Coca Café
Location: 3811 Butler St., Lawrenceville. 412-621-3171 Hours: Tue.-Fri. 7 a.m.-3 p.m.; Sat 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; Sun 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Prices: Breakfast $4-7; sandwiches $6-7; salads $3-8 Fare: Ordinary food, extraordinarily prepared Atmosphere: Modern with a capital M Liquor: BYOB Smoking: None Permitted Cafés have a long history, rolling with tides of cultural change while offering…
Incarceration Nation
According to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, violent crime was up by 2.5 percent last year. That’s the first increase in five years, and the largest since 1991. And it happened as the prison juggernaut continued to roll on. The World Prison Population List, which tracks incarceration rates in more than 200 countries,…
Pirates Without a Prayer
In Catholic school, I was taught that Jesus died on Friday but came to life on Sunday. If only the Pirates were so lucky. Instead, they’re getting schooled on Sundays too As of July 21, the Pirates’ winning percentage on Sundays was a nauseating .133. At home, it’s .000. They have yet to win a…
Specter Phones It In on Wiretapping
Arlen Specter was outraged last year, when he learned the Bush administration was listening in on Americans’ international phone calls without a warrant. “We’re not going to give [Bush] a blank check,” thundered Pennsylvania’s other Republican senator. And you know what? He didn’t give Bush a blank check. In fact, Specter hasn’t provided any kind…
The Ant Bully
A boy becomes an ant in order to learn how to be a better boy in this formulaic tale set among the formicans. (Capsule review.)
Sight Preparation
If you are the Steelers and you win your big contest, you get to spend the next several months just resting on your laurels, trying to avoid motorcycle accidents. But if you win the design competition for the Cultural District Riverfront Development, the game has really just begun. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust…
A Conversation with Omar Nazari, Jon Bernard and John Shook
Walking into the Curiosities store, the first thing you’ll see is a T-shirt with large lettering: “S.L.U.T.” Look a little closer, and you’ll see it’s an acronym for “Support Local Underground Talent.” That goal brought together the curious trio of band promoter Jon Bernard, recent Virginia Beach transplant Omar Nazari, and screen printer…
Memoir into Novel
Revisiting old haunts is a specialty of Hilary Masters. The acclaimed writer’s new novel, Elegy for Sam Emerson (Southern Methodist University Press), is set in 1999 in Pittsburgh, its hero a 70-year-old Mount Washington restaurateur with a dying mother and a younger lover. But half the book unspools in chapter-ending “program notes” exploring…
Beer Dreams, Champagne Prices
Shadyside’s Matt Radigan wants you to give him money. Lots of it. Later, maybe, he’ll repay your kindness with some beer. With a blog, a link on fark.com, a MySpace account and periodic postings in the barter section of various cities’ craigslists, Radigan is asking for donations from anyone willing to take a leap…
Typos Spell Trouble for Megan Law
Last week, an Allegheny County jury convicted a one-time Republican political operative, Leon Abramovitz, of luring an adult man into his home and bullying him into committing sexual acts. It was not the first time such accusations have been made: Abramovitz plead no contest to similar charges in 1999 and 2000, amid considerable media attention.…
Braddock Kisses Off Highway
Anti-Mon Fayette Expressway sentiment got its moment in neon colors on July 21, when the glass-block corner windows of a former furniture store in Braddock read “NO $,” and then “NO MFX,” projected in green as part of the town’s “Kiss the Mon-Fayette Goodbye” party. “We don’t want this road,” Heather Sage, director of…
Chinatown Bus … Hoping to Take Out Competition
There is no Chinatown in Pittsburgh, but now there’s the “Chinatown” bus. On July 6, New York-based All State Travel Bus Company, began shuttling passengers from Downtown Pittsburgh to State College, as well as New York City’s Chinatown … its only three stops so far. All State is one of several similar “Chinatown bus”…
Anti-WarA conversation with Antonia Juhasz
On Aug. 4, local anti-war groups will begin a three-day regional gathering, “Stop Bechtel,” both to commemorate the anniversary of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, and to protest the involvement of one company, Bechtel in the Iraq War today. The Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin specializes in designing…
Critical Mass Case Ends
The July 20 face-off at Municipal Court between two Critical Mass cyclists and the Pittsburgh Police officer who cited them for disorderly conduct resulted in fines for two cyclists. Nathan Brubaker, of Grove City, and Dustin Perri, of Bloomfield, were among four cyclists cited by Officer Eugene Hlavac of Zone 5, who stopped part of…
Street Sweeper
“Big morning,” says Tony Ceoffe, head of Lawrenceville United, on June 22. He is standing behind his desk at LU headquarters on Butler Street, glancing at his computer, fielding calls on two phones. “Some idiots went out and flattened about a hundred car tires here last night. I’m sure Channel 2 and Channel 11 will…
