Welcome to On Q magazine.

I'm Stacey Smith.

Many times you have heard the question, how can this region revitalize its neighborhoods?

Well, that is one of many issues that is being addressed in an aggressive study called Back to Prosperity.

Now On Q has brought you comprehensive coverage of the study.

And tonight, our focus is on revitalization.

And key to making it happen are state and local governments.

But many people will tell you the first step is community awareness.

And that is the mission for a new group called Pittsburgh's Young Preservationists.

And as Tonia Caruso reports, they believe preservation opens the door to prosperity.

In its heyday, it was the place to be.

It was on the jazz circuit, just as the places in New York.

Entertainers from all around the world made their way to the Hill district.

Lena Horne, Billy Eckstine, Louis Armstrong it was it was so many, so many legends.

Performing at one legendary place, the New Granada Theater was really, really a place of, gathering for a lot of the community.

But that was then, and this is now.

The roof of the Granada started to deteriorate.

So did everything inside the ballroom, the theater and the hostel.

From the outside, you can see the broken windows, boarded up doors and falling facade.

The New Granada is just one of countless sites throughout our region, rich in history yet waiting for repair.

We've got wonderful neighborhoods, we've got a plethora of historic structures and sites and neighborhoods kind of been working.

And now a local group is hoping to spur the restoration and revitalization of many of these sites.

Dan Holland is the founder and chair of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh.

The mission of the Young Preservationists is the active participation of young people in the preservation of historic resources.

And they're kind of a couple of key phrases.

One is participation.

We want young people to get involved and engaged in the process.

And when I say the process, we want them to vote.

We want them to attend hearings.

We want them to participate in in nonprofits, in their own communities, as well as within other governmental bodies, to encourage others to see the value of preservation.

The young preservationist has more than 100 members.

The group doesn't buy or repair properties, but rather acts as a catalyst, creating interest by writing grants, nominating sites for historic designation, and bringing together investors.

Each year, the group comes out with a list of the top ten historic preservation opportunities in the Pittsburgh region.

This is our third year that we've published this list, and so now we have 30 sites.

We have 30 sites that are eligible for an investor or developer to take advantage of, tax credits, for instance, or to focus on a unique reinvestment and rebuilding opportunity in a neighborhood.

We vote on certain criteria and things like historical and architectural significance, but also things like how feasible is it that this site can be reused?

Some sites on this year's list include the Braddock Avenue business district in Braddock Borough, Andrew Warhols boyhood home on Dawson Street in Oakland, and the John Woods House in Hazelwood.

Built in 1792.

Colonel John Woods was a surveyor who laid out the city of Pittsburgh a community group is raising money to restore the building.

They're actually in the process of preserving it and stabilizing it and creating an organic farm around it as well.

So it's a teaching opportunity for young people, and it's a way to preserve one of the few, 18th century homes left in the city.

The preservationists are proud to see past sites they've nominated making a comeback through the help work and investments of others sites like the Armstrong Cork factory in the strip district, which is now being turned into luxury apartments.

The business district of Uniontown, which millionaire Joe Hardy is spearheading, and the community of Brownsville.

In April, Governor Ed Rendell brought funding to begin code enforcement on vacant buildings.

Another site on a previous list.

The Second United Presbyterian Church in Highland Park, better known as the Union Project.

The Union Project was organized as a separate nonprofit entity to actually purchase the building and begin restoration.

Their intent is to turn it into a multi-purpose space with offices in the back.

The success of these projects brings us back to the New Granada Theater and the Hill District.

Denita Solomon is a specialist with the Hills Community Development Corporation.

She's seen great changes in the hill in the past few years.

Over $300 million of new investment, new homes have been put into the community, as well as residential and commercial buildings.

But believes the New Granada is still key to revitalizing the business district and the community.

We know that this, building is a real, real gem to the community.

They have fond, vivid memories of the Hill district, the way it used to be.

And we want to try to at least know we can return it to how it was, but to try to, build upon that momentum to make it better.

The Hill Community Development Corporation raised enough money to buy the building a few years ago, and is now in the process of raising money to revitalize it.

The theater was on the Young Preservationists Top ten list back in 2003.

Recently, the preservationists nominated the theater to be an historic landmark in the city of Pittsburgh.

They've also applied for a national grant, which could begin a restoration process.

There's always a challenge with with funding and resources.

So we've been really having to look at the idea of leveraging partnerships and really working to try to create a sound structure of collaboration for the Granada.

It's unclear if the New Granada will be restored as a theater or transformed into something else, like loft apartments, a restaurant or museum, or a place for the community to gather.

But no matter what the final plans, the people here believe the New Granada should again become an important place in the hill district.

And the young preservationists hope the New Granada and other sites will again find their rightful place and purpose in our region.

These are all historic districts and there's life returning to them.

People are on the street.

You feel safe.

That's.

That's our vision.

Not that this whole city will become a historic district, but that people rediscover their these resources, renovate them, reuse them, and bring life back to to our city.

And that's our motto is give life to history.

The young preservationists will hold a special conference this fall called Places and Spaces The Regeneration of Preservation.

There is more information on our website at WQED.org Just click on the On Q logo on the first page.

100 people so far.

The group keeps growing and other community groups are getting involved as well.

That's what it's going to take.

A lot of involvement like that.

How long is it going to take to to renovate the new Granada?

Well, it depends upon the plans and also the funding.

But one bit of good news.

The roof may be gone, but engineers determine the structure of the building is solid and so that at least can still be saved.

And we want to point out again, this is just one of our stories on the back to prosperity.

Absolutely.

We've been doing so many stories recently, looking at everything from taxation to urban sprawl to retaining young people in the region.

And of course, we have a lot more to come.

All right, Tonia, thank you.

Now, still to come On Q goes overseas to catch up with a former member of the Pittsburgh arts community.

Also coming up, a rare and up close look at bird banding, why it's done and where it's done in western Pennsylvania.

That's coming up.

So stay connected.

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Well, people with backyard feeders usually get a good look at birds through their window.

But three local scientists are getting up close to birds and the natural habitat of Westmoreland County.

Post-Gazette.

Guardian columnist and On Q contributor Doug Foster reports.

More than 40 years ago, Bob Leberman dedicated his life to the study of birds.

He started something special at what now is the Powder Mill Avian Research Center in Rector, Westmoreland County.

So I came down for the summer of 1961 to see if it was a feasible thing to run a banding station here.

And that never left.

It's a place where birds are caught, banded and released.

Over the years, he studied over half a million birds in an effort to understand the many different aspects of a bird's life.

One thing that intrigues him is migration.

So the males come before the females, the females before the males.

Do the young migrate, with or with, before or after the adults and things of that sort, those sort of, where the questions I had in the early years and now his many years of research are paying off with answers.

But what is it about these 20 acres in the Laurel Highlands that makes them so conducive for studying birds?

My answer might be surprising to you.

My old boss, Mary Clench, once said, the most special thing about Powder Mill is there's nothing special about it.

And we're studying birds in a typical valley in Pennsylvania doing typical things.

And that's more important than maybe going to someplace exotic.

Just knowing what's in your backyard.

Just because the place isn't exotic doesn't mean the birds can't be.

The rarest bird caught was in the 1970s.

It was a Kirkland's warbler.

At the time, there were fewer than 200 breeding pairs alive, and this was one of the first ever caught outside of Michigan.

And the cause a great deal of excitement at the museum.

The curators are up within an hour to see this rare bird and the thrill of the finding something like that just can't be described when you know how rare it is, and how lucky you are to to experience such a thing.

On the day I was at Powder Mill.

Bob's coworker Adrienne Leppold experienced the same thrill finding a different bird called a prothonotary warbler.

Only six had ever been caught at the station in the past 40 years.

So how does that feel?

I don't know if I can even put it into words.

I mean, the bird itself was just breathtakingly beautiful.

I mean, to see something like that up close.

And in addition to know that it's rare here.

Just phenomenally excited.

One of the things that makes this place special is this deep devotion to the birds.

They're not laboratory rats.

The team at Powder Mill makes sure that after the birds are caught, they're studied and released unharmed into the wild very quickly.

And doing something in this field.

It's it's a privilege to be working in a situation where you're handling live birds.

And it's not something that we take lightly.

I mean, that's why these birds, mean the world to us to see how the operation works.

I took a tour of what are called the mist Nets with Adrian and Bob Mulvihill.

Mulvihill is field ornithology projects coordinator at Powder Mill.

He's taken over for Bob Lieberman, who is now semi-retired.

Bird can fly in and, you know, it stretches out quite a far, distance.

But then the bird's own weight brings it down into a hammock like pocket.

And, and then it just kind of sits in it.

It's stunning to be so close to the birds, to see the colors and textures of their feathers.

Okay.

Looks like we got one up ahead here.

All right.

All right.

What are you doing?

Kick banded swamp sparrow.

It's a recapture.

The first trick when you when you approach a bird in the net, is to figure out what side it it entered from.

So you can obviously extract, easily and efficiently.

Adrian proceeded gently, placing the bird carefully into a paper bag.

Paper bag?

Then we check the rest of the nets and take the birds back to the station for processing.

The first step is banding.

Once banded.

Simple as that.

It fits like a loose bracelet or wristwatch.

It can move up and down the bird's leg and around freely.

And this bird will have this band on his leg for the rest of his life.

So we take a lot of care to make sure the bands fit perfectly, and that's a good fit.

There's, information.

You can see it clearly on this large band.

There's actually a phone number that runs across the top.

Each band has a unique number, and if the bird is caught somewhere else, another bander will input the information into a database.

Then Adrian figures out the sex of the bird on uncertain species.

Coloration is the key to identification, and by blowing his head feathers apart.

I reveal a mostly concealed ruby crown, hence the name Ruby Crowned King.

She measures its wings and checks to see how much fat the bird has stored up.

Birds have transparent skin.

So by parting the feathers, I can just look underneath the skin and gauge the amount of fat the bird has.

Then the birds are weighed.

Birds get dropped into our cone.

That can hold anything from a hummingbird to a duck or a hawk.

And they are promptly released out of our little window.

All right.

Bob Mulvihill first came to Powder Mill as a child.

Dark-eyed junco.

He was interested in birds and convinced his mother to bring him here to meet Lieberman.

I was able to watch him, go through the process of bird banding.

And and I was just, completely taken with it.

He later returned as a college student, got even more exposure to banding, and was here to stay.

That was it.

Just one experience coming here, being shown, the banding, being allowed to participate in it in a very simple way.

And I said, I'll be, you know, how often can I come up Pretty much.

And I just spent all of my spare time learning the learning the craft because that free time lasted four years.

And then Mulvihill was hired.

Now he oversees all of the research programs being run at Powder Mill, including the bird banding.

He explains what's been gained by 40 years of research.

You're learning, almost more than than you can believe.

You're essentially capturing a record, of biological diversity, specifically birds, for a given place across time.

We learn about, the timings of their migration and their nesting.

We learn about how their body mass changes seasonally and depending on their migratory condition.

But these are this is basic information that we really need to know in order to effectively, do conservation, management or, efforts on their behalf.

Bob Lieberman has passed his enthusiasm along to Bob Mulvihill, who in turn mentored Adrian Leppert.

It's the passion that all three exude that makes Powder Mill a magical place.

It's an extraordinarily dramatic life that, wild birds, that surround us live.

And if you take the time either as an amateur birdwatcher or as a professional ornithologist, to really watch these birds as individuals and appreciate the, the complexity and the drama of their lives, it's, it's a fascinating thing.

And you have to be impressed with just how much they are able to do, how resilient and adaptable all of these birds are The Avian Research Center is part of the Powder Mill Nature Reserve, which acts as a field biological station for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and for more information about the powder mill, you can go to wqed.org.

Click the On Q logo on the first page.

Well, it has been a year since Mariss Jansons left the Pittsburgh Symphony.

So tonight, On Q, contributor Jim Cunningham thought you might want to catch up with the former music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

So, Jim, put together this report in Amsterdam and brings it home to, On Q, viewers.

With Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

I'm Jim Cunningham from On Q. A year after leaving the Pittsburgh Symphony, Mariss Jansons is at home in Amsterdam, the country of windmills and wooden shoes.

Mariss has learned how wooden shoes are made and how they can be used to get attention from your spouse.

If you have any arguments at home and all that you should, which.

Amsterdam is a relaxed city where weekends are spent playing outdoor chess, strolling in the vondelpark, having a picnic or working on your inline skating technique.

Amsterdam is great for outdoor dining, with dozens of restaurants crowded together.

The international press, who came to hear Mariss Jansons stay at the Amsterdam Hilton, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their bed in for peace in 1969, Mariss Jansons left Pittsburgh to lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Netherlands, where there are more bicycles than people, where the whole family travels by bicycle and best friends meet to go for a ride.

Amsterdam loves their new music director.

Welcome banners and full length posters of Mariss were flying in front of the concert.

Give out experience.

The orchestra invited reporters from around the world to meet Boris Johnson's at a press conference.

A German reporter wanted to know how he'd conduct both the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the Amsterdam concertgebouw how you can say no to a concertgebouw orchestra.

Tell me.

That night, concert goers were greeted with a Dutch tradition an accordion welcome.

Mariss Jansons conducted a hero's life.

Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss in the concert hall, with famous acoustics among the finest in the world.

The hero's life is a favorite of Mariss.

He conducted the music in Pittsburgh and took it on tour with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Identifying with the story of the hero's struggles.

The music lovers in Amsterdam were ecstatic with their new music director.

After the concert, concertgoers lingered for a party where the Queen of the Netherlands joined the crowd of fans who wanted to congratulate Mariss.

The next day, Mariss invited music critics and friends to a boat ride on the Amsterdam on the Amstel river, sailing past houseboats and the house once occupied by Anne Frank and her family.

Mariss had a word for everyone on board orchestra officials and Pittsburgh Symphony vice president Bob Moyer, who shared his new phone in a computer.

Phone, everything.

The former Pittsburgh Symphony music director showed off his new slim profile, and the two less notches he needs to fasten his belt.

London Daily Telegraph music critic Geoffrey Norris was along for the ride.

It was certainly an event.

I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

I mean, you couldn't.

You certainly know that Amsterdam is glad to see him.

There's posters saying welcome, Mariss and License to Thrill all over the place.

And of course, the standing ovation, which is more important, but even more important of those.

I think the important thing is to remember why we were there, which is the Mariss Jansons is a great conductor, one of the greatest conductors of the world.

The concertgebouw, likewise, is one of the greatest orchestras in the world.

The Royal Concertgebouw has released a biographical portrait of Mariss Jansons on DVD.

The sixth maestro, the down to earth maestro is seen at home in Saint Petersburg, talking on the telephone about his leaky faucet.

Mariss returns to his old music school in Saint Petersburg and finds one of his former teachers, Mariss Jansons.

Arriving at rehearsal in Amsterdam, the manager of the concertgebouw welcomes their new chief conductor and we are extremely happy that you accepted our offer.

In his office at the Concertgebouw, Mariss remembered his thoughts as his plane lifted off from Pittsburgh International last May.

Honestly, I didn't expect that I've used so much in my life.

It was so much Miss Pittsburghers and the orchestra and everybody's stuff and board and all.

All.

I mean, this old Pittsburgh family.

And so now today, I would like to send to have this opportunity to send through this interview my for me and my wife Irina.

Great love to all, all Pittsburghers and to say that we love you all and we remember you and we very much miss you.

Definitely I will come back.

I definitely.

Mariss Jansons is living a hero's life with his Pittsburgh years, forever in his heart and hope of a return to Heinz Hall one day soon.

And joining us now is WQED FM's Jim Cunningham, who also happens to be an On Q contributor.

It's great to see Mariss Jansons again.

You said at the end there that he hopes to come back to Heinz Hall someday soon.

Will we see him back here?

He said definitely.

He'll go back.

He'll definitely come back.

And I'm afraid it'll be a while because he's very heavily booked with the Vienna Philharmonic and the concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the Bavarian Radio in Munich.

So the world wants him and he wants to concentrate on his career in Europe.

It'll be a while until we get him back, but he very much wanted to know what was going on here in Pittsburgh.

And he says he will come and he will come back.

What about the Pittsburgh Symphony?

How what's the orchestra?

What's going to be doing this summer?

Lots of things going on.

You know, this Friday, George Benson, the great Pittsburgh born guitarist, will be playing a concert at Heinz Hall.

That's Friday night at 8:00.

And then over the 4th of July weekend, the orchestra will play three outdoor concerts.

And they're all free.

The concert on the 4th of July at Point State Park will also be broadcast live on WQED, FM 89.3 and on WQED 89.7 beginning at 8 p.m.. Good.

Look forward to it.

You know, they'll play the Heartwood Acres concert the night before and then they're doing South Park on the second, so you get the second, third and fourth.

So plenty of opportunities to see them.

It's going to be great.

And all sorts of other concerts coming to the Lord of the Rings Symphony at the end of July and the Cirque Populaire, you name it, they'll be at Heinz Hall.

Jim.

Thank you.

Great to be with you, Stacey, and thank you for joining us.

Good night, and stay connected.