GUIDE TO PITTSBURGH MAKER SPACES

BY LUCY CHEN // LUCYCHEN@PGHCITYPAPER.COM

THE LAST THING you want is to accidentally chop off a finger. Whether you are a skilled craftsman or just starting out, learning to use tools safely is paramount. Maker spaces are great resources for anyone with a project, whether it’s for home improvement, an artistic venture, or simply learning to craft and use power tools safely. These spaces share appliances and educational classes, many with memberships that foster a community of people who love to make things. Here’s our list of the best maker spaces in Pittsburgh.

Most tools: Protohaven

214 N Trenton Ave, Point Breeze. protohaven.org

Protohaven offers a host of tools and classes from woodworking to blacksmithing. They are the largest maker space in Pittsburgh for design and fabrication, with all the tools you can possibly imagine. Members get access to the space from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with shop techs available to assist in using the equipment. Have a project but don’t have the time or skill to do it alone? Protohaven shop techs can teach you to use the tools, or will share your project in their Discord community and see if anyone is available to work as a contractor.

Best maker community: Hack PGH

1936 Fifth Ave, Uptown. hackpgh.org

Hack has many of the tools that most people may need, from fabrication tools to spare electronic parts, but it’s also a great place to make friends, if that’s your thing. Hack builds community through bi-monthly member meetups and game nights where folks can hang out and play board or card games. Additionally, members get 24/7 access to the space and equipment, discounts on Hack classes, and field trips with other members to events like maker fairs. Their classes range from electronic hardware to soft fabric arts to welding.

TOOLS:

– Woodshop (power and hand tools)

– 3D printers

– Laser cutters

– Metalworking (blacksmithing forge, welder, grinder, drill press, sheet metal tools, sandblaster, etc.)

– Jewelry (cleaner, polisher, pickle, tumbler, torch, etc.)

– Plastic working tools

– CNC Mill

– Electronics (hardware, soldering)

– Fabric Arts (sewing machines, embroidery, etc.)

– Graphics (printers, vinyl cutter, heat press)

– And more

TOOLS:

– Woodshop (power and hand tools)

– 3D printers

– Laser cutters

– Metalworking (welder, manual drill mill, and metal lathe)

– CNC Mill

– Electronic (hardware, soldering iron, desoldering iron, etc.)

– Fabric Arts (sewing machines)

– Graphics (vinyl cutter, plotter, laminator)

Best for starting your business: Prototype PGH

460 Melwood #208, North Oakland. prototypepgh.org

Makers aren’t always in it for the hobby. Some have career aspirations, and if that’s you, Prototype PGH might be your spot. Not only is it a great, smaller space with a variety of hand tools, printers, and cutters, Prototype PGH also has an incubator program where selected participants have free access to the space, workshops, and other support systems helping people to start new businesses. Members of Prototype PGH have 24/7 access to the space and equipment. Additionally, the space often hosts workshops and events including training on the tools, programming help, and even writing workshops.

TOOLS:

– Hand tools

– Laser Cutter

– Electronic (soldering irons, Arduino boards)

– Fabric Arts (sewing machine, screen printing, hat press and t-shirt heat press)

– Graphics (printer, vinyl cutter, button maker)

Best for kids starting out: Fab Lab

Carnegie Science Center. One Allegheny Ave. North Side. carnegiesciencecenter.org/ stem-center/fablab/

Start ‘em young, they say, and in Pittsburgh, you can. Fab Lab has both introductory classes for kids and FreeFlow Fridays, where the Fab Lab is open to ages 8 and up for those trained on their tools. Free-Flow Fridays are free but advance registration is necessary and materials are an additional cost.

TOOLS:

– 3D printers and 3D pens

– Laser cutters

– Electronics (computers, software, VR, robotics, etc.)

– CNC mill

– Fabric Arts (sewing and embroidery machines)

– Graphics (vinyl cutter)

Best STEAM kids programs: Children’s Museum (Makeshop, MuseumLab)

6 Allegheny Sq. East, North Side. museumlab.org

The Children’s Museum has a few different types of maker areas, all STEAMfocused and included with museum admission. They also offer workshops, afterschool programs, and camps for kids of all ages.

MAKESHOP TOOLS:

– Woodshop (hand tools)

– 3D printers

– Laser cutter

– Electronic (circuitry, soldering, small appliances)

– Fabric Arts (sewing machine, loom weaving)

– Graphics (vinyl cutter)

Museum Lab

(for middle school ages, comprised of MakeLab and TechLab):

– Woodshop (table saw)

– Laser cutter

– Metalworking Studio (metal stamp, enameling, soldering, pewter casting)

– Fabric Arts (rug tufting machine, embroidery machine)

– Art and craft supplies

4824 Penn Ave, Garfield. assemblepgh.org

While Assemble has something for all ages from grades k-12 to adults 21+ their most extensive programming lies in their afterschool and summer day camps.

From

Girls Maker Nights to Afrofuturism

Learning Parties, Assemble seeks to make an inclusive space for kids. Day camps at Assemble are free for Garfield residents, and all afterschool programming is free.

For 3D printing: Creation Lab

Inside the Galleria Mt. Lebanon. 1500 Washington Rd Suite 2401, Mt. Lebanon. creationlabs.us

This dedicated 3D printing lab will assist you with every aspect of a 3D printing project, from learning the software to buying printing filament of every color in the rainbow. If you have a 3D file ready to print, stop by this shop inside the Galleria at Mt. Lebanon or send it ahead online.

TOOLS:

– 3D printers

– Laser cutter

For sewing: Cut and Sew Studio / Firecracker Fabrics

1747 Chislett Street, Morningside. cutandsewstudio.com

Cut and Sew Studio and Firecracker Fabrics share a space where you can find fabrics, sewing materials, patterns, and tools that will inspire your next project. Their sewing machines are available during open studio hours, and they have classes for both adults and kids who wish to learn sewing techniques. Classes provide a range of new skills from quilting to serging basics and even how to follow patterns.

TOOLS:

– Fabric Arts (sewing machines)

TOOLS:

– Hand tools

– 3D printers

– Laser cutter

– Electronics (computers and basic electrical kits)

– Art and craft supplies

YOU’VE DEFINITELY seen it before while cruising down Penn Avenue towards Wilkinsburg: the dusty brown Buick Rendezvous parked in the rightmost lane of traffic in front of the Evergreen Cafe. Now, you might have simply rolled your eyes and shifted over into the other lane without thinking twice — but there are plenty of people who appear to have developed a unique form of psychosis from seeing the car sitting there over the years.

Case in point: when a Pittsburgh Reddit post about the controversial spot made its way to Instagram, it yielded more than 300 comments.

On one side, the angry and despairing: “Fuck this car.” “This car ruined my afternoon.” “This car has been the bane of my existence for 10 years.” On the other side, those declaring themselves true yinzers: “Did you just move here? They’ve been parking in front of that bar forever.” “That car has earned the right to princess park.

A quick disclaimer: while I’m no yinzer (I grew up in North Carolina), I have family connections to Pittsburgh that just so happen to intersect with the

I heard about the Evergreen at family gatherings long before I ever visited the bar myself — something I only managed this year after moving around the corner from it.

Over Mexican food (in 2019, local food truck Taquito’s took over the Evergreen’s kitchen) and a beer at the bar, I asked Phil about the Evergreen’s family history. The bar has been in Point Breeze since 1933, when it was relocated from Wilkinsburg after Prohibition was lifted, since Wilkinsburg remained a dry municipality.

If you’re from here you just know to ride in the left lane here. Respect!”

I headed over to the Evergreen with the hopes of setting the record straight.

Point Breeze bar. Phil Bacharach, the Evergreen’s owner, is my uncle’s brother. (Phil’s brother, Paul, is married to my dad’s sister. If you’re reading this, hi Aunt Val!)

“My dad bought it off a guy named Joe Stein in the ‘50s,” he explains. “My dad had a partner, but his partner liked the drink a little more than he should. My dad said ‘One of us has to run this, and I can’t do it.’ But the guy said, ‘I think it’s better if you take it.’ So my dad bought him out.”

Phil is one of five brothers, who all came and cleaned up before we went to high school, one of us, for $20 a week. You know, that was good money in the ‘70s,” he says. “But I’ve been working here ever since. I was gonna go to culinary school, but I went on a vacation instead and ended up here.”

When asked about how long he’s parked in front of the bar, he tells me it’s been “ever since I had a car when I was 16. I’m 65, so it’s been a while.” Over the years, people have made their displeasure with the parking situation evident: they’ve called the bar to complain, come inside the bar to complain, hassled people leaving the bar about it, and even called the police over the spot.

“It was hilarious,” Phil says, reenacting a typical exchange. “They’d call the police station, the police would come and would go ‘whose car is this?’ ‘It’s mine.’ ‘Well, why’d you park there?’ I said, ‘Because I can park there until 2:30.’” He’d point them to the sign in front of the bar saying as much. “They quit coming because the commander I guess realized, ‘Why am I sending guys here?’”

And he is right — the sign posted in front of the Evergreen only prohibits parking there between 2:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and only Monday through Friday. As Phil points out, it’s not like the legal parking in this town is particularly logical anyways. “It’s just the way it is,” he muses. “I don’t like a lot of things in this city, too.”

While my family ties have probably tipped you off to my bias (as a local journalist? Perish the thought!), I will say that the Evergreen is a kind of perfect dive even if you bear no relation to it at all. It’s and the kind of incoherent decor that’s the result of slow accumulation — something newer bars try their best to emulate as a way of evoking an authenticity they hope will make up for expensive drink menus only available via QR code.

There’s a large inflatable Corona Light hanging out on one of the radiators next to an old cigarette machine still stocked with packs of smokes. Family photos hang on the back wall, including one of Phil’s father, Fritz — the original owner of the bar — in uniform during World War II. A cut-out of John Wayne hangs out against the wall of one of the booths, paying homage to Phil’s mother Lena, who had a wall in her house dedicated to the star of many excellent John Ford Westerns.

But Phil’s car, stubbornly parked out front for almost half a century, remains the best known monument to the familyowned bar’s history — despite the price he’s paid for it in auto repairs.

Phil estimates that his cars have been hit upwards of 10 times over the years — mostly by either drunk drivers or people who simply aren’t paying attention. “Sometimes there’s somebody behind my car on her phone, looking at shit on there, for minutes,” he says. “They’ve even started honking and without realizing that the car’s parked.”

He assures me that no one’s ever been hurt, and seems to take the hits in stride. “One girl hit one of my cars a long time ago, young kid, probably in her 20s.” He went outside and saw that her car was smoking. “I told her to get out of the car, but she goes ‘I gotta find my phone!’ I said, ‘No, get out of the car. I’ll get your phone, the car is on fire.’” He helped her out and brought her inside the bar, unharmed. “Her mother called me the next day and thanked me for being nice to her,” he says.

At this point in the story, he gets a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye. “But I’m thinking, I hated that car. It was like a year, a year-and-a-half old. Honda Odyssey minivan, worst car I ever bought in my life. People love ‘em, but it was the worst … This girl totaled it with a Honda Civic and knocked it from here almost to the corner.”

He pauses for a second, and then laughs and tells me: “I should have sent her flowers for totalling the car. I got enough money from it to buy another van.”

The cone with the flag stationed behind Phil’s latest van is a more recent addition, intended to help prevent scenes like the one he describes. “Nobody’s hit it since then,” he says. “The city sent me a thing saying they were gonna fine me for setting that out there. My brother Paul told me I should put a Ukrainian flag out there, then nobody will complain.”

Thinking out loud, he adds: “I just got a new Pirates flag … maybe I should just put that out there. People will be running into it then!” •