Hello, everyone.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us here tonight.

Before we get into the show, I just want to thank everybody for coming out and support supporting us.

We actually have a live studi audience that comes to Potomac Station Coffee House every week, and we have some regulars.

So I just want to say thank you to everybody for showing up every week.

That's really special.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I also want to thank Potomac Station Coffee House for hosting us.

We got a great show for you tonight.

I'm Valerie, that's David and this is the Gen X Pittsburgh Podcast.

We have a great show for you guys tonight.

We have Dan Rothschild here.

He is the founder and senior principal of Rothschild Doyno Collaborative.

We're going to talk building space architect, all that great stuff I'm very excited for tonight show me too.

Yeah.

My husband got really nervous.

He's afraid I'm going to come home and have all these design ideas from my home.

I said, we're not going to quite jump into that aspect of things.

But he was a little nervous about you tonight, Dan, so I apologize.

You'll have to ask Dan if you can afford it.

Yeah.

Right.

Right, right.

So anything exciting happened with you this week?

Anything you want to chat about?

Well, you know, power went out like the rest of the city for a few hours, which, you know, makes one sort of tired rundown, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, I love sleep these days.

Yeah, we all do.

Right.

Do you remember, like, back in the early 90s, leaving to go to the upstag at 10:00 at night and drinking quarter drafts dancing to the industrial music, going to Ritter's afterwards and then going to work the next day by 9 a.m.. Do I remember do any of you guys remember those days?

Because I do, I don't remember but I'm told that they did it.

They happen.

Right?

Yeah.

We used to do a loop that started to be hive at like 6:00 at night.

Yeah.

And then we would go There used to be this place in Parkway Center.

Mom called Pete's Wildlife that sold dollar mixed drinks from ten to midnight.

And so a friend of mine was going through a horrible divorce.

We would go there from ten to midnight, where he would drink as many dollar drinks as he could.

We would join him, and then we would go to the upstage for quarter drafts from midnight to two.

Okay.

And then we would go back to the beehive before making our way to Eat N Park, which was open 24 hours back then.

There's nowhere in the city open 24 hours anymore.

How did we do that I know, and I don't know that.

And then I would show up at KQV to work at 6 a.m.. Right.

Right.

Refreshed?

Yeah.

Happy for the hour.

I got to sleep.

Yeah.

I bet everybody kne what you did the night before.

Yeah.

Right now I'm angry if I'm up at 1005.

I know, I know, I'm usually back by, like, 930, right?

Yeah.

So that's that, that's that's enough reminiscing.

That is enough.

We're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back we'll have Dan Rothschild right here.

Welcome back to Gen X Pittsburgh.

Dan thank you so much for joining us tonight.

It's great to be here.

Yeah.

And I don't think we mentioned this in the opening but you are David's wife's boss.

We worked together.

I would not use the Boss term we collaborate.

That's right.

Which is a big thing that you do.

And we'll get into that in just a little bit.

But for, for decades, you kind of like revitalize Pittsburgh.

But we don't know a lot about you.

Can you give us a little bit of information about your about your background?

Where were you born?

What was your childhood like?

Where did you go to college?

Fill us in on that part of you.

Do you hate your mother Love your father?

Anything you.

We can get into that.

I grew up in the suburbs of New York City.

Okay.

In a commuter town.

In a garden apartment complex.

And from a stability standpoint, I was there all 18 years before I went to college.

Brought up by a single mom with two boys.

And it was an idyllic childhood.

It's when you went outside and you came back at dinner.

Nobody made any appointments for you and everything was your playground, so it was very nice.

After high school, went to college at Miami of Ohio to study architecture.

Went there because my best friend, who was a year older studied architecture at Miami.

I visited him one day.

I took Amtrak out to Cincinnati and then to Miami, and had the best weekend of my life.

And thought, this is real, you know?

So I just followed him, basically spent four years there.

Highlight was in the second year I met my wife at a fraternity sorority party.

I was chairman at that time.

So we met sophomore year, and when it came time to graduate, we both needed to go to graduate school.

We were aren't yet a married couple or anything, so we went to North Carolina.

I went to NC state, Lori went to Chapel Hill, and we though that was about a half hour away.

If we wanted to stay together, we could.

And if we didn't we were in our own universities.

I beat down that roa between NC state and my Mustang.

Yeah, and we got married in between graduate school years.

So second year of graduate school.

We were a married couple.

Wow.

And then you want to know how Pittsburgh.

Yeah, I want to know what I think.

I just heard you say Mustang.

Yeah.

You had a mustang.

I could put everything I owned into my Mustang.

That's.

Yeah, I had basically, if it was more than that, I didn't own it.

So you could drive a stick?

Oh, yeah.

I had a motorcycle in high school.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, that's a whole nother story.

Yeah.

So my senior year in high school was not very academic.

This will take just a second, but when I worked at KQV, I bought off of one of the guys.

The other DJ's there, a motorcycle for $500.

It was a 1972 Honda 500 or something.

Not realizing you all, not realizing how short I was and that my feet didn't touch the ground at all.

So I brought it to Kim's house, who I was living with at the time, to her porch where it sat until I rode it to my house in Washington, where it's at until we moved and I gave it to a neighbor and never once riding it because I was scared that my feet couldn't touch the ground.

So I give you a lot of credit.

You are more of a street maven than I ever was.

Oh yeah, I had a I had a part time job.

I needed to get there.

That's when I went to college.

My mom sold it without me knowing it.

I came back at Thanksgiving.

Where's the bike?

We sold that.

Did she at least give you the money?

Or did she keep it?

She was an investor in the wheels, so I think she got a rate of return.

So.

But anyway, there is a story of how we picked Pittsburgh when we were getting ready to graduate in Raleigh.

Laurie actually transferred from Chapel Hill to NC state our second year, so we could live together as a married couple.

We were in a bookstore and in that bookstore was a book called Places Rated Almanac and by Rand McNally.

And what that book did, it surveyed 100 different metropolitan cities in the country, and they rated them on ten attributes from affordabilit to recreation, education, health care, blah, blah, blah.

They gave a number for each one of those, added them up, got a total number, and they ranked 100 cities from best plac to live to worst place to live.

And we interviewed in the top four cities.

And in 1982, Pittsburgh was ranked fourth, which was sort of a surprise to Pittsburgh.

Yeah, yeah.

Not to people who didn't know Pittsburgh.

Sure.

So we interviewed in Chicago DC, Atlanta and Pittsburgh.

Wow.

We got offers pretty much in some of those places.

Not all those places, but the story is you come through the Fort Pitt Tunne and you see this Paradise.

And we we were never there before the time that we interviewed.

And our heart was just taken with the beautiful European rivers, open space, Mount Washington.

So that's how I came to Pittsburgh.

When you came in through the Fort Pitt tunnels and going across that bridge, were you like, oh, redevelopment everywhere?

No, it was I wanted to b over there and I ended up there.

You know you can't get there from there.

Yeah.

So but no, I wasn't reall thinking about the opportunity.

I was just thinking wher would be a good place to live.

Where do you guys land at that point?

We landed in Shady Side.

Okay.

And we were in the third floor of an old Tudor house.

The fire escape was on the side, so it was a convert.

But in that house, the landlord was trying to get to know us, and he said, so you have a family in Pittsburgh?

We said, no.

Friends?

No.

Job?

Not really.

And he said, so let me get this.

You two are graduate students, and you chose to come to Pittsburgh because it was a nice place.

1982?

Yeah.

Steel mill just shutting down and Second Avenue, right.

He says, I' going to call the Post-Gazette.

I think this is a story.

Wow.

I was I'm like, I'm from New York.

Like they moved to Manhattan.

The times doesn't do a story.

Right, right.

So he called up a friend who was a reporter.

Yeah.

They interview us, four column story, Best place to live?

They say Pittsburgh.

Yeah.

A picture of Laurie and I on our couch.

In Shadyside.

Wow.

Yeah.

And.

And then this happens.

You're one of the to 20 people to watch eventually.

So it really worked out for you.

Pittsburgh up.

Pittsburgh worked out for me in a lot of us.

Yeah.

Raised four kids here.

Empty nester now two grandkids.

You know, I don't want to get choked up, but, yeah, I'm a I'm a big fan.

Yeah, it was a great decision.

Good, good.

Excellent, excellent.

You know, first of all, I just Did you know any of that story?

I did not.

And it's so interesting.

And it juxtaposes wha Marco Cardamone, who was a guest a few weeks ago, said when he left in the 80s, he left and said, I never wanted to come back.

And but for a root canal and the need for a doctor, he never would have been in Pittsburgh.

So it's unbelievable to me that in 1980, whatever people were moving, you know, I mean, when I say whatever, I mean all of the 80s where everyone was talking about the flight out of the city, Theres migration.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's why it was news.

And I was working at the largest architecture firm in town, which was called Deeter Richie Sippel.

They were the architects for Three Rivers Stadium, Alleghen Center, Civic Arena, you know.

And the article get pinned up in the bulletin board, and they say this, this kid says he works here.

Anybody knows.

And it's like, oh, I think he's that kid in the corner.

The quiet one, you know.

Yeah.

So I mean, how could you not sa like, this is Paradise, right?

Yeah.

What was it like?

You know, you talk about driving through the tunnels and we've all had that, but we've all had that with the landscape that exists now.

And grew up in the eastern suburbs, so when I was driving into the city, I was driving along with the steel mills on my left hand side, and that's what I remember.

I don't remember the view driving into the city, but it wasn't the same.

PPG wasn't there.

The Renaissance first run instance hadn't taken place, right?

And most of the buildings were what I would term either colonial, you know, built many, many moons ago in Pittsburgh's first sort of itineration or boring and corporate.

Right.

So what was it like?

Well, you know, looking around the audience, we're probably seeing people who have been here in 1982, it was a drab industrial city that just got knocked down.

Yeah.

So, you know, when that last steel mill shut down on Second Avenue, I mean, other than the Edgar Thompson works in Braddock, no more steel, right?

So no more three shifts, no more.

Where's your dad work.

You know.

So it was a place looking for an identity.

Yeah.

And, yeah, it didn't really think how I could be involved with that.

You know, you're a kid out of school you're trying to get a job, but.

But really, you know, if I can zoom ahead a little bit.

In 1999, there was a paradigm shift in Pittsburgh, and that was the River Life Task Force, headed by Teresa Heinz in the Heinz Endowment.

Mrs.

Heinz got a boat and put all the foundations, all the philanthropists on the boat and said, we're going to go up the Mon, we're going to go up the Allegheny we're going to go down the Ohio.

And what did you see?

You saw the but ends of industrial buildings, because those rivers were where the waste products went from all the industry.

Right.

And, you know, it was gray.

It was dirty.

The rivers were polluted.

So the River Life Task Force said this should be our greatest asset, but it's the our greatest threat to the future of the city.

They hired a very inventive architectural planning firm, came up with the idea of Three Rivers Park.

Okay.

Three Rivers Park goe from like the 31st Street Bridge all the way to the West End Bridge, all the way to the Hot Metal Bridge.

Okay, so everybody knows this.

Why?

Right.

Bridge.

Bridge.

West end bridge.

And this company said, you know, we create a path that is 15 miles long, and we'll chart this path that someday will be a loop.

And along that path in this, this was, I think, the brilliance we recognized that you go from neighborhood to neighborhood to neighborhood, and we will take that 15 mile path and we'll break it into 35 different sections.

And over the next 30 or 40 years, you're going to do section by section by section.

So the section up by the 31st Street Bridge is different than the section by the new stadiums, which is different than the section across the Mon.

You know, where Station Square is.

So just lik Pittsburgh has 92 neighborhoods, you're going to have thes different sections that reflect what comes up to it and where we are today.

You know, does anybody feel the tingle?

Yeah.

You know, probably 80% of that is done.

The only segment that's not done.

And there was just a big op ed in the Post-Gazette by my partner, Ken Doyno, is the par between Station Square and West End Bridge.

So if you're familiar with that section, you normally you just see trains going by there and there's some warehouses.

Once that gets done, this whole Y Three Rivers Par and from that sprung everything.

Now you know.

Come with me.

The convention center.

Right.

The stadiums.

It goes on and on and on.

And how many of us have taken strolls there?

Bicycle.

And then just the rivers themselves.

You know, the cleaning up of the overflow storm, sewage issue.

I picked the right place.

Yeah.

It's like getting a stock, yo know, that was down low, right?

And we know now Pittsburgh interesting.

In 1982 was ranked fourth in 1986 or at 1984.

You may remember this.

It was ranked number one.

I do know that.

Yeah.

You know, so we were here two years earlier that.

And if you remember that when it came out, there wasn't a single Pittsburgher who said, oh yeah, I think it should have been number one.

Right.

You know how Pittsburghers are like, oh yeah.

We oh, this place is so hard.

You know the rivers And I can't get there from here.

But yeah Pittsburgh number one.

So that's sort of a inflection.

Yeah.

So we spent a lot of time talking to different peopl about this period and about how there was a lot of opportunity for artists and creative folks.

Right.

Like, you could go to an empty warehouse and just do a pop up art gallery or have a concert there or something else.

It had to have been the same way.

I would imagine, for architect that all of a sudden there's a and I know it's different, right?

You have to have developers with the land.

There has to be a vision for what it's good.

But but it it had to have jus felt like anything was possible.

Like, like this was a cit that was waiting to come alive.

And you got the opportunity to be included in that.

Am I wrong about that or.

Well, a lot of it has to do with finances and jobs.

You know, back in the 80s, there weren't, you know, a lot of the top corporations was starting to shrink and pull out.

You know, we had a recession.

I think the first couple decades were just like just getting your feet wet and surviving.

And, you know, our firm was, you know, young.

Yeah.

Rothschild Doyno collaborative started November 21st, 1988.

So I worked for six years for other firms before I got my license and was able to establish a firm.

And in late 1988, 89, we were just startin to establish a place, you know, started by myself, joined by Ken dono three months later.

So we've been working together for 37 years.

Around town.

We found a foothold in affordable housing way back when.

Wow.

And I think if you look from 1989 to 2026, it's a long time.

It's still an issue.

Yeah, affordable housing is still an issue.

I mean, you hear, you know, the recently elected mayor saying it's an issue.

We do projects affordable housing all over the city.

And as I'm talking about opportunity, we'll do a portable housing that might have 50 units.

And you have to be income qualified to go into affordable housing.

You pay a percentag of your income, not market rate.

So it's affordable, right?

We'll do a project for 50 units and we'll get 300 people on the waiting list.

Wow.

You know, and then we'll do another one over here, the same thing.

And we've done, you know, dozens of thos in many different neighborhoods.

So that's still an opportunity.

Wow.

But you know, I know I'm going into that little space.

But certainly what you see now is, is an optimism.

Yeah.

And that slowly turned for me.

After Three Rivers Park got started to say we got something really special here.

Yeah.

And that's when money came in.

The development came in and now, you know, it used to be the the Golden Triangle wa the name, you know, when David Lawrence and Renaissance one and Renaissance two was.

And I saw some of that.

Yeah.

Because when I first moved here, PPG was under construction.

Right.

My office was right across the street.

But now what's happening?

All the money is going into the strip district.

So you know, from, you know the 16th Street all the way up to even into Lawrenceville, it's almost one continuous thing.

And I was joking with yo about this before the podcast.

People are now calling it The Golden Ladle, right?

You know where right where you you have the triangle, which is the spoon, right?

But there's more development now in the strip District than downtown.

And I think the mayor's going to try to and the governor has a big plan to do more redevelopment in the Golden Triangle.

But now, I mean, it's beautiful.

Yeah You know, it's very interesting.

I remember 98, 99, my sales director at KQV had lived in Greentree or maybe Scott, but she said, I just bought a place in the Strip District, and it was the first warehouse they turned into.

Into right by your office.

Right.

And I can remember all of us saying, Judy, this is a horrible mistake.

Who would live?

Nobody wants to live in the Strip District.

You can't even park like this is crazy.

And she said, I'm telling you, I think she paid $250,000 for it, and now I can't imagine.

What would that that's worth?

Its always been full?

Yeah.

It's always been full.

Yeah.

Our office is at the corner of Penn in 29th.

Right?

When we moved there, it was the belly in between the strip in Lawrenceville.

There was nothing right there.

So this was in 2008, right before that recession.

Since that time, it's like two armies marching towards 29th Street.

The strip District kept coming towards us and Lawrenceville kept coming towards us.

And then on 29th Street, on Railroad Street, somebody developed a building.

It was like the golden spik between the two in the country.

Right?

And now it' just one continuous development.

And yeah, we lucky to hav got our place when it was right.

Not much there.

Yeah.

So the word collaborative means a lot to you guys, to your firm community driven.

Can you kind of backtrack and tell us what that means to your firm, and what it means to the communities that you go into?

That's a great question.

You know, initially the firm was Rothschild Architects, and then it was Rothschild Doyno Architects, and then it became Rothschild Doyno collaborative.

The basis of that has to do with a unique process that we developed that started while I was a student, while I was a student.

The way that architecture program works.

You're given a problem and you have to solve it, and then you pin u your solution and you sit there while your professors and invited guests say they like it, they lov and like it, that kind of thing.

And all my classmates would do that and they'd put up the finished projects.

I didn't like that idea because I felt I didn't know some of the peopl who were attending this thing, and I didn't know if they were allergic to something.

You know, like, I don't like chocolate and you're doing, you know.

Yeah.

So what I did, I developed this process that I calle the design sketchbook process.

And what it was, it was like putting together a book that talked about the ideas, the initial ideas behind the project, and it showed it through all the different stages.

And it had to do with, oh, look at that.

Yeah, we just happened to have some right here.

It had to d with my love of comics as a kid.

Yeah.

So I did grow up.

I was born in 1958.

I would go down to the store with the nickel and a dime.

I get the Superman, the Batman, the Archie.

You know Veronica, right?

All that stuff.

And I was, you know, I was, you know, I thought I would be a cartoonist.

That's actually what I thought growing up.

So I would practice drawing Snoopy and Charlie Brown with the thing.

And so when I got to school and I thought, I'm going to make comic books that talk about the ideas, and if you're on board with the ideas, you're going to have to like the final product.

Well, it was.

Yeah.

So anyway, I graduate and I go to my first job and I get a project that was like a hair salon or something, and I start making this little book and my boss comes by.

This is like, are you working?

You.

No.

Comics.

You draw something with a t square.

So I told him, remember the interview?

I would make these books.

I'd like to try to do this, you know, to get the the client on board.

And he said, oh, okay.

So I did and the clients really liked it because, you know, artists, architects, poets.

You have the blank page syndrome, right?

And nobody really sometimes realized that because it's it's behind the curtain, you're staring at a blank page and you're trying to come up with an idea, you know so you show them the first page.

Yeah, right.

So that worked well whil I was working with other people.

Just me, my boss, perhaps in clients.

But the real switch happened when I opened up our own company.

And this is where the collaboration comes in.

I thought if it's working for me.

What if I trai every employee in this process so we don't get one idea?

We get two ideas or three ideas.

And what if we show our client these three diverse ideas and get them to be part of th process of picking and choosing, not necessarily one of the three, but if they can cherry pick something from here and something off her and come up with a fourth idea that they own, it's a collaboration and voila!

It was like magic.

Wow.

And you know, we haven't copyrighted this or anything like that.

We do see people trying to imitate a little bit, but the ideas and the creativity when diversity is included is much better than what we call the genius model.

A lot of architecture firms and they're valid have the genius model, wher everybody has their little slot of expertise, and one of them is the creative person.

Right.

So when a project comes in it goes to the creative person.

You whip it up, you hand it to the technical person.

I put the technical things together.

I hand it to the construction person.

The genius model works for Starchitects.

You've heard that term.

You know, famous people who have certain styles that are drawn, you know, developers are drawn to this is this shoos that and say this is the collaborative model.

And it's been the cornerstone of our success for 37 years.

That's fantastic.

Just one more thing.

The way that we make it equitable is everybody gets the same siz hoops, same size piece of paper.

So this is what we've developed is eight and a half by 14.

So whether you're the owner of the company I don't know if this comes in here, the owner of the compan or someone right out of school, you get the same real estate to show your idea.

And sometimes these young kids, they're like, really?

Right.

You know, I thought we're supposed to draw toilet details for a year, but no.

And everyone on this goes back to my dad, who was an advertising.

So he was an advertising o Madison Avenue during the 50s.

So Mad Men.

Yeah, he was Mad Men.

So I grew up looking at his advertisements in magazines mostly, and they all had headlines.

And then a lot of time they mixed words with pictures.

Right?

Like graphics with examples.

Again.

Comic book.

Yeah.

So every one of our sketchbook pages has a headline, and then it mixes words with pictures to get a fuller understanding of the idea.

You can sketch a tower but then you could say relates to the fountain at Point State Park.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're different.

Right?

If you use the words only or use the picture only, it goes somewhere into your brain.

Some depth.

But putting the words and pictures together, it goes to another place.

Yeah.

And this would be an example of a project we did in Lawrenceville.

And some of these sketchbooks are 100 pages long.

Yeah.

And at the end we give them as gifts.

They usually end up in the lobby of the place.

And that's wh we're called the collaborative collaborative spirit.

Yeah.

What I think is so interesting, before Kim start, m wife started to work with you.

I never appreciated the level of artistry that goes into architecture.

I know people talk about it.

I know they talk about the the facade of a building, the artistry of it.

But I never realized really the whole scope.

And when you look at one of these sketchbooks, you really get a sense of the artistry.

And the people who are architects.

Walk this lin sort of between art and science.

And there's a real, you know, mixing of.

And as a writer, I think it's the same sort of way as writing is sort of, you know, part academic, part creative and right brain, left brain.

Right.

Yeah, right.

And so I'm just fascinated by it.

But another thing that I think is just so amazing that you've done that you should copyright if you haven't, are th listening sessions you've done.

I know them from places like Braddoc where you've gone into sort of I don't say underdeveloped, but places.

Yes.

Right.

That's right.

Emerging sort of communities.

I know from your time, from when Braddock Hospital closed.

You went there?

Yeah.

And you don't necessarily go in with the goal of selling something.

You go in with listening and then trying to find out what the community can be assisted by.

And that's just that's sort of twisting the way most businesses work on their head.

It's unbelievable.

You've done this is really something that you should copyright if you haven't.

Yeah.

So what you're talking about is sort of a branch of architecture, maybe expansion of community planning, urban planning, urban design and all that stuff.

So our firm does both.

And part of the reason is our ability to listen.

So it's not only to our staff on the design sketchbooks, it's with neighborhoods.

So we've worked, you know, in almost every neighborhood that you can think of.

What we try to do is try to teach or try to understand that those community meetings are not the geniuses, experts swooping in with the Cap saying, we know what you need.

It's called a listening session.

And we have different way that we run listening sessions.

Mainly it's it's coming in with humility, you know, to understand that we don't live there.

We can do research.

But I'll give you an example.

You mentioned Braddock.

We've done 4 or 5 projects in Braddock, right along Braddock Avenue.

We even did the master plan for Braddock.

But I'll talk about one which was affordable housing.

It's called the Avenue Apartments and right on Braddock Avenue.

So we go to the the council they green light, the project.

They say.

But we want a committee of six people, six seniors.

It was senior fordable housing to kind o be the stewards of the project.

This sounds great, right?

Where do you want to meet?

Braddock library.

Where else?

So the developer and I would go to Braddock Library every Tuesday at 11:0 at the beginning of the process to find out, you know, to listen.

Yeah.

Well, I'd get there.

Everybody showed up early, so I'd be there 11.

They were there.

And we wouldn't get started because they would just start telling stories about growing up in Braddock.

Oh, you remember this?

And, you know, I'm sitting there and I'm on a clock.

You know even when this guy got it going.

So 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

Okay, let's start the meeting.

We start the meeting, come back the next week.

More stories.

Oh, you remember the parade?

You know, what about the Kennywood day?

You remember how many shoe stores were?

Another 20.

By the time we got to the third meeting, we realized that's what the meeting was about.

It wasn't about what you want in your kitchen or what you want for Park.

Yeah.

So we said, let's stop these meetings.

These stories.

I mean there are some amazing stories.

Why don't we collect stories of the entire town?

Yeah.

How do you want to do this?

We'll put together a flier and we'll go to.

They had an annual high school reunion.

We'll go to churches.

We'll set up booths, blah, blah, blah.

And let' just ask to hear your stories.

So we gathered all these stories up and we thought, why don't we make an art gallery on the outside of the building, will hire a local artist, and we'll chunk the stories into different parts.

So Main Street, ethnic clubs, recreation, high school, blah, blah, blah.

We hired an artist, Rober Qualters, if you know who he is.

Go look.

Yeah, look him up.

He is in Homestead.

Just a very famous Pittsburgh artist.

And he created ten panels.

Each panel is you know about this six foot by six foot that are on the building.

And all of a sudden this modest affordable housing for seniors becomes a cultural center.

Wow.

And I once asked Bob, so do we have to, like, put graffiti coating on this?

You know.

He said, I've never had any of my public artwork tagged wow, ever.

And you go there.

To this day, that building is probably 20 years old.

Really?

So if you never in Braddock, Braddock having its first new building on the left.

But that's an example of listening sessions.

We went to this meeting thinking we needed to measure doorways and things like that.

Right.

But we're humble enough to know that that's not the story.

I mean, I remember one story real quickly.

I came over at 16 from Poland.

I worked in the steel mill.

I wrote back to my family to send my next door neighbor girl to come over to marry me.

She comes over at 16.

They end up having eight kids.

And this is all written down.

I mean, just just amazing stories in Braddock.

And you know what?

They're not alone in great stories, you know?

Right.

We've worked in Homewood, the Hill district.

North side stories are out there.

Yeah, I think it's amazing.

I'm sorry, Valerie, I think for me, I grew up right by Braddock.

I grew up in between Braddock and McKeesport in North Versailles.

And to walk down those main streets, these very wide streets.

At one point, it was a city.

You know it.

McKeesport was the second largest city in western Pennsylvania and Braddock wasn't far behind.

So you had these really powerful economic centers, and they all had Art Deco architecture because they were built in the 40s, 50s and heyday.

That's right.

And it's amazing to walk down there and see what the architecture was and then to see what, especially in Braddock, which is had a sort of a renaissance.

I know it still struggles.

Certainly McKeesport struggles more than Braddock does, but the architecture they're already in place was amazing.

And then to see this new sort of redevelopment shape it is.

It combines the best of both worlds, I think.

Yeah.

We try to take clues from, you know, what is standing, you know, sometimes in architecture and planning.

It's a challenge what to do with existing buildings.

You know what should stay?

What should go.

But when we find our open spaces, we look across the street, we look at the neighbors and we try to relate everything.

And we certainly were fortunat enough to do that in Braddock.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have one more question, an then we'll take a quick break.

But when you had these listening sessions and the is telling you what they wanted, what they needed.

How did local governments work with you on that?

Because sometimes they have an idea of what they want in that space.

And then the community is telling you they want something else.

How hard or how easy was i to work with local governments at that point?

That's a great question.

I don't think we've ever had conflict that like that.

A lot of times you're working with the government authorities to understan what the approval processes are.

Okay.

Sometimes you have mayors or council members who have certain points of view.

But when we go in and say, well, we understand that, but we want to meet with the community.

Are you okay with that?

Even if it isn't exactly what you want?

We've not really had pushback.

You know, I can understand if that happened.

Then we're caught in the middle.

Yeah, but I know haven't run into that.

Yeah.

Fortunately, yeah.

Fantastic.

Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll be back with more.

We'll be right back.

Thank you.

What is the Gen X Pittsburgh Podcast?

Let me take you back.

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Yeah, we miss those days, too.

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Subscrib to the Gen X Pittsburgh podcast.

Welcome back, everybody, to GXP Dan Rothschild.

Thanks again for joining us tonight.

We have a couple more questions.

Yeah.

Dan, when I think of Rothschild Doyno and I kno it's not the only work you do, but I tend to think of because of our history.

A lot of the Jewish projects you worked on, the JCC.

You've done a lot of other of the Jewish institutional buildings around town, but you've also worked on a lot of not for profit buildings.

And really, I think you used the term meaningful design.

And can you talk about what that means?

What is meaningful design?

That's a great question, Dave.

You mentioned nonprofit clients.

We do have sort of a niche here in Pittsburgh, working with mission oriented nonprofit clients who are trying to make the world a better place.

What meaningful design is to us is that design that goes past just aesthetics.

So when you think about aesthetics and you're in school and you're looking at design, there' certain things in architecture that are known to be found beautiful.

You know, symmetry, proportion, color, form and all that stuff.

And that's fine.

And you know, as architects, you try to make buildings that look nice, okay, meaningful design goes past that, and it gets into the memory and the purpose of a project.

So, for example, the memory or meaningful nature of a project can be cultural, social, spiritual, environmental, even physical a little bit.

And when you find out what that embodied memory is in a neighborhood or with client or an organization, you then try to use that symbolism in the project.

So, so many examples.

I'll give you really quick example.

We did a project that was a whole city block in the middle of the Hill district, and this was back in the day when the government used to do affordable housing in towers.

And they found out that was a real failure, and they would knock down the towers and they would do mid-rise buildings on main streets.

And we would be doing these listening sessions with seniors in the neighborhood.

All they could talk about was jazz.

Yeah.

Growing up playing instruments, going to the Crawford Grill, hearing the famous musician who were traveling from New York to Chicago, staying over in Pittsburgh was called Hill District, called th crossroads of the world in jazz.

That's right It was.

Yeah.

Jazz, jazz, jazz.

So that was an easy one.

So we did a project called The Legacy, and on the outside of the building we held a contest.

We sent out ballots to the neighborhood.

We listed 30 famous jazz greats that grew up in Hill District to pick your top 12.

And we engraved their names in limestone running the length of Center Avenue in Wylie.

Wow.

And when this building went up, I mean, people.

Is this a hall of Fame?

Right?

What is this?

But that was the embodied memory.

So the building's pretty.

It has red brick.

It has orange brick.

It has windows.

It has nice shape, but it totally transformed.

Right.

That place.

And that's an example of meaningful design.

It.

And it's really I think, you know, with the design sketchboo and the meaningful nature of it, it makes u want to come to work every day to figure out what is that nugget that's going to make this project more than just beautiful.

I want to run a contest now where people try to guess the 12 musicians who were because I'm thinkin Stanley Turrentine, Art Blakey.

I don't know how how modern, yo get.

Do you know Roger Humphries Oh, yeah, I know Roger.

Roge Humphries is a drummer.

Right.

He had a band He was the only living person.

Yeah, that was on the building.

We invited him.

Im going to get a little emotional.

Yeah.

We invited him for the.

For the ribbon cutting him and his band to play.

Right.

As we're setting up, I brought him into the billiard room.

We actually had a poo table room because it's kind of like a Hill district thing.

And then the wall.

We had Teenie Harris photos, little eigh by 12 lining the billiard room.

Yeah, sitting like, standing close to you.

And we're looking at the.

The photograph because that's so-and-so.

That's so-and-so.

That's a council person who is a real crook.

And then we go to the next one.

That's me.

And then he turns to me and he says, I just.

And his name is one of the he says, I never thought something like this would happen to me, that my name would be.

And we just stand there an we're like, it's unbelievable.

Yeah.

So when you when you hit that chord like a musician hitting that thing, that really resonates.

Yeah That's what meaningful design.

That's amazing.

Right.

Roger Humphries, you've had a lo of projects like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

As awesome as that project was.

The Mosaic Apartments was probably was also good.

Yeah it was pretty good, wasn't it?

That's about that.

So that projec was just completed in November of last year.

So so thank you for asking about that.

That's a very special one to me personally.

So I think the first thing is to understand what the purpose of the project was and then where it's located.

So this is also affordable housing.

I talked about how that's been our DNA for 37 years.

But the uniqueness of this is it's going to be it is affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors, where there's only a handful of them in the country.

So all of a sudden we're given this understanding that maybe this is something that's not really been done.

So we do research and we find that this is through a nonprofit called SAGE, who does a lot of work with LGBTQ seniors, that over half of LGBTQ seniors have faced housing discrimination in their lifetime.

So remember, if you're like 70 or 80 now and you're in your 20s and 30s trying to find apartment.

Yeah.

Half of them can't live here.

Wow.

You can't live here.

And even when they do get there, they don't feel safe.

Wow.

So this is the research that we found.

So little heavy burden there.

Yeah, right.

At the same time, we are doing this when this whole transgende political thing is playing out in elections and party politics and like, blah, blah, blah.

I'm not goin to get into the politics of it.

But we were then given a site that was the most prominent site, you know.

So why I say that is if you're on the Parkway getting off the Forbes Avenue exit, we've all done this.

You get off the exit and you curve around under the Boulevard of the allies.

You come up the road to the traffic light.

Yeah.

On the left hand side was a green lawn that UPMC owned.

They would put Christmas trees there.

Holiday times.

It was a blank slate.

So here we are with the special purpose on the gateway site to Oakland, the building that's going to set the ton for your entering the economic engine of Pittsburgh culturally, medically, educationally.

And you're doing an affordable housing project.

So.

So w started our listening sessions.

And there are two senior LGBT groups in in Pittsburgh: Persad, Persad and Hugh Lane Wellness Group, both in the East End.

And these were wild meetings.

They were great.

We would have 30 or 40 people just telling stories, talking about their lives talking about their aspirations.

We need this to be colorful.

And then we also did research.

And this was one of th first pages in our sketchbook.

And I'll try to find it right here because it still is very amazing to me.

I'm going to hold this up here.

This was a gentleman in our office named Walt who did a history of pride flags.

Now, when you think of prid flags, I think of the one that's kind of up now.

Rainbow with the little triangle.

That wasn't the case.

So back in the 70s, when this first started, there was a flag that was sort of rainbow ish.

But as branches or segments of the LGBTQ population began to have voice.

They each wanted identity with their own flag.

And if you look at the sketchbook page, there's all these different flags, and the diversity is incredible.

And the colorful nature is also incredible.

So this page became like the bellwether of an understanding to say, we are going to come out with a very colorful building and it' going to be like a piece of art.

So when you hopefully you can now go see this.

It's a four story, almost 200ft long billboard of sorts of different shades of blu and different shades of green.

Okay.

We showed our client all different types of colors.

They didn't want the rainbow at the very beginning, and then we showed the different collections of colors.

But the interesting nature of it.

The front of the buildin changes color as you drive by.

Yeah, it transitions right.

It starts off at one thing and ends up as another thing, like a transgender process.

And the way that we did that is we put these triangular bump outs.

We'll do it this way for the camera that stick out in each apartment.

One in the living room, one in the bedroom.

They're become little Niches on the inside.

One side is painted blue.

The other side is painted green.

So as you're coming up, Forbes, which is a very kinetic movement, it's like the off ramp to the parkway.

It starts out as green and then changes as blue.

A very subtle messag about the transgender community.

I love it.

Very interesting.

Now it's a beautiful building, but that is the integration of meaningful design.

It's not a secret that that happens.

It's not a secre that it's based on pride flags.

But to have both of them together makes it special.

And to take it even further.

We decided that artwork was such a big part of the senior sessions that we heard people who collect art, people who do art people who just want to see art.

So we designed two areas in the building that would be murals painted by local artists, and we held a competition about 20 artists, and they were from the LGBTQ community submitted work.

There were exterior murals at the base of the building and their interior murals in the lounges, right off the elevators.

The interior murals were done by Pinaka Art and Pinaka Art.

And the exterior murals are by Rosabel Rosalind.

Exterior murals show a community of people walking and shows the diversity of people in color.

That is just amazing.

So that's for when the traffic builds up in the morning.

Two types of roadway.

One is non rush hour.

It's a 30 or 40 mile an hour sprint up to the light during rush hour.

It's a parking lot.

Yes.

During rush hour you can look at the base of the buildin and see these beautiful images of LGBTQ subject matter walking in one direction.

In the interior mural that are opposite the elevator lobby, Pinaka Art did research, and in talking they also met with the seniors.

We had them do listening sessions with the seniors.

They heard about the historic places in Pittsburgh that were the bedrock of the burgeoning and growing LGBTQ community.

They took symbols from those and put them on the different floors.

So, I mean the one that sticks in my mind on the third floor is this winged horse, which is called Pegasus, Pegasus and Pegasus Lounge on Liberty Avenue.

Right?

Was the place right now.

You know, we don't hand out leaflets saying that.

Yeah, but from a meaningful design natur for those people who are there.

And what's nice about the interior murals is there are three stories of lounges, and the entire facade is all glass.

So when you're coming up Forbes Avenue, it's on the side wall and they're lit at nigh when the glass goes transparent.

You see this three story mural inside with people now who are not hiding, but they're in their lounges, surrounded by these meetings of murals.

To me, that shows how our.

No.

I think that's great.

I think that that shows how architecture reflects changes in society.

Right.

I interviewed a few people when I was beginning work on an idea I had for a second book about Pegasus.

Yeah.

And and they said at the time, Pegasus served a function not just for the LGBTQ community which was immensely important, but also for women who didn't feel safe necessarily going to other bars.

They could go to an LGBTQ bar and feel safe.

And so this woman that I spoke with said, you know, we don't need necessarily forget politics, right?

I mean, but the need for a bar like Pegasus doesn't necessarily exist the way it did.

Right?

But there's still need, as you're showing as you've talked about for the next thing.

Right, which is housing.

Yeah.

I mean, at the ribbon cutting, the first speaker was a new resident.

Yeah.

And he said, you know, my name's Charlie whoever.

He said, I've lived in seven places in my life.

A place where I grew up, six other places.

Every one of those six places, I didn't feel welcome.

I didn't feel like I was home.

In this place, I drive my car into the underground garage.

I get out, I see people in the garage.

They are my friends.

They support me.

I go into the elevator lobby.

I wait with people.

They are my friends.

Yeah.

Choked up.

Yeah.

So special.

Right.

And he says this is the first time in my life.

Yeah.

That I'm allowed to live with who I am.

Right.

Well, let me ask you.

You are still a young man, right?

But you've been the president two times.

Well, I know that you've bee the president of the Pittsburgh.

Am I saying that right?

Architecture.

American Institute o Architects, Pittsburgh chapter.

Yes.

President.

Yeah.

And you've done this amazing work in the city.

Do you ever stop and think about your legacy?

That's a great question.

Not right now.

I guess I can in the future.

I mean, our firm right now, I have six partners, and they're all kind of stair stepped in age.

And I think, you know, we were in our we are in architecture firm, bu I think we're also a movement.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know and everybody has wants to be there to do the design sketchbook and be collaborative.

Everybody's in ther wanting to do meaningful design, and we're making the world a better place, making Pittsburgh a better place.

So it will it definitely continue even though I'm not a young man.

Well, at least.

But and then what's interesting, people coming out of school, we get to attract people who buy into this, who know how to still draw.

Right.

Who are thinking with the Necktop computer, not the laptop computer.

And they want to make the world a better place.

And so it's like a flywheel.

You know.

Yeah.

So it is going to continue past my.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Well, thank you for everything that you're doing for Pittsburgh.

This is needed and it's love.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We have one more thing before we let you go.

Okay.

This sounds like fun.

We're going to ask you a question, and all you have to do is answer it.

Are you ready?

Rapid fire questions.

Sure.

Okay.

Three rivers or Heinz field?

Three Rivers.

Iron City or Rolling Rock?

Iron City.

No, you know why I say Rolling Rock?

My in-laws are from Ohio and they don't get Rolling Rock.

And every time I would go there, I would have to bring them Rolling Rock illegally over there.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

Probably I should say Rolling Rock.

Okay.

But personally, I or Turners or Schneider's?

Neither.

Right.

Yeah.

Not a big fan of sugar water.

No, no.

Yeah.

No.

Sorry.

So your favorite 80 or 90 band?

You know, I, I have to go earlier but when I was in third grade, Michael Jackson came out with his first song.

Yeah.

And I remember in third grade, our teacher let us get on top of our desks and dance.

So when I think of bands I start with the Jackson Five, but I'm taking your question and massaging.

Sure.

That's okay.

That's a true story.

Yeah.

Okay.

Donzis and Chaunceys or Metropol and Rosebud?

Metropol and Rosebud.

I would go there often.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

That industrial aesthetic.

Right.

Yeah.

So what about your favorite movie from the 80s and 90s?

I'm trying to think 80s and 90s.

How old was I?

So let's see.

You're old enoug to move to Pittsburgh.

You know, I would have to say the Star Wars stuff.

Okay.

You know, that started in 76, I think.

But, yeah, that was something else.

Nirvana or Pearl jam.

Pearl jam Okay.

Yeah.

Kind of funk.

Yeah.

How about is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

No.

Not in my family.

Thank you.

No, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Southside Beehive or Oakland Beehive.

Back in the day.

Southside Beehive.

You know, I've read the book.

I believe you know, that was the Genesis.

And the other one was the Exodus.

Sure.

Yeah.

And so last one.

This might b a harder question for you, but if you were going to identify with one character from The Breakfast Club, which one would that be?

Oh, wow.

Because I know that.

Emelio Estevez.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd be that guy.

Yeah.

And how about.

Were you excited when “How I Met your Mother” came out, and all of a sudden there was an architec that wasn't the Brady dad on TV.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Architects haven't really been displayed, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Although.

Adrien Brody.

Oh.

That's right.

Won best actor for that.

It's a intense movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's been a real pleasure having you.

I know that I really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much.

You as well.

Thank you so much.

But this was fantastic.

Thank you.

And thank all of you for joining us tonight.

We'll see you guys next week.

The Gen X Pittsburgh Podcast hosts are David Rullo and Valerie Christofel Executive producer David Rullo.

Producer and graphic designer Kim Rullo.

Producer Valerie Christofel.

Video production and editor, Brent Isaac.

Music by NeoStem.