June 2022 Est. 1985
The Northside Chronicle
Volume 38 Issue 6 - FREE -
The Community Newspaper of Pittsburgh’s Historic Northside
Makeshift community bike repair project building steam in Pittsburgh’s Northside By Ashlee Green The name of the Northside’s community bike project doesn’t need much explanation. It’s called Makeshift, which founder and Spring Hill resident Aryn Gaslowitz says brings to mind the project’s “scrappy, DIY” structure. “Shifting,” too, she says, “is a bike thing. “Our motto is ‘making it better than it was.’” Makeshift started back in 2016 in a garage space in Perry Hilltop: a place to share bike tools, teach basic bike maintenance skills, and offer donation-based repair services. It then migrated to a pop-up at the Northside Farmers’ Market in Allegheny Commons Park around 2019. Gaslowitz calls that year the project’s “peak year” so far, because of the amount of volunteer crew members it had at the time. “We had a bunch of people setting up a repair stand a few times a week around the Commons and helped a lot of people fix their bikes,” Gaslowitz says. Throughout the pandemic, the crew got used to storing their equipment in a shed used by the Community Garden at Allegheny Commons, as well as in various members’ basements. Earlier this year, Gaslowitz was in-
Fishing Rod Foundation Co. hosts ‘Kentucky Derby’ themed fundraiser
See Makeshift, Page 11
Northside Business Briefs: June 2022 By Ashlee Green
Gecko Robotics holds ribbon cutting for new Northside headquarters
Photo: Ashlee Green
Antoinette Payne, co-owner of Fish On Bait and Tackle, models her fascinator hat along with Rev. Beasley and her daughter, Dr. Sheila Beasley. The hat competition was part of the Fishing Rod Foundation Company’s first-ever ‘Kentucky Derby’ themed fundraiser party in Riverview Park on May 6. More photos on Page 19.
Mattress Factory names Pittsburgh native its new executive director By Lucia Shen David Oresick, a native Pittsburgher with ties to Silver Eye Center for Photography and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), has been named the Mattress Factory Museum’s newest executive director. The museum announced the news in April, and Oresick started his role
INSIDE
on May 16, 2022. Former Executive Director Hayley Haldeman stepped down at this time. Haldeman became the museum’s executive director in April of last year, but before that, she served as the museum’s interim director, starting in February 2019. She
- Calvary United Open House, Page 7 - Northside Outside Guide, Page 13 STORIES, COLUMNS, - Northside Property Transfers, Page 21
FEATURES & MORE
See Mattress Factory, Page 9
Gecko Robotics, a close to 10-year-old company with a Pittsburgh office previously based in East Liberty, held a ribbon cutting on May 9 at their new headquarters in the Northside’s Nova Place. According to the Pittsburgh Business Times, the company—which previously laid off employees in its Houston and Pittsburgh offices in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic—is now expecting the staff to double from 200 to 400 people by mid-2023. The new 70,000-square-foot office space will serve partially as an R&D area for the company’s robots, which are built to scale walls to inspect infrastructure, such as bridges, and oil, gas, and power sites, and report back with suggestions for maintenance and repairs. See Briefs, Page 18
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