1-24-17

The Pitt News

Pitt/Louisville preview See page 9

The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | January 24, 2017 | Volume 107 | Issue 108

PENNDOT CHOOSES PA FOR VEHICLE TESTING SITE Amanda Reed

Assistant News Editor

new convenience delivery service comes to oakland Page 8

Operations manager Eric Purnell unloads a recent shipment at goPuff’s Oakland wearhouse. John Hamilton

VISUAL

EDITOR

MAN ASSAULTED ON FORBES AND MCKEE

Ashwini Sivaganesh News Editor

Pitt police assisted city police with a reported assault on the corner of Forbes Avenue and McKee Place Sunday afternoon.

The fight, which took place at about 3:52 p.m., involved two individuals — one of whom had a knife. The victim reported that while he was crossing Forbes,

the perpetrator drove into the crosswalk and exited a green Toyota Avalon with a knife in hand. Emily Schaffer, a city police spokesperson, said the victim was also struck in the leg by the vehicle and was treated on scene by paramedics and released. The driver punched the victim in the face before getting back in the car and heading east on Forbes toward Meyran Avenue.

Schaffer said that the motive of the

driver is unknown.

The suspect is an African-American male with a thin build, wears glasses and is reported to be between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4.

The suspect’s Pennsylvania license plate number is KGW-2725.

Pitt police ask anyone with information to call 412-624-2121 and reference report #17-00335, or city police at 911 and reference CCR# 17-013498.

Expect to see even more autonomous vehicles driving around Pennsylvania in the coming months.

The federal Department of Transportation accepted PennDOT’s request to make Pennsylvania a National Proving Ground — testing site — for Autonomous Vehicle Technologies on January 19, one month after PennDOT submitted their application.

According to a press release, the DOT chose the 10 sites out of 60 applicants based on each site’s ability to manage various roadway states, safety conditions and types of vehicles.

Pittsburgh was already an epicenter for autonomous vehicle technology thanks to Uber’s arrival to the city in spring 2015, but Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto wanted to make it official and teamed with Penn State to submit the proposal in December 2016. Penn State’s Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute has a closed test track in a rural area, while Pittsburgh has testing capabilities on streets in an urban environment, according to Peduto.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Penn State on this opportunity,” Peduto said in a See Vehicles on page 3

News

oakland crime map

See online at pittnews.com

PITT, PPS COLLABS WITH CCAC Alexis Carter Staff Writer

With a new partnership between Pittsburgh schools and colleges, students can prepare for a college career as soon as they enter seventh grade.

The collaboration — called the Pittsburgh Administration Collaboration — involves Pitt, the Community College of Allegheny County and the Pittsburgh Public Schools. It will provide opportunities for seventh and eighth graders to make higher education attainable and the transition between high school and college seamless through a mentorship program, starting this summer.

Through offering a program to middle schoolers, PAC wants to help parents and students start thinking about college and how to financially prepare for it as soon as possible. Since the partnership was only formed recently, PAC is still in the process of identifying middle schools that will benefit from the program the most.

According to Mark Harding, Pitt’s chief enrollment officer, PAC has a key component that not many other initiatives have — early engagement.

“What makes [PAC] different than other programs is working with middle school students in the Pittsburgh school system,” Harding said. “We will have an opportunity to discuss college and financial planning and not wait until their senior year when they can’t do anything about savings and curriculum choices they made.”

In deciding how the program operates, the group will also figure out if students have to sign up for it, or if PAC will approach students who meet a predetermined criteria.

In the meantime, Pitt is considering providing library, career and advising resources, while the specific programming for PAC is under development.

Once the select students are in the program, Pitt Pathfinders will mentor them — allowing students to connect and invest

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in their education through networking, building relationships with students, faculty and staff both at CCAC and Pitt.

In addition to acting as mentors, Pathfinders will conduct campus tours for PAC participants and host group activities both on campus and in middle schools. As the program expands, so will the opportunity to involve other campus groups.

Debbie Rupert, senior director of admissions and financial aid at Pitt, also acts as an adviser to the Pathfinders and said she will assist the organization in approaching their role in the PAC program once the details are sorted through.

“College readiness does not begin in high school,” Rupert said. “Exposing these students to a college culture through the lens of our Pitt Pathfinders will give them a relatable perspective from individuals who were in their shoes not too long ago, and well before they actually have to focus on enrolling.”

While PAC will engage students about college at a young age, it is not the first initiative in Pittsburgh to ensure that students, specifically high schoolers, are on track to obtaining a post-secondary degree.

The Pittsburgh Promise, a regional economic and workforce development initiative that began in 2008, provides a path toward post-secondary education for public school graduates through scholarship and recommendations for making students “Promise-ready.”

Eligible graduates receive the full Promise scholarship — referred to as the Core Promise scholarship — as a privately funded gift of up to $30,000 over four years to attend any accredited post-secondary in-

stitution in Pennsylvania, including CCAC and Pitt, based on a minimum 2.5 GPA, 90 percent attendance rate and city residency.

Students who meet the enrollment, residency and attendance requirements, but lack a 2.5 GPA, may apply for the Promise Extension Program at CCAC — a safety net that provides a option for students who complete the year-long program successfully.

Branden Ballard has been with Pittsburgh Public Schools for two and a half years years, serving as a mentor and program manager of We Promise. As one of the mentors, he meets with students weekly. He said about 20 to 25 percent of participating scholars are eligible for Pittsburgh Promise, with another 40 to 50 percent eli-

“What makes [PAC] different than other programs is working with middle school students...”

- Mark Harding gible for the extension program.

Students already participating in the extension program will have the opportunity to transfer to Pitt to complete a bachelor’s degree, provided that the students meet the transfer admission requirements and are accepted.

According to the 2015 Promise Annual Report, 5,271 students received the Core Promise scholarship, with another 797 receiving the extension. Since the program’s inception, Promise scholars enrolled in over 100 institutions, with 1,478 scholars attending CCAC and 351 attending Pitt main campus.

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Pittsburgh Promise piloted a program called We Promise in 2012, which supports African-American male students by providing the resources they need to ensure eligibility for either the Core scholarship or the extension.

The district expanded and staffed We Promise by 2013, which now helps about 500 young men in high school each year.

Stuart Blacklaw, the provost and executive vice president for academic and student affairs for CCAC, wants to help transition public school graduates to CCAC, and then to prepare students to complete post-secondary education at Pitt.

“We’ve been doing this all along, but with PAC, we agree to introduce students to contacts at the University, work with students in the high schools and through their time at CCAC so that it’s more seamless ” Blacklaw said. “It’s obviously going to be a much richer experience for the students as they move through.”

By providing access to student ambassadors, student success coaches, advisers, counselors, faculty and staff, Blacklaw says that this will make the process and outcome for the student more beneficial — especially in regards to the career they want to pursue.

“It may take an extra semester if they are starting behind in their English or math, but we don’t want it to take beyond that,” Blacklaw said. “That’s about being sure they have the tutoring and advising support, and a package of individuals, offices and tools to make sure they stay on track and are able to complete in short order.”

While PAC engages students to close the gap on college accessibility, it will also work with their families to jump-start the dialogue about financial planning, cost and affordability.

For example, Pitt partnered with Raise. me, a social enterprise focused on expanding access to higher education for low-inSee CCAC on page 3

2

CCAC, pg. 2

Vehicles, pg. 1

come and first-generation students. Raise. me enables students to earn micro-scholarships starting as early as ninth grade and throughout high school for participating in activities that best prepare them for success, such as getting good grades, volunteering or joining an extracurricular.

“By partnering with Raise.me, working with students earlier and having conversations with families, we get at the money piece, and curriculum and rigor piece and then the whole social acclimation,” Harding said. “What does it take to be a college student? We will talk to them about that, host students. We are going to help them feel like a college student.”

According to Harding, with PAC, it doesn’t matter if students stay in the Pittsburgh area for college — it just matters they pursue secondary education.

“Although it is ideal to create a pipeline for students to attend Pitt, or the regional campuses, it is not the end goal,” Harding said. “Everyone agrees. If we get more students at Pittsburgh Public Schools going off to college and being successful, it’s a win.”

press release. “Together, the city and the University [Penn State] bring a diverse set of testing environments and additional partners to the table.”

The city’s road to becoming a national autonomous vehicle testing site began in July 2016, after Pittsburgh lost the Smart City Challenge, a national program that offered more than $40 million to the city with the best plan for fully integrating innovative technologies into transportation. While Pittsburgh made it into the top six, Columbus, Ohio, beat the Steel City for the top spot because of its plan to develop applications for providing more efficient human services to residents and visitors.

With the state is still dedicated to investing in autonomous vehicle technologies, PennDOT submitted an application to the U.S. DOT Dec. 19. Peduto and PennDOT argued that Pittsburgh is an optimal location for testing because of its diverse mix of streets, bridges and tunnels. In addition to Pittsburgh, PennDOT mentioned using the test tracks at Penn State and the Pocono Raceway in the application for autonomous driving trials.

“We’re thrilled to be a partner with PennDOT on this application and continue our leadership as a laboratory for innovation that benefits all residents,” Peduto said in a press release at the beginning of the month.

As a testing site, the city and Penn State will test technological advances in autonomous vehicle research and share the best practices for testing and operating autonomous vehicles among other testing sites and private industry officials. Pennsylvania will not receive federal funding for testing, but mentioned utilizing previously earned grants — like the “Smart Spine” corridors grant the Federal Highway Administration gave to Pittsburgh in October 2016 — and allocating state funding for autonomous vehicle testing in the December application.

According to Gov. Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh’s long history with autonomous vehicle technology helps cement its place in the industry.

“The city of Pittsburgh already is one of the leading centers for this emerging technology, and the new federal designation will ensure continued success,” he said in a release.

While there’s still a person at the wheel to make sure everything is running smoothly, Uber started giving “driverless” rides to willing passengers in modified Ford Fusions in

September 2015, a few months after the company’s arrival in the city.

In the same year, Delphi Automotive — a United Kingdom automotive parts manufacturing company — acquired a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff company specializing in self-driving software. The company, called Ottomatika, began testing its own self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh in August.

Other sites selected as proving grounds were: Texas AV Proving Grounds Partnership, U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center in Maryland, American Center for Mobility at Willow Run in Michigan, Contra Costa Transportation Authority and GoMentum Station in California, San Diego Association of Governments, Iowa City Area Development Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Central Florida Automated Vehicle Partners and the North Carolina Turnpike Authority According to Wolf, the testing site designation proves that the state is looking towards the future — for both its inhabitants and autonomous vehicle technology.

“This technology promises many benefits for our citizens and we will continue to work hard to ensure Pennsylvania remains a safe and welcoming place for highly automated vehicles to develop,” Wolf said.

The Pitt News SuDoku 12/9/15 courtesy of dailysudoku.com

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January 24, 2017

3

Opinions column

from the editorial board

Mayoral challenger could CONCEALED CARRY strengthen Peduto PROTECTS SEXUAL The field for Democratic nominee for mayor of Pittsburgh got a little wider this weekend.

At a public library auditorium in Homewood Saturday, John Welch declared a “people’s campaign,” becoming incumbent Mayor Bill Peduto’s first declared opponent in the May 16 Democratic primary for the 2017 election.

Welch, the dean of students at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, focused the remarks that opened his campaign on unequal development across the city, gentrification and police brutality. With his issuebased approach barely mentioning Peduto, the Carnegie Mellon graduate is poised to play the role that former Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., played in last year’s presidential primaries.

Welch could — and should — bring to the forefront of the public’s attention issues like these that matter to Pittsburghers but remain outside the mayor’s agenda.

Pittsburgh’s police force has seen plenty of controversy and tragedy in the past decade. Welch mentioned the nationally reported 2009 killing of three officers and Jordan Miles’s alleged assault by police in his speech. The former city police chaplain proposed an approach to issues with the force focused on both these sides — officers and communities. Combining the interests of the two sides is central — officers should have a greater stake in the communities they protect. Focusing specifically on the interests of one of these sides or the other is only a recipe for failure.

This is particularly relevant in the immediate aftermath of former Police Chief Cameron McLay’s resignation last November following a vote of no confidence from members of the Fraternal Order of Police among the city’s force. The vote came in

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stark contrast to Peduto’s continued support for the chief and his policies and marks a concerning gap that might not bode well for the success of future police reforms.

A “people’s campaign” from Welch on issues surrounding the police force in Pittsburgh easily has the potential to shift Peduto’s approach, should he win a second term in office. But given Welch’s East End origins, the issue of gentrification could possess even greater urgency and potency for his campaign to shift the incumbent’s take on the issue to the left.

Gentrification and uneven urban expansion have affected neighborhoods across Pittsburgh, but areas in the city’s east have borne the brunt of unstructured, under-regulated development. The need for the city to improve in dealing with the issue was underscored by Welch’s comment at his campaign kick-off Saturday that “it’s not fair when East Liberty can look like Monaco, and Beltzhoover looks like Monaca, [Pennsylvania.]” The city must ensure that all groups have a say in development, particularly when changes directly affect their communities.

A challenge to an incumbent in a primary election is as unlikely in Pittsburgh as anywhere else. But even if Welch fails to win the Democratic nod this year, he can still offer a vital service to Pittsburghers. Besides simply offering an alternative, Welch’s background and platform bring a lot to bear on viewpoints not as frequently considered in Peduto’s approach to governing the city.

Whether he plays the Sanders to Peduto’s Hillary Clinton and drags the mayor left or sheds light on issues that should be on the city’s agenda, a challenger makes the race more interesting and more valuable to everyone involved.

MINORITIES

Jeremy Wang

For The Pitt News Donald Trump’s endorsement by the National Rifle Association — and his son’s leadership of the Second Amendment Coalition — promises to bring concealed carry to the focus of the gun control debate.

Various factions across the country will be squaring off for a clash over this central element in firearms regulation. At the forefront of this confrontation is a bill aiming to fundamentally change the landscape of gun rights in America: the H.R.38 Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.

Concealed carry permits are state-issued and may only be recognized in certain states depending on state-level, rather than federal, agreements. For example, individuals with a Pennsylvania-issued permit are legally capable of carrying a firearm into Ohio or West Virginia. However, a quick trip into New

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Photo courtesy of Jeremy Wang York or New Jersey while carrying can easily earn them a felony charge for criminal possession.

H.R.38 is aimed at simplifying the complicated patchwork of state-level reciprocity agreements across the country. Chief among the bill’s objectives is the creation of a uniform, nationwide reciprocity bill where any state-issued concealed carry permit is valid in all other states that do not outlaw concealed carry. This would abolish the system of patchwork state agreements, where travelling across state lines can result in a felony charge for a citizen with a concealed carry permit. Furthermore, the bill upholds an individual’s right to ban concealed firearms on privately owned property.

Despite the advantages in simplifying the concealed carry system in the United States, supporters of the bill face a tough fight See Wang on page 5

4

Wang, pg. 4 ahead, threatened by possibilities of a Senate filibuster and the millions of dollars in the reserves of gun control lobbying groups.

Democrats who oppose concealed carry claim that gun-related crime will increase and that carrying a gun makes one more susceptible to injury while attacked.

Other Democrats, such as DNC Platform Committee Member Bonnie Schaefer, take the anti-gun platform a step farther. “I really don’t personally think anyone should have a gun,” she said during the drafting of the Democratic party platform.

While I own firearms appropriate for both sporting and defensive purposes, I do not currently carry one. To better understand those who do, I decided to reach out to the Pittsburgh chapter of Pink Pistols — an organization “dedicated to the legal, safe and responsible use of firearms for selfdefense of the sexual-minority community.”

Featured prominently in the Pink Pistols mission statement are the lines, “We teach queers to shoot. Then we teach others that we have done so. Armed queers don’t get bashed.”

After organizing a range trip and spend-

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ing an afternoon with some of the members, I posed a familiar question to those that own and carry firearms on a regular basis — why? I could tell from the way the group interacted that, though the rise of hateful rhetoric was frightening, each member thoroughly believed in their duty to protect themselves and each other. For the sake of their personal safety, members I interviewed requested anonymity.

For some, carrying a concealed weapon was a relatively new decision. One cited the sudden rise of hate crimes in the aftermath of the election. Buying and carrying a gun was simply more conscionable than changing their lifestyle or self-expression out of fear.

But for all members, the responses were universally centered on how carrying a firearm gave them the immediate ability to protect oneself and loved ones from harm.

Many frequently trained at the range, introducing friends or relatives to the responsible and effective use of firearms for self-defense.

Many gun control advocates look at concealed carry as a risk factor for a possible spike in criminal activity. But research data paints a very different picture. The number of concealed carry permits rose by 215

percent from 2007 to 2015 while the crime rate has plunged. While this alone is insufficient evidence to suggest a relationship of causation, it certainly negates the claim that America’s streets will devolve into spaghettiwestern-style shootouts.

There is also evidence suggesting that armed civilians may play a role in deterring crime. Surveys of convicted felons demonstrated a greater fear of armed victims than run-ins with the police.

Amplifying the deterrent effect on crime is the fact that permit holders are the most law-abiding demographic in the United States. The general population commits misdemeanors and felonies at about 3,813 crimes per 100,000 individuals while the rate for police officers rests at 103 crimes per 100,000 officers. Taking from the most comprehensive data sets in Florida and Texas, concealed carry permit holders commit misdemeanors and felonies at just 22.3 crimes per 100,000 individuals — less than 0.6 percent of the general population rate and just 21.7 percent of the rate for police.

The low crime rate makes sense — to just acquire a permit and a firearm, an individual must undergo multiple background checks examining criminal history, mental

January 24, 2017

health, military service and more. Even the recreational use of marijuana where it is legal under state law disqualifies one from passing a background check for a firearm due to the direct conflicts with federal law.

Contrary to claims that concealed firearms are more likely to harm than to help, a Center for Disease Control study published in 2013 “found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.” Defensive gun uses aren’t rare events either, with the report calling them a “common occurrence … with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”

Even in a world which gradually grows safer and safer, a common thread among those who choose to carry a concealed firearm is a belief that you are most responsible for your own personal safety. When seconds matter but help could be minutes away, carrying a self defense tool is not about the odds but more about the stakes. Pink Pistols brought this reality into painful focus for me.

As one member concluded, carrying a gun gives her a chance to respond to violence — to not live in fear.

5

Culture

INVISIBLE HANDS: RESTORING PGH’S ARTWORK Ian Flanagan

and restoration studio called Alba Art Conserva- the small portrait will go in Carnegie’s permanent collection gallery. tion.

Artwork and its environment “Conservators adhere to a code of ethics that Ellen Baxter, the chief conservator at the CarnUnlike the Carnegie, the University Art Galstresses minimal intervention, reversibility and egie Museum of Art, has been working on John lery at Frick doesn’t require its own in-house condocumentation, ” Alba said.

“Aside from the actual White Alexander’s enormous 1904 portrait “Auservator, because of its relatively small collection. restoration process, we are trained in the science rora Leigh” for nine months.

According to Isabelle Chartier, the gallery’s of the materials, analysis and prevention of further Baxter is nearly finished with treating the artcurator since 2012, the gallery sometimes calls in deterioration. ” work — primarily with a light layer of varnish to conservators from local businesses in Pittsburgh.

Baxter deals with painted works from as old as gloss over the aging paint’s flakiness — which will “I rely a lot on professional conservators to help the 16th century to modern pieces that museums then go into the permanent collection galleries. me apply the best care to the objects that I oversee have not yet displayed.

For more recent artwork, “I prefer to work very locally under the microscope to try and bring back things like the artist’s signature on ‘Aurora Leigh,’” Baxter said. “I didn’t treat that, I treated all the missing dots around it.

So now it’s reading better without me having to interfere with the original signature.”

Behind the scenes The conservator’s work is inherently subtle and nearly invisible to the public. Artists typically get all the credit for their work, but in the museum world, the conservator is constantly tinkering behind the scenes to ensure that paintings, sculptures and the like are ready for exhibition.

But as a field mixing art history with science, labs like the one in the Carnegie Museum of Art aren’t populated with people in white coats and safety goggles. Instead, the space is less sterile and looks more like an artist’s own studio.

Baxter’s work uses disparate tools for cleanA before and in-progress comparison of the restoration of Hans ing — from surgery and dentistry — in order to Holbein the Younger’s “Portrait of George Neville.”. Courtesy of remove surface dirt from older paintings.

Ellen Baxter, Carnegie Museum of Art Conservators treat paintings on a case-by-case basis, with the goal of limited invasiveness and a balance of lasting but reversible repairs, so that fu- Baxter typically works to stretch canvases a small in this gallery,” she said.

Like most of what Baxter does, the care that ture conservators can still access the original work. degree to fit its frame.

Chartier puts forth falls under the specific category “I’m working on [pieces] from about 1510 to Baxter studied with a conservator from North of preventive conservation. about next week, ” Baxter joked.

“It really could be Carolina for seven years before earning her mas“Preventive conservation doesn’t necessarily something brand new. ” ter’s in art conservation with a specialty in painting imply a direct manipulation in cleaning and reMany of the pieces Baxter treats are miniat Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. When storing the artwork.

So when you take care of obmally damaged.

One of her restoration projects, she came to Pittsburgh, she helped with the origijects in a collection, it’ s all about risk assessment,” Hans Holbein the Younger’ s “Portrait of George nal opening exhibition of the Andy Warhol MuChartier said.

Neville, Th ird Lord of Bergavenny, ” had a signifi seum in 1994.

But a conservator’s work does not focus solely “I just felt this connection with paintings,” Bax- cant amount of damage and required much more on the works of art themselves. work.

Baxter removed a discolored brown varnish ter said.

When Baxter took an art history course in colfrom the left side of the painting to uncover the Like Baxter, conservator Ana Alba works prilege, she was irked by the professors who never disoriginal paint, but the restoration is not yet commarily with paintings. Alba took her first fellowcussed the physical structure of the museums and plete. ship following graduation in the National Gallery galleries where paintings are displayed.

“It looks a bit like a cat attacked it, ” Baxter joked. of Art in Washington, D.C., and now owns a pri“I can repair one painting, but if it’s going back Once the painting’ s damage has been reversed, vate practice in Pittsburgh — an art preservation Senior Staff Writer

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January 24, 2017

into a gallery that has a leak in the roof, or there’s an infestation … it’s not going to do any good for that,” Baxter said. “You have to sort of get the envelope of the building treated.”

The condition of the gallery, especially the Scaife Galleries holding the permanent installations at the Carnegie, is about as important to preserving artworks as the work done directly to them. Baxter works with the museum’s facilities and collection care committee in order to maintain the proper environment for the works — including lower light levels as well as glass to protect the art from heat and ultraviolet rays — and to ensure effective pest management.

With advancing technology, conservators are able to do their jobs more effectively and protect their artwork more substantially. “[Conservation] has really evolved in the last few decades as a whole new field that’s based a lot on technology and machines and scientific processes that will help minimize the way that we touch and leave marks on the objects,” Chartier said.

Tedious, but Rewarding The job of a conservator requires a fascination with art and cultural conservation, but also the virtue of patience. What can sometimes become a tedious job is all worth it for Alba — who’s treated works range from old family heirlooms and portraits, to modern acrylics.

“I enjoy helping people restore and preserve the objects most precious to them and being involved in the local Pittsburgh preservation and arts community. Every job is a challenge in one way or another and solving the puzzle is both frustrating and enlightening,” Alba said.

In numerous respects, there is a clear artistry behind preserving artworks. Following the patience and craft of painters and artists throughout history, conservators act as their own painstaking creators in maintaining or saving precious cultural artifacts for the remaining millennia. But the pride of working with treasures of both past and present has an ethical nobility as well.

“We allow the state of the artwork to determine the course of treatment and not let our aesthetics or the market dictate decisions that are made,” Alba said. “In our practice, the conservator should put the artwork first.”

6

GALLERY CRAWL HIGHLIGHTS LOCAL ARTISTS, PERFORMERS Caroline Bourque and Lexi Kennell

Staff Writers After a year in the making, David Spriggs debuted his 36-foot-wide art installation, “Gold,” this past weekend at the Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District.

The massive structure is shaped like an inverted pyramid and, as the name suggests, glows in an array of golden hues. The pyramid displays sheets of film suspended within the pyramid, painted to look like upside-down human figures.

During the Renaissance, artists inverted their subjects in portraits as a way to defame them, according to Spriggs.

Spriggs sees his inverted pyramid, which is shaped like the triangular front face of the New York Stock Exchange building, as a protest against “excessive wealth.”

“This pyramid structure is kind of reminiscent of the global wealth pyramid, where you have the top 1 percent earning more wealth than the rest of the world,” Spriggs said. “It’s mind-blowing, really, this extreme division of wealth.”

“Gold” is Spriggs’ latest in a series of stratachromes, which he defines as an object with multiple layers of color.

This stratachrome explores the symbolic meaning behind the color gold, which he believes speaks to relevant themes of “super-wealth gilding the corruption underneath.”

Although the figures in the installation are clearly definable from the front, they become blurred and hazy from the side-view of the work, symbolizing the illusion that wealth has substance.

“It’s a piece that you really have to walk around to experience. It is static, it has a calmness to it, but as you walk around you see different elements of it. It

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kind of changes, so it has experiential elements, too,” Spriggs said. “I hope people take time to walk around and experience the work.”

Patrons did just that Friday evening, circling the piece to observe the altered physical qualities from different viewpoints, at the first stop of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawl.

The crawl began at the Wood Street Galleries and led to 17 other locations, all free and open to the public, throughout the Cultural District.

The Gallery Crawl — which lasted from 5:30 to 10:00 p.m. Friday — was one of four that will take place this year and featured exhibits and activities ranging from a concert by acoustic guitarist Daryl Shawn and cell phone disco to improv at Arcade Comedy Theater.

In addition to “Gold,” the crawl featured visual art from a number of artists, including an exhibit by Hannah Altman called “Luminous / Weightless.” Altman used sewing needles to poke holes into photographs of women and then backlit the photographs so that light poured through the holes, highlighting different areas of the female form.

The Crawl also included the Winter Night Market, an indoor market which featured local independent vendors, and two performances by aerialists and gymnasts of Bombyx Collective.

Marqui Lyons, the program manager in the Community Engagement and Strategic Partnership Department at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, said the event is free of charge so more people can attend.

“It’s about bringing the community together to experience thought-provoking art, not to make a profit,” Lyons said.

The crawl, which began in 2004, draws

a large number of college students and young professionals, according to Lyons.

Annually, the four renditions of the crawl attract more than 30,000 visitors, according to the Cultural District’s website.

Anthony Kuntz, a junior majoring in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, attended the crawl in 2016 as well as the two previous years. Kuntz said each year’s crawl has a number of displays he can still recall months after.

“I’ve seen [an exhibit] highlighting the Black Lives Matter movement, [an exhibit] sponsored by Catholic charities, stalls run by local artists selling their work, interactive light shows, video games from CMU’s Game Creation Society and even paintings done by local middle schoolers,” Kuntz said.

The galleries were only a few blocks from each other — most of the events were contained within the rectangular area formed by Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Liberty Avenue from Sixth to Ninth Street — and attendees stopped at stalls along the way to grab a free drink, play a game of Jenga or purchase artwork. Kuntz said the crawl is more fun in groups and he makes sure to bring friends every year. “[My friends and I] visited [a] gallery of paintings from local students [and] I bought one of a bird done by a sixth grader,” Kuntz said. “The students listed prices on their work if they were selling them, and Leslie — the students all included their names on the pieces — only wanted $9, but I made sure to give her $10 since I liked the piece.”

The crowd that gathered for the crawl moved through galleries in small groups, laughing and talking in front of the artists’ tables or gazing thoughtfully at paintings and installations. Each crowd member

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The Cultural District’s Gallery Crawl featured installations such as David Spriggs’ “Gold” (top), and “The Domesticity of Abandonment,” curated by Carolina Loyola-Garcia (bottom). Caroline Bourque STAFF WRITER was free to choose how they spent their time during the crawl, whether on installations like Spriggs’ or gymnast and aerialist performances. “[The Gallery Crawl] exposes the community to local and international artists that they may never have gotten to see before,” Lyons said. “And it brings the greater community downtown to the Cultural District, where we want everyone to know they are always welcome.”

7

The Pitt News

GOPUFF OPENS IN OAKLAND Kelechi Urama Staff Writer

As anyone who has ever had an aha moment knows, coming up with ideas is easy.

Putting them into action — especially as a college student — is the hard part.

That didn’t stop Rafael Ilishayev and Yakir Gola, who co-founded the on-demand convenience delivery service, goPuff, in 2013 as students at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Ilishayev was a junior at the time and Gola was a sophomore.

GoPuff, as its name suggests, was originally created to provide college students with all the makings of a great night out: the company delivered hookah and smoking products in addition to food items such as ice cream and candy.

After the company’s first year of business, Ilishayev and Gola made a conscious decision to move away from smoking products when it became clear that most of its sales came from snacks and household supplies, according to director of marketing Jake Levin.

“I saw more opportunity in the convenience space than putting ourselves at a benchmark of smoking paraphernalia,” Levin, who joined the company in 2014, said.

Though it still offers flavored hookah products and lighters on its website, smoking products typically account for only about 2 percent of goPuff ’s sales, Ilishayev said.

GoPuff operates through both an app and website every day between noon and 4:30 a.m., where users can purchase from an inventory of snacks and household supplies that ranges from Tic Tacs to condoms.

GoPuff delivers the items to users’ home in 30 minutes or less for a flat delivery fee of $1.95. The company will also offer beer delivery once its alcohol license is approved.

The service launched in Pittsburgh, its 15th city, Jan. 18, and will serve Oakland and surrounding neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill and North Side. At the Oakland location, goPuff employs five people, but has more than 100 employees across all its locations.

Unlike other delivery services like Postmates or Grubhub, all of goPuff ’s inventory is stored in a central warehouse — in Pittsburgh’s case, the warehouse is on Bates

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Street in South Oakland.

A day after its official launch Wednesday, goPuff was still moving into its warehouse.

GoPuff ’s space is separated into three large rooms: The first empty room will house its alcohol items, as Pennsylvania law mandates the alcohol is kept separately from their other inventory. The second and largest room will hold a handful of employees in bright blue shirts who will line shelves with boxes of cereal, toilet paper and detergent, among other commodities. The third room will be a lobby where drivers — who make deliveries using their personal vehicles — can spend time between orders.

Each city’s goPuff location typically offers additional products specific to its region, and Levin is working to add Pittsburgh Popcorn to the company’s Oakland inventory.

Like most good ideas, goPuff was created out of necessity. Gola and Ilishayev had the idea after Gola, the only one in his friend group with a car, became the de facto chauffeur for all of his friends when they needed groceries or random supplies for their house.

“We realized [convenience store delivery] was something that many millennial college students need,” llishayev said over the phone from their headquarters in Philadelphia.

As college students with no funding, they found the money to start goPuff by reselling cubicles from bankrupt businesses until they’d earned about $75,000.

“If you want it bad enough, you can figure it out,” Ilishayev said.

Just a year later, goPuff expanded the service to Boston, and by 2015 it had reached Austin, Texas, and New York City. The company’s early success attracted such high-profile investors as Anthos Capital — a business management company — which made a $5 million investment to goPuff in 2016.

Though their customer base is expanding, Ilishayev still thinks of goPuff as a service created by millennials and for millennials, who he said will feel inspired to start a business of their own when they realize two college students founded goPuff.

“Take risks and do things that are out of your comfort zone,” Ilishayev said. “If you want to be an entrepreneur, you can’t sit in one place.”

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Sports

PITT PREPS FOR NO. 13 LOUISVILLE Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

John Hamilton VISUAL EDITOR

Forget making the NCAA Tournament — the Pitt men’s basketball team will need ne to pull off an upset on Tuesday just to stay out of the ACC’s cellar.

Pitt head coach Kevin Stallings said he S wasn’t wasn “up in arms” after the P Panthers dropped back-to-back games on back-to-b the road against the Syracuse Or Orange and Louisville Cardinals.

That was Car understandable, given understa that both are notoriously tough places to play, and p

Louisville is a top-15 team while Syracuse made it to the Final Four last year.

Two losses later, it’s officially time for Stallings to hit the panic button.

Pitt returns home to host the No. 13 Cardinals (16-4 overall, 4-3 ACC) at the Petersen Events Center Tuesday night, sporting a four-game losing streak and an ugly 1-5 record in conference play. Only Clemson’s 1-6 ACC record is temporarily keeping the Panthers out of last place.

In order to have any hope of earning an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, the Panthers will need to win several games against top-ranked opponents. That starts Tuesday against Louisville — a team that has won nine straight games against Pitt, including an 85-80 win Jan. 11, despite a heroic 43-point effort from Jamel Artis.

The Cardinals dominated the first 20

minutes last time, jumping out to a 47-26 halftime lead and building their advantage to 26 early in the second half. But the Panthers slowly crawled back into the game, one Artis 3-pointer at a time, eventually cutting the deficit to five with less than a minute left.

Pitt came up short at Louisville, but this time the team thinks it can replicate the success it found in the second half of that matchup.

“We’ll be better prepared. Going against their defense in the first half, they kind of played man, they kind of played zone ... I think it bothered us offensively,” senior forward Michael Young said Monday at a press conference. “I think in the second half we were able to be more successful because we kind of knew what was coming.”

But trying to conquer the Cardinals will be even tougher this time for the Panthers,

even at the Pete.

Pitt has sorely missed the contributions of junior forward Ryan Luther, who has been out since the Louisville game with a right foot injury. Stallings said Luther isn’t yet close to a return.

“He’s in a walking boot, but I think that he’s weeks away from playing again, at least to my understanding,” Stallings said at the press conference.

Without Luther as the sixth man, Stallings has been forced to play his starting five for nearly the entire game. In the Panthers’ 72-46 loss to Miami — the team’s most lopsided loss in the history of the Petersen Events Center — Pitt’s bench combined for eight points. In a 79-74 loss to NC State, not a single bench player scored.

Relying on starters to provide all the ofSee Louisville on page 10

NO CONTEST: TOMLIN BLUNDERS ANOTHER BATTLE WITH BELICHICK Steve Rotstein Sports Editor

Sunday’s AFC Championship Game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots was a mismatch of epic proportions — not on the field, but on the sidelines.

The talent level on the Steelers’ and Patriots’ 53-man rosters is virtually even.

Both teams are stacked with future Hall of Fame quarterbacks, multi-talented running backs, dangerous receivers, sturdy offensive lines and fast, physical defenses.

As for the strategic battle between Mike Tomlin and Bill Belichick? Once again, no contest.

Fans can talk all they want about how the outcome would have been different if Le’Veon Bell didn’t get hurt, if Cameron Heyward wasn’t out for the season or if Martavis Bryant wasn’t suspended for the

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year. But the truth is, as long as Tomlin and Belichick are coaching, the Patriots will always have an advantage.

When these two teams played in Week 7, the Steelers hosted the Patriots with Ben Roethlisberger injured and backup quarterback Landry Jones set to duel with one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, Tom Brady. The Steelers put up a competitive effort, losing by only 11 points. If not for a few costly mistakes

by Tomlin, Pittsburgh might have had a chance to win.

This time, the Steelers just needed Tomlin to keep the game close and give Roethlisberger a chance to win it in the fourth quarter. Instead, his decisionmaking and lack of in-game adjustments helped put the game out of reach by the time it reached the fourth.

Tomlin’s first in-game mistake came on

the Steelers’ first drive. On thirdand-1, offensive coordinator Todd Haley dialed up a deep pass to wide receiver Sammie Coates — a receiver with a grand total of one Mike Tomlin is now 2-6 against Bill Belichick as a head catch in the team’s coach. Sam Riche TNS last nine games.

Brown or Eli Rogers — anything but a Not surprisingly, Coates gave minimal long pass to a receiver who hasn’t made a effort to bring in a perfectly thrown ball big play in months. from Roethlisberger, and the pass fell inFast forward to the end of the first complete. half, with the Steelers lined up on firstTomlin isn’t the only culprit here, ob- and-goal from inside New England’s viously. But he could have and should 1-yard line. Instead of letting Roethlishave overruled the call for something de- berger try to gain a few inches by running signed to simply pick up a first down, be a quarterback sneak up the middle, the it a run to Bell or a short pass to Antonio See Tomlin on page 10

January 24, 2017

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Tomlin, pg. 9

fense is a surefire way to get blown out in the ACC. Against a team as deep as the Cardinals — Louisville has eight players averaging at least 14 minutes played per game and 10 players averaging more than nine minutes — it’s just not going to work.

Pitt senior forward Sheldon Jeter said the Panthers need to match the Cardinals’ effort and energy level all game long, which they failed to do last time out.

“We kind of came out sluggish [the first game] ... we just have to match their intensity,” Jeter said at the press conference.

The problem is, it’s virtually impossible to do so when Pitt’s players have no time to rest while Louisville has an entire lineup of substitutes ready and waiting to provide quality minutes.

Stallings said it’s especially difficult to keep up that intensity on the defensive end for 40 minutes.

“We’re restricted in some cases with our lack of depth,” Stallings said. “There are probably times when we have guys who are saving themselves for offense as opposed to what we need to be doing on defense.”

If the Panthers want to salvage their season, they’ll need to start by beating the Cardinals tomorrow — something that won’t happen without a major turnaround from someone on the bench.

Steelers had their 6-foot-5, 240-pound quarterback turn around and hand the ball to DeAngelo Williams.

Williams lost a yard on the play, then three more on his next carry. Just like that, the Steelers had backed up to the 5-yard line, and had to settle for a field goal after an incompletion on third down.

Then, with New England leading 20-9 midway through the third quarter, the Steelers were in the midst of an impressive drive at a crucial moment in the game, needing a score to make it a one-possession game. But after a pair of incompletions set up fourth-and-7 from the Patriots’ 39-yard line, Tomlin decided to punt.

This wasn’t the time for a coach to be showing faith in his defense, or trying to pin New England deep inside its own territory. That field position argument holds no weight against Brady, who can march his team 95 yards for a score just as easily as he can march them 65.

You have to play to win against Brady’s Patriots, and Tomlin — normally

one of the more aggressive coaches in the league — played not to lose. In the biggest moment of the season, he retreated into a conservative shell.

Rather than take one more shot to pick up seven yards and keep the drive alive, Tomlin chose to throw away the possession in exchange for 27 yards of field position. Sure enough, following Jordan Berry’s 27-yard punt, Brady led New England on an eight-play, 88-yard touchdown drive in less than four minutes to make it 27-9 and essentially put the Steelers’ chances to rest.

Along with these in-game mistakes, Tomlin and his coaching staff failed to make any in-game adjustments to neutralize the Patriots’ passing attack — despite Brady’s ability to sit back in the pocket and pick apart the Steelers’ soft zone coverage all game long.

Zone coverage has never worked for the Steelers against Brady, who entered the game with 19 touchdowns and zero interceptions against Tomlin’s Steelers.

Still, Tomlin and defensive coordinator Keith Butler never tried switching to man-to-man coverage or jamming New England’s receivers at the line, choosing

to give about 10 yards of cushion and allowing easy completions on virtually every snap.

Tomlin and his staff also failed to prepare for New England’s 34-yard fleaflicker touchdown pass from Brady to Chris Hogan on New England’s second drive — despite the fact that the Patriots burned the Steelers with a similar play the first time Tomlin faced them in 2007.

Yes, that game was almost 10 years ago, but great head coaches simply don’t forget plays like that. Not only should Tomlin have remembered the play, he should have made sure his team was prepared for it, something safety Mike Mitchell said was not the case.

Whatever the reason, Tomlin failed to put his players in the best possible position to succeed before the game, failed to adjust as needed during the game and failed to make any in-game decisions to boost the team’s chances.

You can debate the impact of the injuries and the officiating in Sunday’s game all you want, but no one has more control over a game than the head coaches. And when it comes to Tomlin against Belichick, it’s a mismatch every time.

The Pitt news crossword 1/24/17

Louisville, pg. 9

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