BY: PONY BAILEY
DAVID S. ROTENSTEIN
PONY BAILEY
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ORPHANED IN PITTSBURGH
In “hell with the lid off,” orphanages provided emergency shelter for Pittsburgh’s kids
BY: DAVID S. ROTENSTEIN // INFO
@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
Hell is for children,” Pat Benatar once sang in a song of the same name. For many children living in Pittsburgh at the height of the city’s industrial heyday in the 19th century, their lives were a literal hell: poverty, abandonment, abuse, and death.
So they’re often turning to orphanages to just help them get through troubled times.”
TRACING LINEAGES
Ramey do cumented the histories of Pittsburgh orphanages in the 2012 book Childcare in Black and White: Working Parents and the History of Orphanages
In the decades before government-supported social safety nets and welfare programs appeared, orphanages filled the gap between a loving, stable home and life on the streets or a pauper’s grave. “I think [the number of orphanages] could have been in the hundreds all at once,” says Joann Cantrell, a writer with personal ties to Pittsburgh orphanages. “They were just all over the place.”
Cantrell and James Wudarczyk collected photos detailing more than a century of Pittsburgh orphanages. Many were published in their 2022 book Pittsburgh’s Orphans and Orphanages
For many children in distressed families, orphanages offered parents an option — albeit far from a perfect one — to recover from a catastrophic event. “Some kids wound up being
“SOME KIDS WOUND UP BEING RAISED IN ORPHANAGES, BUT MOST KIDS STAYED IN THESE INSTITUTIONS JUST FOR MAYBE A YEAR … AND THEN FAMILIES WERE ABLE TO GET THEIR LIVES BACK TOGETHER.”
Much of what writers like Cantrell and others have shown upends popular beliefs about who resided in orphanages and what life was like for the children who lived there.
“A lot of people [were] losing spouses to death, to sickness,” says Chatham University history professor Jessie Ramey. In the industrial age, there were “all kinds of reasons that families are in crisis.
raised in orphanages, but most kids stayed in these institutions just for maybe a year or two,” Ramey says. “And then families were able to get their lives back together and come back and claim their children.”
Cantrell and Ramey drew on their own family histories when writing the book — Ramey’s great-great-grandmother died in childbirth, and her great-great-grandfather, a Scottish
orphanages documented by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The library’s local history department created a comprehensive list to help researchers locate historical records in the many archives throughout the region.
Pittsburgh’s earliest childcare facilities for the needy were temporary. “Many charities were short-lived responses to particular social catastrophes” like wars and pandemics, wrote historian Julie Lynn Smith in a 1995 CMU dissertation.
immigrant who worked in a steel mill, couldn’t care for his seven children. He turned to the United Presbyterian Orphan’s Home (UPOH) for help.
Ramey had known through family stories that some of her kin had spent time in an orphanage. After she found a photo of her great-great-grandfather with some of his children, she went looking for answers.
“I knew they’d grown up in an orphanage, but they had a father,” Ramey says. Her book, which began as a Carnegie Mellon University Ph.D. dissertation, details the answers she found. In it, she compares two historic orphanages, one that cared for white children (the UPOH) and another that cared for Black children, the Home for Colored Children.
Like Ramey, Cantrell’s research was personal. Her grandmother was raised in the Odd Fellows Orphanage on the North Side.
The International Order of Odd Fellows was one of many Pittsburgh organizations that provided aid to members and their families in times of need. Their monthly dues bought burial insurance, access to fraternal halls, and entry to the organization’s institutions, including orphanages.
“If you were an Odd Fellow, which
“HER FATHER HAD DIED YOUNG … THE MOTHER KEPT THE OLDER TWO AT HOME, AND THE THREE TODDLERS WENT TO THE ORPHANAGE.”
“She was 3 years old and she went to the orphanage with her 4-year-old brother,” Cantrell says.
“Her father had died young and left her mother, a widow, with five children. The mother kept the older two at home, and the three toddlers went to the orphanage.”
Childcare, which was how orphanages were viewed generations ago, was rigidly segregated by class, race, and religion, like many Pittsburgh institutions before the Civil Rights Era. Ramey’s work was the first to compare the experiences among both groups.
was kind of like the Masons or the Elks, it was [a social] organization, but it looked out for widows and orphans,” as well, Cantrell says.
The UPOH, which is now known as MHY Family Services, and the Odd Fellows Orphanage were among dozens of Pittsburgh-area
Founded in 1832, The Pittsburgh and Allegheny Protestant Orphan Asylum was the first enduring institution established in Pittsburgh dedicated to caring for indigent children. In 1861, the city gained another orphanage, the Pittsburgh and Allegheny Home for the Friendless.
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND SHAVED HEADS
Pittsburgh’s population exploded in the late 19th century due to the large number of people moving here to work in the city’s steel mills and other industries. So did the demand for childcare, and orphanages emerged to fill that need.
“Pittsburgh had a lot of orphanages,” says Ramey. Most, Ramey says, were founded and run by wealthy women affiliated with religious organizations. “So we had Presbyterian, various flavors of Protestant; we had Catholic; we had Jewish — a lot of different institutions.”
In the days before federal rules
PHOTO: COURTESY OF PRESSLEY RIDGE
A group of orphans from Allegheny Protestant Orphan Asylum
tightened up workplace safety, health insurance, and the 40-hour work week, industrial workers occupied precarious positions. An unexpected work accident or a seasonal layoff could send a family into an economic tailspin. Orphanages provided what families saw as relief.
“There were a lot of mill accidents here in Pittsburgh with the steel mills. Very dangerous work,” Ramey says. There were “a lot of people losing spouses to death, to sickness. All kinds of reasons that families are in crisis. So they’re often turning to orphanages to just help them get through troubled times.”
Though orphanages were central parts of an early social services safety net that evolved into a modern social welfare system, they weren’t typically pleasant places for the children who lived there.
“We pull kids away from biological relatives and we pay foster parents to take care of them,” says Megan Birk, a University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley history professor who studies the history of social welfare system and childcare. “Under that same kind of basic premise that removing them from whatever this thing was, and
assuming that the next thing is better, is somehow a solution to a problem.”
But, of course, it isn’t now, and never was, that simple. “There were all kinds of ways that it was not fun, not easy,” says Ramey of orphanages.
Children housed in early orphanages were labeled as “inmates.” Many of the institutions themselves were called “asylums.” Though institutionalization seemed like a good solution, there were consequences.
“These kids were not living with their families. They’d been disrupted. There was a lot of trauma,” says Ramey.
“The orphanages often had their kids wear uniforms,” says Ramey. “When kids had to wear uniforms and then go to the public school, everybody knew you were an orphan. So that was really stigmatizing. Sometimes all the kids would get lice, and they’d shave their heads. That was also really stigmatizing if you had to go to school with a shaved head.”
The trauma ran deeper. Histories of orphanages document episodes of physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
Despite all that, many families in this era viewed orphanages as
PHOTO: COURTESY OF PRESSLEY RIDGE
Walt Halaja and the Home for the Friendless
the only viable solution when hard times hit, regardless of the potential trauma this caused children. The pervasiveness of this choice impacted the evolution of certain institutions, and the lineage of many Pittsburghbased families, all the way to the present day.
FOUNDED IN CHARITY
Much of Pittsburgh’s wealth in the 19 th century was concentra ted in Allegheny City, now the North Side. The wives and daughters of industrialists and entrepreneurs turned to charity in their spare time, which included philanthropy centered on orphanages.
Many were operated out of North Side homes. Before they merged in 1969 to become Pressley Ridge, the Protestant Orphan’s Home and the Home for Friendless Children were both located in the North Side.
Founded in 1891 in Ben Avon, the Odd Fellows Orphanage moved to Fleming Avenue in Brighton Heights. It closed in 1965. A year later, Allegheny County bought the property and turned it into a home for dependent and neglected children. In the 1970s, it became a substance abuse treatment facility. The Pittsburgh Board of Education now
owns the seven-acre campus.
Larry Peterson’s father Fred grew up there. Fred’s father, a tinplate factory worker, couldn’t care for his children when his wife died. Fred and his brother Vernon ended up in the orphanage.
What sets Larry’s family history apart from others is that his mother was also raised in an orphanage, St. Paul’s Orphan Asylum. The couple met as adults. Though Larry’s father didn’t talk much about his childhood, his mother shared stories, and Larry has scoured the Internet for genealogical information.
Peterson’s family moved from Pittsburgh to New Jersey. He still lives there. On visits to Pittsburgh, Peterson visited both orphanage sites and the neighborhood school his father attended.
He has a photo of his father playing baseball, and Peterson tried to locate the field where it was taken.
“We went back there and we were trying to piece it together to see if any of those homes in the background were still there [and] we could just kind of visualize where he was,” Peterson says.
The Gusky Hebrew Orphanage and Home was another North Side institution. It served Pittsburgh’s
Jewish communities between 1891 and 1943. More than 600 children lived in the institution’s Perrysville Avenue home. Approximately 85% had one living parent, and more than 100 had two living parents.
“Poverty was the primary reason” for children being housed there, Martha L. Berg wrote in a 2018 issue of the Allegheny City Society’s newsletter. After the orphanage closed, its assets were sold to fund the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Pittsburgh
ENDURING LEGACIES
Though the Gusky Hebrew Orphanage ceased to exist, its name survives in the Gusky Child Guidance Clinic inside the Jewish Family and Children’s Service.
Most of Pittsburgh’s orphanages shut their doors and sold their assets decades ago. There are a few holdouts, though. Pressley Ridge has its headquarters in the North Hills and satellite locations in seven states, including Texas.
“We were the first in Pittsburgh to serve children with social and emotional challenges,” says Pressley Ridge CEO Susanne Cole. “We’ve got around 80 different programs.” Pressley Ridge provides foster care
PHOTO: COURTESY OF LARRY PETERSON
On leave during World War II, Fred Peterson visited the Odd Fellows Orphanage.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF LARRY PETERSON Larry Peterson’s mother’s family, the Petros, were photographed at the St. Paul’s Orphanage.
and adoption services, specialized education, and home care for children with mental healthcare needs.
Another survivor is the Three Rivers Youth Council. It was founded in 1880 as the Home for Colored Children. Also originally located on the North Side, it served a growing Black population drawn to Pittsburgh by the lure of good jobs and the possibility of escaping Jim Crow segregation.
But that promise didn’t pan out. James Fulton, a Presbyterian pastor, rescued from the streets a young Black girl named Nellie Grant, no more than 5 years old, and was unable to convince any of the existing orphanages to take her in. Even the pastor’s own church, which operated the UPOH, turned away the girl.
Fulton appealed to white civic activist Julia Blair and the Women’s Christian Association. “The only thing to do is make a home for her,” Blair responded, according to a history published by the University of Pittsburgh.
As Pittsburgh’s own Jim Crow barriers began to fall in the 20th century, the Home for Colored Children changed its name in 1951 to the Termon Home for Children, reflecting its new Brighton Heights location.
In 1970, the home merged with the Girls Service Club to become Three Rivers Youth.
Three Rivers Youth annually hands out the Nellie Leadership Awards, named for Grant, to people who have made significant contributions to the community.
The story of Pittsburgh’s orphanages is not by any stretch of the imagination Oliver Twist, the Charles Dickens novel about 19 th century London orphans. But it is a story about resilience and benevolence in a sublime industrial city once described as hell with the lid off. For many of the children living here, that hell can’t be papered over with just a colorful literary description. •
PHOTO: COURTESY OF JOAN CANTRELL (L-R) Joan Cantrell, Joyce Gri in (daughter of an orphan raised in Pittsburgh's Home for the Friendless), and Pittsburgh's Orphans and Orphanages co-author and historian James Wudarczyk.
(EAST) ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE
East End Brewing Company’s 90-beer neighborhood run gave the brewery purpose and neighbors a point of pride
BY: RACHEL WILKINSON
When East End Brewing Company kicked off its neighborhood beer series with Allentown, owner Scott Smith wasn’t sure what to expect. Ninety brews later, he says the project was a huge success.
The brewery’s YOU ARE HERE neighborhood beer project, begun in May 2019, pledged to make a beer honoring each of Pittsburgh’s 90 neighborhoods and celebrated its inaugural release at a street fair two months later. While some assumed that Allentown was chosen as the series’ first neighborhood in order to move through the list alphabetically, Smith tells Pittsburgh City Paper that, in actuality, it was the brewery’s ties to design partner Commonwealth Press — creators of their can art — who were opening a warehouse nearby the same weekend.
Hoping to build on the community event and draw in locals, Smith and East End staff loaded up the first cans of Allentown #1, an imperial shandy made with lemon juice and tea from the Strip District’s Prestogeorge,
PHOTO: COURTESY OF ALTERNATE HISTORIES Scott Smith with Central Business District beer
and waited. To their delight, a crowd arrived, and the beer sold out.
“We had to send reinforcements back from the brewery, because we had no idea. And we brought a lot of beer,” Smith remembers. The event also cemented East End’s connection to the neighborhood, a goal of the YOU ARE HERE project.
and the chance to taste Central Business District #90, a 6.5% golden imperial pilsner. The party also doubles as a celebration of East End Brewing’s 20th anniversary this December.
The idea for a neighborhood beer project came at a time when East End, founded in 2004, was “having lots of
“THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF BEER: BRINGING PEOPLE TOGETHER THAT WERE ALREADY TOGETHER [AND] MAYBE DIDN’T KNOW [IT].”
“That neighborhood has changed so much in the last 90 beers. That’s my calendar,” Smith laughs.
Five years later, East End completes the journey with the release of its 90th YOU ARE HERE neighborhood beer, Central Business District (“aka Dahntahn”). To mark the occasion, East End will host a party, The (east) End Is Here, on Sun., Nov. 3 from 2-4 p.m. at Downtown’s Arcade Comedy Theater. The event will feature Pittsburgh neighborhood trivia by Drew from Drew’s Clues Trivia, an appearance by Rick Sebak,
deep conversations about what it means to be a brewery in Pittsburgh and how we can better connect to the city we call home,” Smith said in a press release.
East End head brewer Brendan Benson belonged to an unofficial “burger club” where he and friends tried to eat a burger in every Pittsburgh neighborhood, which inspired Smith.
“The notion of a quest of touching every little corner of the city was interesting,” Smith says. He had “one of these three o’clock in the morning,
PHOTO: COURTESY OF EAST END BREWING Rick Sebak, Lance Jones, and Scott Smith at the release of the Central North Side beer.
sit-up-in-bed [moments].”
Since then, he and the brewery have “been to parts of this city that I never would have any reason to go to,” Smith says. “I’ve learned the history of certain neighborhoods and histories of the names.”
The project’s first step remains its most controversial — determining how many neighborhoods are in the City of Pittsburgh, no small task given residents’ fierce loyalty.
Smith recalls that, in 2019, Wikipedia listed 93, and the city’s official map designating 90 distinct neighborhoods wasn’t available online. East End wrote to the mayor’s office who mailed them the now wellknown list of 90 (in addition to “half a dozen other neighborhoods that
aren’t official neighborhoods”). To this day, Pittsburgh neighborhood boundaries are still debated at every beer release, Smith says.
In case there was any doubt about the city’s enthusiasm, by the time East End released YOU ARE HERE beer #3, a Czech-style pilsner brewed for the Central North Side, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and “unofficial mayor” Rick Sebak were on board. The pair came to the release party at Commonplace Coffee in the Mexican War Streets, held on a “gorgeous” day the same weekend as Picklesburgh 2019. Smith remembers being mobbed with partygoers at a table in front of the coffee shop.
“We had about three feet of table space and [were] trying to stay
were already together [and] maybe didn’t know [it].”
Naturally, another key element of the project is the beers themselves. Smith described the opportunity to create 90 different beers as a “brewer’s dream,” and, in the beginning, East End contemplated what each Pittsburgh neighborhood should taste like.
Hoping not to ruin anyone’s fun, Smith says that, while they initially tried incorporating “some defining characteristic of a neighborhood that makes sense to put together in a beer,” they found it too difficult to scale for 90 beers. Thus, there have been different series of beer styles including IPAs, stouts, and pilsners.
“It’s truly random in terms of the style and how it’s assigned to a neighborhood,” Smith says. Yet tasting each beer, Pittsburghers can’t help ascribing a neighborhood’s qualities to it, believing they’ve “cracked the code.” (The sequence of neighborhoods was also largely random, and for a time, the brewery invited Pittsburghers like Bill Peduto to draw neighborhoods out of a growler.)
While Pittsburgh’s obsession with itself didn’t surprise him, Smith found it “pales in comparison to the attachment that people have for their neighborhood.”
within our licensed area,” Smith says. Concerned about legality, “of course, the mayor pulls up with his security detail. And I’m like, ‘Hide your beer! It’s the mayor!’ And half a dozen people turn around.”
But the most memorable part of the event, remembers Smith, was hearing neighbors talking to each other.
“We’re talking to a guy, [and] he’s like, ‘Yeah, I live right there,’ and pointing to a house that’s 20 feet away. And the person next to him says, ‘Wait, which one do you live in? Oh, I’m your next door neighbor,’” Smith says. “And they meet each other, shake hands, and strike up a conversation … That’s the beauty of beer: bringing people together that
This is because “their neighborhood attachment is generational,” he says. At the release for Garfield, beer #11, a “hazy, Citra-foward” IPA, Smith remembers someone posted a picture of their octogenarian grandmother holding a can. She had a “delighted look on her face and her hands up in the air.” The photo’s caption mentioned her grandchild’s excitement at getting to bring the beer to “a lifelong Garfield resident [who has] this great connection to the city.”
In the West End’s Elliott neighborhood, the party at a theater for beer #54, a spruce lager, was sparsely attended until a police cruiser pulled up.
“My teenage instincts kicked in, and my adrenaline is, I’m ready to
PHOTO: COURTESY OF EAST END BREWING
Then-mayor Bill Peduto, TJ Fairchild of Commonplace Coffee, Rick Sebak, and Scott Smith of East End Brewing at the Central North Side beer release party in 2019.
run,” Smith says. “And he walks up and says, ‘Can I get a four pack, please?’” It was the Pittsburgh Police Chief, proud to buy beer in the neighborhood where he’d started years ago. East End staff watched in surprise as he snapped a picture of the beer on the hood of his police car.
Smith also came to appreciate the egalitarian nature of the project — “seeing people getting excited about finally getting their beer for their neighborhood,” he said in a press release — and the brewery held firm to making a beer and throwing a party regardless of a neighborhood’s size or population.
“We may have eight people turn out for the release, or we may have 80 people turn out for the release,” Smith says.
For Fairywood, the city’s westernmost neighborhood, which is largely depopulated, East End held the release of beer #10, a coconut
stout, at Cellone’s Italian Bread.
“There’s a UPS center, one or two other other businesses, and this giant bakery,” Smith says. “[So] we did the release in the lobby of the bakery’s offices [and] timed it so that when people came off shift, they could come and have a beer.”
The COVID-19 pandemic hit while beer #20, a milkshake IPA for Windgap, was in the tank, inspiring the brewery to get even more creative.
The Stanton Heights release of a Belgian Tripel (#58) in Nov. 2021 was held at a private home. A neighborhood resident volunteered her house for the party, and East End sold beers in the driveway while she cooked burgers in the backyard.
As time went on, the sequence of beers became less random and more in service of supporting neighborhood events.
The calculus became, “we’re going to do a release in Friendship?
Well, the Pittsburgh Glass Center is having their big Hot Jam event in a couple of months, [so] maybe we can brew the beer and connect with that neighborhood in that way,” Smith says. “How can we best connect with an address? What’s a representative business or establishment or institution in a neighborhood?”
Befitting a Pittsburgh-wide quest, Smith also remembers some big swings. Bloomfield’s beer, to the chagrin of some residents, was not Italian, but a wee heavy Scotch ale, made in whiskey barrels that East End sourced from Laphroaig, a Scottish distillery founded in 1815. The North Side’s Manchester neighborhood was honored with a beer that staff called an Oceanic IPA (#72), made with malts originating from Australia and “all of the hops were from that part of the world,” says Smith, “which gave it a wonderful flavor characteristic.”
While East End didn’t intend
for any neighborhood beers to return, they’re considering polling fans about their favorites early next year for a possible “greatest hits reprisal,” says Smith. Asked how he feels about the end of the project, Smith saysit’s bittersweet, though he considers it a resounding success, connecting the soon-to-be 20-year-old brewery even more deeply to the city and its neighborhoods.
“All these little unexplored corners of the city and connections with places and business owners that we did releases with, and old friends, new friends,” Smith reflects. “It’s really been quite a path, [and] it’s been the most successful and interesting beer series we’ve ever conceived. It’s definitely elevated what we do as a brewery to places I never thought we’d get to.” •
FEDD THE GOD
Now signed to Wiz Khalifa’s label, the Pittsburgh rapper is taking a yes-and approach to building his rap career
BY: PONY BAILEY // INFO@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
Social Status on Penn Ave. in East Liberty is a sneakerhead’s delight. Perfectly pressed streetwear dangles from wooden hangers, display cases stud the sales floor sporting eye-catching accessories, and, all around, the walls are filled with handsome leather or candycolored shoes. But there’s more to this spot than just footwear.
To enter the retail area, you must first pass through a very different kind of space: an airy community room full of tables, a small cafe counter, and books on racial and economic justice like Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law . Here flashy, fun fashion collides with communitybuilding and purpose, and it’s here that Pittsburgh City Paper sat down with rapper on the rise Fedd the God for a chat.
Fedd grew up on the North Side, where each neighborhood had both its own musical flavor and its own allegiances.
“I’m from Northview Heights, but then I moved to Manchester, so both areas play different variations on the South’s music,” Fedd says. “So [in Northview], you would hear a lot of project New Orleans, like No Limit and Hot Boys. And then when I moved down to Manchester, they would play a lot of Webbie and Boosie, so that’s where you get a lot of the realism from me. The flashy, fun, jumpy came
“Outside of music, I’m very into fashion,” says Fedd, who showed up sporting Travis Scott Air Jordans in olive green. “I spilled some spaghetti sauce on 'em, but you know it’s kinda cool. They’re meant to be worn!” Polished style, communitymindedness, that cheerful outlook — these are among the things that Fedd the God stands for. And with the release of his first full-length record, Soul Searching , earlier this year on fellow Pittsburgh native Wiz Khalifa’s Taylor Gang label, he is also poised to stand for Pittsburgh rap to a wider national audience.
CP PHOTO: MARS JOHNSON
Fedd the God poses for a portrait at ID Labs in Etna.
from Northview, and then the realism comes from Manchester.”
edd embraces these sonic influences throughout Soul Searching ’s short, punchy, party-and-project rap trac s. ut the doings of sometimes deadly neighborhood factions are something edd is determined to transcend. His entry into ma ing music, in fact, came after the death of his friend and rising artist Trill ee.
the roster at Taylor ang, edd is now repping the orth ide and ittsburgh as a whole to huge audiences around the country and learning at the feet of i halifa, author of such mega-hits as ee ou gain, which has nearly billion streams in potify. t s a position, edd says, that he s earned with a dogged wor ethic, shrewd thin ing, and gumption. He recalls an early moment with i at
“PITTSBURGH HAS A NARRATIVE OF, CAN’T HAVE NOTHING, CAN’T DO NOTHING SUCCESSFULLY AS A MINORITY, AND I THINK THEY’RE VERY WRONG.”
“I’ve watched a lot of people dead and gone just from trying to align themself to one neighborhood, he e plains, and more just want everybody to come together. o that s why be on that orth ide shit. m from this as a whole. I’m from the orth ide. t s a broad and more beautiful thing.
Than s to landing a spot on
olling oud in . ., where the latter was headlining the festival in front of a crowd of 30,000.
i comes up to me right before he gets on stage and says, et ready, you re performing ctivated tonight. how trac . how trac is when you get on stage and you have to remember the words to the beat, the exact cue, the e act time you come on,
CP PHOTO: MARS JOHNSON Fedd the God poses for a portrait at ID Labs in Etna.
Fedd tells City Paper. "So I get out on stage, in front of a sea of people, and I got the microphone and I’m just like, whoa! I really had to go in my pocket and put my glasses on because I don’t want to fumble this shit, and I just rap it! People are going crazy, and I just look behind me, and I see Wiz has the biggest Kool-aid smile on, like, ‘I got one. I know you can do this. I can throw him to the wolves and he’s
gonna come out with a coat on.’”
Having chec ed many items off the working musician dream list — the experience at Rolling Loud, an appearance at South by Southwest, features in esteemed media such as Lyrical Lemonade — there’s still much that Fedd aspires to do. Like creating a No. 1 song, for instance, and continuing to explore ways to wed his music with another of his passions,
video games. When he’s not in the studio or out on the road, he’s often interacting with his fans on the video game streaming website Twitch.
“Music and video games are best friends,” he observes. “On Madden in , one of the first rap songs fell in love with was Al Fatz’s ‘I Done Came Down.’”
So, what would be his dream combination of a video game and one of
his songs? “‘No Limit’ on the Grand Theft Auto VI soundtrack, ’cause it’s in Florida and there’s a lot of projects down there. ‘No Limit’ is about the projects.”
As his star continues to rise both inside of Pittsburgh and among wider audiences, Fedd is focused on being a part of changing the narrative about his hometown.
“Pittsburgh has a narrative of, can’t have nothing, can’t do nothing successfully as a minority, and I think they’re very wrong. I’m a testament to that; Slappers N Bangers are a testament to that. We can do it. My homies at 1Hood, they’re changing it. We’re changing it very fast. I feel like I’m crawling so everybody can walk.”
And what does he want the world to know about Pittsburgh? “Pittsburgh is the best place on earth. I’ve been everywhere, internationally, and nationally. I always want to come home. There’s always a yearning feeling like, they need you. Like m always going to different places, and every time I go, I always want to bring a piece of that back to here. This is what made me. I want Pittsburgh to understand, I’m nothing without Pittsburgh. So Pittsburgh needs to get it crackin’!” •
CP PHOTO: MARS JOHNSON
Fedd the God poses for a portrait at ID Labs in Etna.
MIXING IT UP
In a world of scam immersive experiences, Mixtape delivers legitimate delights
BY: AMANDA WALTZ // AWALTZ@PGHCITYPAPER.COM
When Viral Ventures contacted the owners of Mixtape, a bar and dance club in Garfield, about hosting an immersive experience, the arrangement appeared simple enough. The company would do most of the work, setting up the concept, creating the cocktail menu, and taking care of ticketing. All Grace Emmerling and Jeff VanFossan had to do was sit back and watch the
“We were looking to bring people in, and that final quarter of the year is a really critical quarter for the service industry. So it was really attractive to us because we felt like we were getting an audience that we would not have otherwise had … So that's why it was a good fit for us at the time.”
Emmerling says that, while their working relationship with Viral Ventures was positive overall, they had to take a more hands-on role, as representatives from the Australiabased company were often off-site working on other projects. Viral Ventures also faced controversy in 2021, with Pittsburgh patrons claiming that the global company had underdelivered or misled them, taking them down a confusing rabbit hole defined by an apparent lack of customer service, a business model that included operating under several different names (including Immersive Ventures and Hidden Media Network) and websites, and a no-refund policy.
As a result, in January 2024, Emmerling and VanFossan decided to cut ties with Viral Ventures and pursue their own original immersive concepts. Since then, Mixtape has transported guests into Alice in Wonderland, the world of Nintendoera video games, a Hogwarts-like magical academy, and a graffitisplashed subway honoring 1980s hip-hop culture.
guests roll into the space, which, in October 2023, became a Tim Burtoninspired Halloween affair, then the holiday pop-up bar, Tinseltown: The Christmas Speakeasy.
“They then took 100% of the ticket sales, and we were able to collect on the bar,” Emmerling tells Pittsburgh City Paper, adding that they saw it as a great opportunity to establish the bar they bought and reopened and had, at that time, been managing for less than a year.
Since Oct. 2, the bar has welcomed guests to The Nightmare Before Mixtape, a new iteration of the immersive experience that started it all. A giant, inflatable, neon-green version of Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas hovers over Mixtape’s signature sign, and inside, murals of Jack Nicholson’s Joker from the 1989 Batman film, black-and-white Beetlejuice striping, and other Burton-esque touches are meant to delight revelers looking for Halloween fun.
Emmerling says the choice to do the immersives independently has given them the freedom to create
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MIXTAPE Nightmare Before Mixtape 2
a “canvas for local talent,” commit to levels of quality and creative expression not possible under Viral Ventures, and ensure that the money they make stays in the city.
She and VanFossan recruited a team of artists led by muralists Max “GEMS” Gonzalez and Shane Pilster, set designer Johnmichael Bohach, and others to execute colorful visions accented with interactive elements like arcade consoles (for Super Mixtape 64) and themed cocktails.
The immersive experiences add an appealing extra layer to Mixtape’s regular event roster, which features DJ dance parties that play everything from New Wave hits to funk, karaoke, speed-dating mixers, and more.
So far, Emmerling says patrons have reacted positively to The Nightmare Before Mixtape.
“Jeff was just kind of standing outside on the corner while a group of people were going in for a session, and he heard someone say, ‘This
better be different than last year’ or something. And then they opened up the front door and they're like, ‘Whoa.’”
Emmerling credits much of the concepts' success to focusing on minute details, especially when catering to pop culture fans, adding, “Whether it's video games or Alice in Wonderland or Tim Burton or Halloween in general, people pick up on the little things.”
The thoughtfulness of Mixtape’s approach contrasts with several disastrous immersive experiences hosted by companies similar to Viral Ventures. This year, a Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow, Scotland, and a Bridgerton -inspired ball in Detroit both generated headlines for promoting grand ideas, only to deliver sparsely decorated venues, subpar food and drink, and bizarre, unthematic entertainment, leaving attendees demanding refunds and feeling scammed.
October promises more spooky happenings in Mixtape's decorated space, including a Burton Ball on Sat., Oct. 26, followed on Wed., Oct. 30 by a pre-Halloween sober disco night co-hosted by The Open Road, a nonalcoholic bottleshop that recently moved from Allentown to Garfield.
Emmerling foresees continuing the Mixtape immersive experiences through the end of the year, but believes the frequency and amount of work involved makes them unsustainable over the long term. Even so, she doesn't want to abandon what has been a creatively fulfilling effort for her and VanFossan.
“But next year we'll definitely do it in some capacity,” she says. “This year, we changed every two months, pretty much like clockwork, and I don't think we'll do that … I don't know if it will be quite as frequent.” •
MIXTAPE
4907 PENN AVE., GARFIELD MIXTAPEPGH.COM
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MIXTAPE [•RE]MIXTAPE
PHOTO: COURTESY OF MIXTAPE Wonderland at Mixtape
COMEDY • DOWNTOWN
Select Start presents Murder Mystery: An Improv Show to Die For. 9 p.m. Arcade Comedy Theater. 943 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $15. arcadecomedytheater.com
IN PITTSBURGH
THU., OCT.24
THU., OCT. 24
FILM • NORTH SIDE
Kusama: Infinity and Pumpkin Painting
6-8 p.m. Mattress Factory. 509 Jacksonia St., North Side. $10, free for members. Reservation required. mattress.org
MUSIC • NEW KENSINGTON
GRLwood. 6:30 p.m. Doors at 6 p.m. Preserving Underground. 1101 Fifth Ave., New Kensington. $20. preservingconcerts.com/shows
THEATER • SOUTH SIDE
City Theatre presents Ghosted: Tales from Carson 7 p.m. Continues through Nov. 2. The Lillie Theatre. 1300 Bingham St., South Side. $40. citytheatre.culturaldistrict.org
THEATER • DOWNTOWN
Disney adults, keep scrolling. The princesses behind the House of Mouse are parodied in Disenchanted, an o -Broadway comedy musical described as bringing to life Snow White, Cinderella, Mulan, Tiana, and other Disney heroines to “set the record straight.” The show unfolds on the Byham Theater stage for one night only. 7:30 p.m. 101 Sixth St., Downtown. $25-65. trustarts.org
MUSIC • MILLVALE
Soul Asylum: Slowly But Shirley Tour with The Juliana Hatfield Three. 8 p.m. Doors at 7 p.m. Mr. Smalls Theatre. 400 Lincoln Ave., Millvale. $40 in advance, $45 at the door. mrsmalls.com
FRI., OCT. 25
SPORTS • DOWNTOWN
American Taekwondo Association Fall Nationals. 11 a.m. Continues through Sat., Oct. 26. David L. Lawrence Convention Center. 1000 Fort Duquesne Blvd., Downtown. Spectator admission $20-25. pittsburghcc.com
DANCE • HOMESTEAD
Confluence Ballet Co. presents Confluence 7:30 p.m. Continues through Sat., Oct. 26. Glitterbox Theater. 210 W. Eighth Ave., Homestead. $21-25. confluenceballet.org
MUSIC • STRIP DISTRICT
Calliope presents Tray Wellington Band 7:30 p.m. Doors at 6:30 p.m. The Original Pittsburgh Winery. 2809 Penn Ave., Strip District. $25. pittsburghwinery.com
FILM • HOMESTEAD
Giant Scream Show: Haunt of the Horror Trailers and The Fog on Super 8. 8 p.m. Doors at 7:30 p.m. Eberle Studios. 229 East Ninth Ave., Homestead. $12, free for Pittsburgh Sound + Image members. pghsoundandimage.com
DANCE • DOWNTOWN
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre presents Peter Pan 7:30 p.m. Continues through Sun., Oct. 27 Benedum Center. Seventh St.
SAT., OCT. 26
FILM • OAKLAND
Carnegie Museum of Art Film Series presents Urban Legends. 1:30-5 p.m. Carnegie Museum of Art. 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $8-10. carnegieart.org
MARKET • HIGHLAND PARK
Witchburgh Magical Market. 4-8 p.m. Union Project. 801 N. Negley Ave., Highland Park. Free. instagram.com/witch.burgh
MARKET • DOWNTOWN
Don’t miss the final Night Market of the year. The event presented by Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership welcomes artists and craftspeople to sell handmade goods, including jewelry, pop culture memorabilia, candles, and more in Market Square. This edition will also include a guest appearance by Creatives Drink, an initiative focused on creating collaborations between Pittsburgh’s creative community and local craft breweries and distilleries. 5-10 p.m. Market Square, Downtown. Free. All ages. downtownpittsburgh.com
MUSIC/FILM • DOWNTOWN
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra presents Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in Concert. 7 p.m. Continues through Sun., Oct. 27. Heinz Hall. 600 Penn Ave., Downtown. $60-125. All ages. trustarts.org
MUSIC • MOON TOWNSHIP
Dropkick Murphys: North America Fall 2024 Tour with Pennywise and The Scratch 7:30 p.m. UPMC Events Center. 6001 University Blvd., Moon Township. $29.75-59.75. upmceventscenter.com
SUN., OCT. 27
KIDS • NORTH SIDE
Halloween Hunt. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Carnegie Science Center. One Allegheny Ave., North Side. Included with regular admission. All ages. carnegiesciencecenter.org
LIT • LARIMER
Pittsburgh Zine Fair 11 a.m.-6 p.m. The Kingsley Association. 6435 Frankstown Ave., Larimer. Free. All ages. pghzinefair.com
PHOTO: MAGGIE FRIEDMAN GRLwood at Preserving Underground
Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre presents Peter Pan.
MUSIC • NORTH SHORE
Mod Sun and lovelytheband: Here’s Your Flowers Tour with Huddy and No Love For The Middle Child 6 pm. Stage AE. 400 North Shore Dr., North Shore. $27.50-70. promowestlive.com
COMEDY • STRIP DISTRICT
The Mean Gays Live. 7:30 p.m. Doors at 6 p.m. City Winery. 1627 Smallman St., Strip District. $30-50. citywinery.com/pittsburgh
MON., OCT. 28
ADULT • LAWRENCEVILLE
CNM Social Club Costume Party 7-10 p.m. Belvedere’s Ultra-Dive. 4016 Butler St., Lawrenceville. Free. 21 and over. belvederesultradive.com
LIT • OAKLAND
Bookish Bash. 7-10 p.m. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh-Main. 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland. $25. 21 and over. carnegielibrary.org
TUE., OCT. 29
MUSIC • MCKEES ROCKS
Sueco: Attempted Lover Tour 6:30 p.m. Roxian Theatre. 425 Chartiers Ave., McKees Rocks. $17-54. roxiantheatre.com/shows
FILM • ALLENTOWN
Flea Market Films presents Night of the Living Dead on 16mm. 7:30 p.m. Doors at 5 p.m. at Bottlerocket Social Hall. 1226 Arlington Ave., Allentown. Free. RSVP required. bottlerocketpgh.com
MUSIC • MOON TOWNSHIP
The Black Crowes: Happiness Bastards Tour (The Reprise). 7:30 p.m. UPMC Events Center. 6001 University Blvd., Moon Township. $49-135. upmceventscenter.com
KIDS/SPORTS • NORTH SHORE
Football and Halloween season combine for the first-ever Steelers Spooktacular. The trick-or-treating event invites kids to Acrisure Stadium for candy, costumes, and more. Young fans can collect goodies handed out by Steelers players in the locker room, participate in football drills, or smile for Halloween-themed photo ops. Each child will receive a clear Steelers-branded bag to show o when they head out on Oct. 31 for more sweets. 6-8 p.m. 100 Art Rooney Ave., North Shore. Ticket required for entry. $5 trick-ortreating fee for kids 14 and under. steelers.com
WED., OCT. 30
KARAOKE • STATION SQUARE
Halloween Spooktacular Broadway
Karaoke & Sing-Along. 7-9:30 p.m. Hard Rock Cafe. 230 W. Station Square Dr., Station Square. $13-18. facebook.com/ NonStopBroadway
FILM • DOWNTOWN
Ganja and Hess 7:30 p.m. Continues through Thu., Oct. 31. Harris Theater. 809 Liberty Ave., Downtown. $9-11. trustarts.org
MUSIC • LAWRENCEVILLE
Eliza McLamb with The Ophelias 8 p.m. Doors at 7 p.m. Spirit. 242 51st St., Lawrenceville. $22. spiritpgh.com
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 3200 Park Manor Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15205 on 11/6/2024 at 1:00 PM. Elias Kazas 2274, Michelle Fernia 2321, Elena Antonucci 3079, Gregg Matthews 3218. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 110 Kisow Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15205 on November 6, 2024 at 11:15am.
Julie Haley 141, Lee Foster 160, Eric Clark 28. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com.
Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction.
Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
MARKET PLACE
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 1212 Madison Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15212. November 6th, 2024 at 1:30 PM. Justice Marsh 4026. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction.
Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 111 Hickory Grade Rd. Bridgeville, PA 15017, November 6, 2024 at 12:30 PM. Alex Lalley 2271. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com.
Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction.
Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 6400 Hamilton Ave Pittsburgh PA 15206 on November 6th, 2024 at 1:45PM EDT. 5008 Cheronda Jones, L013 Kelly Earle, L054 Andrew Stewart. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction.
Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 1005 E Entry Drive Pittsburgh, PA 15216 on 11/06/2024 at 11:30 AM. 3179 Tanjanera Brower, 4108 Michael Miller, 5184 Jackie Horvath, 8106 Michael Miller . The auction will be listed and advertised on storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 141 N Braddock Ave, Pittsburgh PA, 15208 on November 6th, 2024 at 11:00 AM. 1211A Sandra Burden, 2222A Tamieka Battle, 3163A Ashley Taylor, 4018 Ellektra Rowland, 4043 Catherine Johnson, L041 Antoine Bennett. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 700 E Carson St, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. November 6, 2024 at 12:15 PM. Mark Hroblak 2049, Kyonna Turner 3022, Grace Murray 4050, JohNaya Horton 4128. The auction will be listed and advertised on www. storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates, Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a public auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extra Space’s lien at the location indicated: 880 Saw Mill Run Blvd Pittsburgh, PA 15226, November 6, 2024, at 1:15 PM. Janet Cramer 2096. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com. Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction.
Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the personal property.
PUBLIC AUCTION
Extra Space Storage, on behalf of itself or its a iliates Life Storage or Storage Express, will hold a Public Auction to sell the contents of leased spaces to satisfy Extras Space’s lien at the location indicated: 902 Brinton Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15221 on Wednesday November 6, 2024 at 11:30am. Andrew Fent 1052, Tiara Law 2229 and Jabria Caldwell 3189. The auction will be listed and advertised on www.storagetreasures.com
Purchases must be made with cash only and paid at the above referenced facility in order to complete the transaction. Extra Space Storage may refuse any bid and may rescind any purchase up until the winning bidder takes possession of the property.
NAME
CHANGE IN The Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: No. GD-24-009191
In petition of Juan Felipe Puerto for change of name to Juan Felipe Muerto. To all persons interested: Notice is hereby given that an order of said Court authorized the filing of said petition and fixed the 20th day of November 2024, at 9:30 a.m., as the time and the Motions Room, City-County Building, Pittsburgh, PA, as the place for a hearing, when and where all persons may show cause, if any they have, why said name should not be changed as prayed for.
ESTATE NOTICE
ESTATE OF BARRETT SR, WILLIAM, R, DECEASED OF PITTSBURGH, PA No. 022406361 of 2024.
Elisabeth McDermott William Barrett Jr. Co Extr. 1632 Duchess Lane, Pittsburgh, PA, 15236. 211 Glendale Drive, Je erson Hills, PA, 15025
STUDY SMOKERS WANTED
The University of Pittsburgh’s Alcohol & Smoking Research Lab is looking for people to participate in a research project. You must:
• Currently smoke cigarettes
• Be 18-49 years old, in good health, and speak fluent English
• Be right handed, willing to not smoke before two sessions, and to fill out questionnaires
Earn up to $260 for participating in this study. For more information, call (412) 407-5029
FINDING GOD
ACROSS
1. Dublin’s country
5. Imitated 9. “Oh yeah, uh-huh!”
13. Jurassic Park menace, briefly
14. Oar pin
15. Card-game grouping
16. Senior’s org.
17. Contraction that’s a question
18. White Dudes For Harris grp.
19. Honest person
22. ___ tube
23. Ving of Pulp Fiction
26. “What’s going to happen then?”
30. Muscle strengthened by curls, informally
33. Man of the world
34. Chop suey sauce
35. They could be the highest or the lowest
36. Kid
37. Cook with dry heat
38. Place for thieves
39. Jewish folklore creature
40. Relief spot
41. “Everybody,
come closer”
44. Stage direction
45. Baseball exec Bud
48. What one might do after stopping?
53. Opera solo 55. Station with a show
56. Bewildered
57. Album that earned Lamar a Pulitzer Prize for Music
58. Symbol of hardness
59. Convent residents
60. Loafer
61. Small amount
62. Black and White, for two
DOWN
1. Greek letters
2. Syrian’s neighbor
3. Any Friends episode, now 4. Broad stretches
5. Massage reactions
6. “Bear of very little brain”
7. London greeting 8. Back to the Future car
9. “My parents are gonna kill me!”
10. Lager and orange juice drinks
11. “Slippery” tree
12. NFL 6-pointers
14. Jerk
20. Not go out of service?
21. What have we here 24. Edible mushroom 25. Eye sores 27. The Girl on the Train author Hawkins 28. Furry swimmer 29. Replay feature 30. Sheri ’s shield 31. Glacier climber’s tool
32. 1/100th of a Uruguyan peso
36. Maine home to Allagash Brewing Company
37. Credit union’s write-o s
39. It builds character
40. Unique person
42. Compassionate
43. They do Windows
46. Time unit?
47. Actress Davis
49. Super duper?
50. Rock band Beach Weather, e.g.
51. Lend a hand
52. Brat’s comeback
53. TV spots
54. Pep-rally word
ADVERTISING MANAGER
JOB DESCRIPTION
• The Advertising Manager is responsible for selling advertising to credible advertisers and maximizing the performance of the sales team. This role leads the sales team, gathers and analyzes competitive market conditions, and creatively utilizes inventory to achieve sales growth.
• The Advertising Manager oversees hiring, training, performance management, budgeting, and sales accountability systems for the sales and marketing team.
• In partnership with the Editor in Chief, the Advertising Manager develops, implements, and manages marketing tactics for the City Paper’s print edition, website, and social media platforms.
• The Advertising Manager oversees the creation of the City Paper’s brand tone of voice, increasing brand awareness, generating demand, and increasing customer loyalty.
• The Advertising Manager reports directly to the President of the Pittsburgh City Paper.
• Direct reports include sales representatives, account executives, digital coordinators, and marketing coordinators.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
The Advertising Manager is accountable for:
• Setting annual budgets for the individual sales representatives to exceed department goals.
• Ensuring performance standards for all sales personnel are defined, communicated and met.
• Managing inventory, including setting rates, maintaining rate cards, and packaging promotions.
• Account management, including making joint calls, monitoring key account activity, quarterly account reviews of lists, monthly projection reviews and reading weekly contact management reports.
• Managing the development and execution of City Paper events.
• Updating the City Paper media kit and designing it in a way that is attractive to potential advertisers.
• Managing and designing campaigns to help promote City Paper to current and potential readers, focusing on using City Paper products and trade advertising.
• Encouraging and enforcing employee engagement, leadership skills, and above-average job performance within the department.
• Developing and enforcing departmental practices and procedures as they pertain to sales and marketing.
• Creating and maintaining sales incentive programs such as new business, sales bonuses, contests, team building initiatives, etc.
• Conducting weekly sales meetings.
• Following and enforcing all Company policies and procedures, including the EEO and safety guidelines, at all times.
• Performing any miscellaneous departmental duties as needed.
EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration or another related field – required
• 2 years media sales experience in the same or similar medium – required
• Experience managing people - required
JOB TYPE
• Full-time
