Mellon Square Park Redux

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In the heart of upper downtown Pittsburgh, Mellon Square Park has for years been a fixture for people to take a break from the office and eat lunch or just catch some fresh air.  Opened as part of Pittsburgh's Renaissance I project, it's had fallen into disrepair in recent years, and was closed for renovations for nearly two years.  It's re-opened recently, and adds an oasis of calm in the hustle and bustle of center city.  If you're wandering downtown, it's well worth a trip to the Park, which is near the William Penn Hotel on William Penn Place and Sixth Avenue.  

Above is a shot of the park I took during a mid-September walk downtown.

For an interesting article on the re-birth of the park, click here.  

Vice Chairmanship of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association

I was pleased and very proud to be installed last week at the Vice Chair for the statewide Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association.  It was and is a real honor to have the confidence of peers in the hospitality industry, and I look forward to helping a great and effective organization move forward.

With me in the photo are, from left, Steve Musciano of Aramark (new Treasurer), Jeff Cohen of the Smallman Street Deli and Weiss Provisions (new Chair), and Rick Sell of Metz Culinary (outgoing chair).  All three new officers are from the Pittsburgh area, which recognizes, I think, our region's strength in being on the cutting edge of defending the industry and encouraging its development and growth.

Pittsburgh Donnybrook Returns to the Priory

We're pleased to be hosting the second annual Pittsburgh Donnybrook, a charity boxing match featuring fighters from Dublin, Ireland matched against Pittsburgh's best amateurs.  Last year's event sold out weeks in advance, so keep your eyes open for when tickets go on sale.  The event is, of course, on March 17!

Burgh Bits and Bites

We've been pleased to partner with Sylvia McCoy and her Burgh Bits and Bites tours, which offer a walking tour of Pittsburgh neighborhoods blending history, interesting facts and some delightful food along the way.  Sylvia's recently extended her tours to our North Side neighborhood, and we're proud to be one of the tour stops.

Here's an article from the North Side Chronicle about the new tour.

Lemons into LemonAid

We were very proud to have worked with one of our clients recently, Phil Laboon, who converted a canceled wedding into a remarkable charity event to raise funds for Surgicorps, an organization which provides surgical and other medical services to children in third world counties.  After some local media coverage, the story wen viral, hitting newspapers and TV stations across the country.  The event was a roaring success, due in no small part to the fantastic publicity that the event engendered.  We applaud Mr. Laboon for his generosity, and were very pleased to have worked with him on such a special project.

 Here's a summary of the event from Mr. Laboon's company, Eyeflow's, website.

Here's a sample of the coverage:

KDKA TV, Pittsburgh

WTAE TV, Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

WESA (National Public Radio), Pittsburgh

Huffington Post

KHON2 TV, Honolulu, HA

Versions of the story appeared in outlets from Florida to California to Chicago, IL

Team Tassy Blackjack Spectacular!

My wife Suzanne and I have in the past several years become active with the organization “Team Tassy,” a 501(c)(3) organization which helps families in the poorest slums of Port au Prince, Haiti get on their feet by providing them with health care, educational support, job training  and assistance with finding jobs.  The ultimate goal is to get families to a point where they have broken free of the cycle of poverty and are sustaining themselves.  With our daughter Laura, we  traveled to Port au Prince in October 2013, and we will be heading back again this October.  During our visit, we were blown away by the graciousness and friendliness of the families Team Tassy is helping, and by the strides those families are making with Team Tassy’s assistance.  Below is a picture of Laura with Michaelle,  a girl whom we “adopted.” 

On Thursday, October 23, 2014, Suzanne and I are hosting Team Tassy’s first evening fundraiser, the Team Tassy Blackjack Spectacular at our Grand Hall at the Priory.  The evening will feature  plenty of blackjack play (10 tables worth!), a routlette table for non blackjack players, live music, Haitian themed food and cocktails, and a chance to win some great prizes.  It’s a fun night for a great cause, and if you’re able to attend we would love to have you! 

General admission tickets are $50 apiece while VIP tickets are $100.  The VIP tickets feature access to an open bar and a special “Learn to Play Blackjack” cocktail hour.  The VIP party starts at 5:30 p.m., while the main event starts at 6:30 p.m.  Blackjack opens at 7:00 p.m.  Purchase tickets through Showclix here. 

Team Tassy was founded by former Survivor finalist Ian Rosenberger after he had ventured to Port au Prince after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake. While there, he met Tassy Fils Aime, a teenage boy with a huge, life threatening tumor on his jaw.  Ian promised Tassy that he would bring him to the U.S. to treat the tumor, and after months of fundraising was able to do just that.  In late 2010, Tassy underwent successful surgery at Allegheny General Hospital to remove the tumor, and is now a student at LaRoche College here in Pittsburgh.  Read more about Tassy and Ian here.   But Ian and his team also knew that the work was not done – that there were many people in Haiti continuing to suffer, and the root cause of that suffering is poverty.  So Team Tassy was founded to help families in the poorest slums in Haiti to break the cycle of poverty.  So far, Team Tassy has assisted hundreds of people stabilize their families, and helped place many family members into jobs which will, hopefully, permanently put them on the road a healthy and prosperous future.   

  

New Packages for the Fall!

We've got some great new packages for the Fall which promise to get travelers to Pittsburgh (or Pittsburghers who want to explore their own city!) off the beaten path.  I'll explain the new packages in a series of blog posts - so keep checking in on us or visit packages page at our website, thepriory.com.

First up is the Sacred Pittsburgh tour, which offers an afternoon touring two of Pittsburgh's most famous religious properties, St. Anthony's Chapel on Troy Hill and St. Nicholas Croatiia Church in Millvale.  Both are very close to our Priory Hotel, and both chapels draw visitors from around the world.  Our shuttle provides transportation to and from the chapels, as well as to dinner at the world famous Church Brew Works Brew Pub.

St. Anthony's is a small church located in the heart of an historic German residential neighborhood.  Its claim to fame is that it holds the most religious relics of any church site outside of the Vatican.  They line the apse of the chapel from floor to ceiling! The bottom two photos show the interior and exterior of St. Anthony's.

St. Nicholas was built by Croatian immigrants in the nearby town of Millvale.  St. Nicholas features the 1930's era murals of famed Croatian painter Maxo Vanka.  The murals are truly striking, and stand out among churches throughout the entire United States.  The top three photos show St. Nicholas from the outside and inside, as well as a sample of Vanka's work.

Find out more about our Sacred Pittsburgh tour here!