In the News

UPenn prof's new book, The Anatomy of Violence, addresses seeds of aggression and tragedies like Bos

Time Thursday, April 25, 2013

University of Pennsylvania professor and criminologist Adrian Raine tries to answer some difficult questions for Time magazine, including what plants seeds of violence that lead to tragedies like the Boston Marathon bombings.

The question on everyone’s minds now is why…

Most mass killers have mixed motives, but more often than not there is a fundamental grievance, a score that needs to be settled with society. For [the older brother], the earlier questioning by the FBI and rejection of his application for US citizenship could have been a contributing factor that got wrapped up with political ideology and a dissatisfaction with his own life. But likely a complex combination of factors created this toxic mix – likely a biological predisposition to violence combined with social triggers and mild mental illness.

Original source: Time

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Philadelphia's East Passyunk Ave. named one of Food & Wine's best foodie streets

Food & Wine Thursday, April 18, 2013

Food & Wine includes South Philadelphia's East Passyunk Avenue among its best streets for foodies.

Philadelphia’s East Passyunk Avenue has fantastic restaurants like the elegant Fond, a terrific vintage store and the place to go for delicious limoncello.

Original source: Food & Wine

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'Outsiders' take over Philadelphia Museum of Art

The New York Times Thursday, April 18, 2013

The New York Times shines a light on an exhibition of outsider art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art From the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection," celebrates the impending donation of the collection to the museum.

To a man, and a woman, the artists in the Bonovitz collection all made some form of magic whose power and urgency throw down a gauntlet, especially considering much of what passes for contemporary art these days. Sometimes they responded to their everyday surroundings. That’s the case with the shadowy drawings and angular constructions fashioned from soot, spit, string and cardboard with which Castle, who could neither hear nor speak, recorded the rough life on his family’s farm in rural Idaho. It’s also true of the sharp, prancing silhouettes with which Traylor expressed his amusement at the human comedy of African-American life in the South.

The show runs through June 9.

Original source: The New York Times

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The entrepreneur as athlete: Pittsburgh Riverhounds midfielder and chief executive Jason Kutney

The New York Times Thursday, April 18, 2013

The New York Times soccer blog features Jason Kutney, the chief executive and midfielder for the Pittsburgh Riverhounds United Soccer Leagues Pro Division team, who often worries about fan safety and beer supplies before focusing on opposing defenders.

Kutney’s playing credentials carry greater substance. The Freehold Borough, N.J., native became teammates with Evans at the Charleston Battery in 2004 after playing college soccer for Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He trained with Bob Bradley’s MetroStars late in 2005 before a coaching change and a takeover by the Red Bull organization shut his window to Major League Soccer. Kutney joined the Riverhounds instead and became involved in the club’s management when his other employer, Pittsburgh’s Greentree SportsPlex facility, purchased the franchise and installed him as chief executive.

Original source: The New York Times

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Please don't call Pittsburgh post-industrial

The Atlantic Cities Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Atlantic Cities digs into a tag often associated with Pittsburgh and other Rust Belt cities -- post-industrial -- and why the term has its problems.

The term poses at least two problems, though: Industry still exists in many of these places, and the very notion of defining them by their relationship to the past can hamstring us from planning more thoughtfully for their future.

“You’ve got the ‘post-war,’ you’ve got ‘post-modern,’ you’ve got ‘post-9/11,’” says Paul Kapp, an associate professor in the school of architecture at the University of Illinois and an editor of the book SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. He was speaking Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Planning Association (hosted in what's often considered the post-industrial city of Chicago). "You get to a point," Kapp says, "where you’ve got to say, 'When does post-something end and you do something new?’ I think with ‘post-industrial,’ we’re at that opportunity now. I think it’s now time to come up with a new term."

Original source: The Atlantic Cities

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Philadelphia's Dorm Room Fund expanding natinowide

The New York Times Thursday, April 11, 2013

First Round Capital's Dorm Room Fund, an investment fund helmed by Philadelphia college students, earns praise in the New York Times. Starting this spring, the Fund is going nationwide -- starting in New York.

New York City’s Dorm Room Fund will follow the model established in Philadelphia, Mr. Barnes said. Student investors will seek out promising ventures among their peers and present the most exciting projects to the investment team. Though partners from First Round Capital will offer advice, students will lead the decision-making process. First Round does retain a veto right, Mr. Barnes said, but “we would not use it unless we were legally or ethically required to do so.”

For more on the Dorm Room Fund, check out this story in K eystone Edge.

Original source: The New York Times
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Battery power: Pittsburgh's Acquion Energy takes investment from Bill Gates as part of $35M round

Silicon Republic Thursday, April 11, 2013

Using seawater, manganese oxide, and a healthy investment from Bill Gates, Aquion Energy of Pittsburgh is poised to take the battery market by storm, reports Silicon Republic.

Aquion is planning to start shipping production units from its manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania at the end of this year.

Aquion is not the first battery start-up that Gates has invested in. He has also invested in Ambri and LightSail Energy. In a 2010 article, Gates called for a "battery miracle" to solve the problem of storing intermittent sources of energy, such as solar and wind.

Original source: Silicon Republic
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A look at IBX's 10 promising startup investments

Information Week Thursday, April 11, 2013

Information Week writes about the Philadelphia-based DreamIt Health acclerator, a collaboration of Independence Blue Cross, Penn Medicine and DreamIT Ventures.

Among the firms that made the final cut are AirCare, Biomeme, Fitly, Grand Round Table, Medlio, MemberRx, OnShift, Osmosis, SpeSo Health and Stat. Each company will receive $50,000 in seed capital, as well as intensive mentoring in a four-month "boot camp."

Original source: Information Week

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Pittsburgh pride: Plenty to do for LGBT travelers

Pride Source Thursday, April 11, 2013

Pride Source details the many changes in Pittsburgh in recent years and highlights points of interest for LGBT travelers.

The gay community is well-integrated within the mainstream population. The city has numerous theaters with artsy and gay-themed films and a high appreciation of alternative culture - consider that two of its top attractions are the Mattress Factory contemporary art museum and the Andy Warhol Museum. Also, the city hosts the well-attended Pittsburgh International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival over 10 days in October, and the fast-growing Pride Theater Festival over two weekends in June.

Original source: Pride Source

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Viral video vaults NEPA photographer to The Tonight Show

Times-Tribune Thursday, April 04, 2013

The Times-Tribune writes about staff photographer Jason Farmer, who has worked several assignments for Keystone Edge through the years and has recently found the spotlight for a prank video he produced that caught a friend off-guard with a diaper full of chocolate pudding, including an appearance on The Tonight Show last week.

Joined by his good friend and the target of the prank, Mark Moore, Mr. Farmer stood next to Mr. Leno and watched a clip of the video he shot more than a year ago. Mr. Leno presented the video and two other videos to his audience as ideas for April Fool's Day pranks.

Original source: Times-Tribune

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Despite stance, history on illegial immigration, Hazleton's Hispanic population soars

The New York Times Thursday, April 04, 2013

More than a half decade after capturing the national spotlight for local legislation that discouraged Hispanic immigration, Hazleton's Hispanic population has risen from 5 percent to 37 percent since 2000, reports The New York Times.

Hazleton has faded from the national attention it drew with its Illegal Immigration Relief Act in 2006. But as Republicans in Congress advance plans to provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, the city presents a test case of whether the party risks leaving behind a critical part of its core constituency: white working-class voters for whom illegal immigration stirs visceral reactions.

Original source: The New York Times

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Pittsburgh one of 15 emerging downtowns in U.S.

Forbes Thursday, April 04, 2013

List-prone Pittsburgh makes Forbes' latest list on U.S. emerging downtowns.

The northeastern industrial hub's downtown, which by the late 1980s had succumbed to an exodus of businesses and people, has slowly begun to turnaround. Class A office space as of the third quarter of 2012 was 94.5% leased, compared to 85% a decade earlier. PNC Financial opened a $170 million-plus office tower in 2009, with a $400 million second tower under construction now. The area's population was about 8,000, according to the U.S. Census, up 21% from 2000. Since 2009, 219 new housing units have come to market, with another 346 under construction, according to the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership. To put this in perspective, the number of residential developments has more than doubled in the past 30 years, the majority of new projects erected in the past seven.

Original source: Forbes

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Yo! Why people are losing their Philly accent

The Atlantic Cities Thursday, April 04, 2013

The Atlantic Cities writes about a University of Pennsylvania professor's investigation of the changing dialect of dyed-in-the-wool Philadelphians.

Labov began studying the speech patterns of Philadelphians in the early 1970s with his students. Looking back over all the data and audio collected since then from hundreds of speakers in dozens of neighborhoods – all of it more recently parsed with automated acoustic analysis – Labov, Fruehwald and Ingrid Rosenfelder have documented a city changing its linguistic identity. Their paper, "One Hundred Years of Sound Change in Philadelphia," recently published in the journal Language, methodically tracks the speech of residents in the city born between 1888 and 1991.

Original source: The Atlantic Cities

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How the Andy Warhol Museum shook the dust off Pittsburgh

Good Thursday, March 28, 2013

Good writes about the Andy Warhol Museum and its impact on Pittsburgh, bringing 120,000 a visitors there annually.

Back within the cool environment of our renovated 1911 warehouse, the walls are alive with activity and our visitors have ample opportunities to make their own work. Visitors to The Warhol can create their own screen test on our 6th floor, just like Andy did. They can also explore Warhol’s art-making processes and learn how to silkscreen in The Factory, modeled after his New York studio the Silver Factory.

Original source: Good

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TripAdvisor: PNC Park top ballpark in America

TripAdvisor Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Pirates have a long way to go, but Pittsburgh's PNC Park was named America's top ballpark by TripAdvisor. Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, was No. 6 on the list.

1. PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Perched along the Allegheny River, this renowned ballpark features spectacular sights of the Steel City skyline and the beautiful Clemente Bridge. A unique two-level ballpark that opened in 2001, PNC provides an intimate setting and spectacular views and sightlines from anywhere in the stadium. A TripAdvisor traveler commented, "The views of the city from the ballpark are beautiful; great food and beer selections."

Original source: TripAdvisor

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