsurge

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It didn’t matter to Kate Hansen that the temperature had dropped below zero on the January day when she went house hunting in Bloomfield. It didn’t matter that so much snow and ice covered the region she couldn’t even tell if the property had grass in the backyard or a decent roof.

Location was everything for Ms. Hansen, 32, a project manager for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council’s Office of Public Art.

She wanted more than anything to own a home in the Bloomfield neighborhood. At the rate house prices in that area were rising, she didn’t feel she had the luxury of waiting until spring. She made an offer that day.

“I was a little nervous not being able to see it,” she said, adding that the house also was the first she looked at. “I knew the street, though. My best friend lives across the street from the place I bought. I knew it was a good location just from him living there.”

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/05/25/Bloomfield-Friendship-neighborhoods-see-real-estate-price-upsurge/stories/201405250030#ixzz32mNViblX

Pittsburgh Fringe Festival Offers Three Days Of Performances

Locator map with the Shadyside neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania highlighted. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After beginning with a pair of warm-up acts last weekend, what’s billed as the first Pittsburgh Fringe Festival gets under way May 9 with a three-day flood of two dozen productions — many with multiple performances — taking place in eight locations in and near Shadyside.

The festival is the brainchild of Dan Stiker, who had enjoyed attending and performing at the New York International Fringe Festival and missed its excitement when he moved back to Pittsburgh.

“It’s the kind of theater I want to be a part of,” he says.

Like Striker, some may have developed a taste for fringe festivals by attending the best known ones in New York City or Edinburgh, Scotland, or those in smaller U.S. cities such as Minneapolis, San Diego, Cincinnati and Asheville, N.C., or those in farther flung locales including Singapore, Budapest and Melbourne.

Read more: http://triblive.com/aande/theaterarts/6036617-74/fringe-festival-stiker#ixzz31F5pB7wF
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Pittsburgh Is Home To The Best Cake In America, Says HuffPost

A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We here at Pittsburgh Magazine are not so different from Jay-Z. We’re also all about the cake (cake, cake, cake cake). So we’ve been trumpeting the deliciousness of Prantl’s Bakery to anyone who would listen (that would be you, dear reader) for years. Thankfully, the nice folks over at the all-consuming digital media behemoth The Huffington Post have taken notice, too.

HuffPo’s Taste blog has named Prantl’s burnt almond torte The Best Cake America Has Ever Made. That’s a bold proclamation, made bolder still by the author outright trolling the inevitable New York City comment section mumblywumps right in the lead paragraph.

Read more: http://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/Best-of-the-Burgh-Blogs/The-412/April-2014/HuffPost-Taste-Praises-Prantls-for-Having-the-Best-Cake-America-Has-Ever-Made/

Pittsburgh Native Zachary Quinto Revels In Spock Role

English: Zachary Quinto greets a soldier’s daughter on the phone following a screening of Star Trek at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At one point during “Star Trek Into Darkness,” Kirk fumes, “Sometimes, I just want to rip the bangs off his head.”

But Kirk doesn’t do that, which is a good thing considering the amount of time consumed by the workday ritual of transforming Pittsburgh native Zachary Quinto into Spock, the half-Vulcan, half-human with a high-maintenance look.

By the time the movie finished shooting, the makeup artists had shaved a whopping 30 minutes from their application of the signature swooping ears, angled eyebrows and other facial flourishes.

Not a big deal? It started as 3 hours and 15 minutes — plus another 30 minutes in hair — so even an extra half-hour can be a luxury when you have to report to the set 2 1/2 to three hours ahead of everyone else who may be arriving at 6 a.m.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/movies/pittsburgh-native-zachary-quinto-revels-in-spock-role-687961/#ixzz2TZUrYou9