Youth Perspectives - Braddock Youth Project

Watz Up Doc
Braddock’s Community-based Newsletter, by the Braddock Youth Project
Summer, 2013
The Leaf Project: Air Quality Study of
Braddock’s Greenery Points to Potentially
Harmful Airborne Particles
by Tatiana Crosby, Dee Betton, and Robert Grey
F
September to early January, the
Braddock Youth Project has been
collaborating with The University of
Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health on a
research project dubbed The Leaf Project.
The focus of the project was to determine
if tree leaves are good indicators of air quality. Current accepted methods of testing air
quality usually involve expensive equipment
costing tens of thousands of dollars.
Members of BYP collected leaves of the
Norway Maple, which were sent to a lab
capable of analyzing the contents of the
leaves. The analysis showed us that Braddock’s air has a higher concentration of
ferromagnetic materials (attracts magnets)
like iron, cobalt, and nickel.
This is likely due to the Edgar Thomson
Steel Mill, as iron is used in the production
rom
of steel. Another possible cause is Braddock’s traffic. There is an almost constant
flow of diesel vehicles during the day, which
visibly spew large amounts of particulate
matter.
Research has shown that particulate matter can cause health effects such as asthma,
heart attacks, respiratory disease, and cardiovascular disease among other things. For
this reason, BYP recommends walking on
Braddock’s side streets to reduce your exposure to particulate matter.
Another thing that can be done to combat air pollution is planting trees. Trees are
known to improve air quality in areas where
they are planted, and the surface area of the
tree leaves themselves serve as filters that
collect settling particulate matter.
Youth Perspectives
by Deontae Robertson
A major health issue is asthma because
half of my family has it. My cousin has it the
worst. He runs and has to use his inhaler
all the time. My cousin went to the hospital
because his asthma was really bad. I have
asthma and I play sports, and it’s hard to run
and play hard. I need my inhaler at every
break. As I’ve grown older, I have been able
to control it more. When I am sick, I have to
get a breathing treatment or go to the hospital. It’s hard to do sports, so I have to keep
my inhaler at times. My little brothers also
have bad asthma. They need their inhalers. When they get sick they need breathing
treatments or they use their tubes with their
inhalers in them.
by Shawntre Scott
A health problem that I have is my asthma. My asthma is affected by smoke from
vehicles and by second hand smoke from
cigarettes.
The fumes that come from trucks are
causing a problem in Braddock. These
fumes are not clean. Every time I walk past
the mill I get a weird feeling in my stomach.
I have to hold my breath. It smells very bad
and it hurts my lungs when I breathe it in.
That’s why I think that this is a health problem in Braddock. Little boys and girls with
asthma should not have to breathe that in.
It’s very bad for infants to breathe that in.
They do not have strong enough lungs to
fight back.
Second hand smoke is also a major issue.
Just the other day, I saw an older person carrying an oxygen tank, which could be from
smoking. I saw a tube running from her nose
to her tank, and that’s not right. She should
be able to breathe in freely. Smoking kills
your lungs and makes it harder to breathe.
Enough smoking can cause a person to have
a heart attack or die. That’s why we should
clean the streets and the smoky places, so
everyone can have access to clean air.
The Brew Gentlemen:
New Microbrewery
Set to Make Macro
Changes in Braddock
by D’Ondre Kelly & Danielle Green
W
hen we arrived for our meeting
with Asa Foster, the large “Building Available” sign in the storefront
window of 512 Braddock Ave. made us wonder if we had come to the right place, but a
tiny plaque leaning neatly on the windowsill
confirmed the building’s new occupants:
The Brew Gentlemen. Since Thanksgiving
2010, Asa Foster and his business partner,
Matt Katase, have been working toward developing their experimental microbrewery,
The Brew Gentlemen Beer Co., while studying at Carnegie Mellon University. Most recently, they have been working toward gutting and restoring the business’s new home
here in Braddock.
see things happening here,” said Foster.
Housed in the old Harco Electric Supply
Company building, their brew house is set
to open by the end of 2013. Plans for a taproom and lounge, named The Electric Supply, in reference to the building’s history,
are already in the works.
“Everyone that we’ve come into contact
with [in Braddock] has been incredibly
welcoming. People are glad to see business
growing here. Something that this town has
impressed on us is that people just want to
Kelly: Are there other staff?
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D’Ondre Kelly: How did you meet your
business partner, Matt, and how did The
Brew Gentlemen get started?
Asa Foster: We both were living on the
same floor our freshman year of college at
Carnegie Mellon, and then we both joined
the same fraternity. Fast forward to junior
year; we were both not terribly happy with
our major. We both wanted to start our own
business and shared a very, very deep love
of beer. We had been home brewing for a
while and decided that we wanted to start
a brewery. We saw that the scene here in
Pittsburgh is open to breweries.
Foster: There are two at the moment. His
name is Zach Barbeieri and he is our general get-stuff-done guy. He is going to be our
brewer. We also have Alonzo Benavides,
who is our Chief Technical Officer.
Kelly: How would you describe your business and your mission?
Foster: So our business I would describe
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as… We are an experimental microbrewery. We want to use a lot of unique ingredients and do things people aren’t necessarily
doing. A lot of that is tying beer to food. We
want to educate our customers in pairing
beer to food, and that’s part of our mission.
We have a strong focus on design and rapid
prototyping. That’s present in our beer and
the digital fabrication for our brand. We’ve
been working on our two flagships for quite
some time now, but we definitely want to
continue experimenting.
Kelly: Are you working on new products or
experimenting?
Foster: As of right now, we have two flagships: White Sky, a chai spiced wheat beer
(cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, ginger) and
General Braddock’s IPA, an east coast style
IPA—not ludicrously bitter. We are in preproduction right now, so we are not sold
anywhere yet. We only just received our
license to sell, so this is like before it happens. We are in the process of raising money
now and hope to be open before the end of
the year.
Last year we hopped on board for the last
event of Tapped! Pop up Beer Gardens and
Summer, 2013
we took the whole parking lot [on John St.
in Braddock].
[On June 22 this year, The Brew Gentlemen
were featured again at Tapped! East Liberty,
alongside Full Pint Brewing.]
Kelly: Why did you choose Braddock? And
how did you find this building?
Foster: So we chose Braddock because
I had initially came here through a class I
took in school called Mapping Braddock. It
was an art class, nothing to do with maps.
I spent the majority of my time walking
around Braddock and talking to people and
I just fell in love with the place. There’s an
enormous amount of opportunity and the art
community is huge. That drew me to Braddock then, and in our senior year I brought
Matt down here one Sunday morning. He
was like, “I’m sold.” We got together with the
mayor and we got introduced to the space
where the restaurant would be at the corner
of Eighth and Braddock Avenues in the old
Cuda’s Italian Market. We realized it was far
too small, which was the big reason for leaving, and we have been doing renovations on
the new location since November.
Kelly: How has it been fixing this place up?
Summer, 2013 Foster: Well, we love building so its fun,
but obviously its an old building. There’s
some goofy stuff you find. We’ve found all
measures of electrical parts in the walls.
You tear off dry wall and realize things have
been nailed in with eight-plus types of nails,
which makes the demo really difficult. It is
awesome rehabbing a building though.
Kelly: How do you feel about the growth of
business in Braddock?
Foster: Well we definitely have a lot of
room to expand and that is welcome. A big
part of growing, and an awesome part of
growing here, is changing the perception
that Braddock is a bad area. We want to get
people here from Pittsburgh, and that is getting easier and easier, but I think there is a
lingering portrayal that Braddock is a bad
area. Breweries are a community-gathering
place, which pulls in other likeminded businesses, which is awesome.
Kelly: Do you have any plans to get involved
with local youth?
Foster: We really want to do as much as we
can with the youth. That’s kind of a bit of
a weird line with the breweries, but I think
it’s something that we are passionate about.
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We just need to find a way to do it so that it
doesn’t make anyone mad. We want to help
out with the general beautification of the
town as well.
Kelly: Is there anything you would like
Braddock to know about you?
Foster: Well, once we have the taproom
open, it will be way easier for people to just
drop in and ask questions. We’re in it for the
long hall and we want to see it grow. Braddock was once the place where people from
Pittsburgh would come. Braddock is so
unique and there is such a great arts community, so we would love to see other boutique
businesses come here as well.
Follow
The Brew
Gentlemen on
their website:
http://www.brewgentlemen.com
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The Poetry Corner
BYP Youth Participate
in Slam Poetry Event
at Propel Braddock
Hills
Intro by Danielle Green
O
n April 18th, students from Propel
Braddock Hills High School, Propel
Andrew Street, and the Braddock
Youth Project came together for a spoken
word event, Raise Your Voices Against Violence. The event was organized by Propel
Braddock Hills staff to give youth in the area
the opportunity to speak about violence in
their communities and to jumpstart an ongoing conversation.
Several members from the Braddock
Youth Project attended to support three of
our youth, Quadary, Autumn, and Sharvel as
they performed their original poems.
“Pride” by Quadary Jackson
In this generation, kids nowadays can be so
mean
Violent
And aggressive
A young beautiful lady shouldn’t have to be
brought up in a neighborhood like that
There was a girl who was smart, beautiful,
and talented
She had a dream that one day her family,
friends, and peers would accept her for who
she was and not as “that gay girl”
A friend of hers had a problem like hers too
The both liked the same genders and they
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were best friends
His name was Sam but he wanted his friends
to call him Samantha
Everyone judged him on the way he walked
and the way he talked
And they wanted him to hide his true colors
But Sam was a good friend to the girl and he
always made her laugh
One night after the two friends talked on the
phone, the girl got another phone call
A call that would change her life
A call that Sam had killed himself
Hello?
Heart beating faster and faster
She cried and cried
Grabbing the phone, slamming it hard as she
felt the pain
BOOM BOOM, BOOM BOOM
Sam’s mother wished that she had never
judged him
From then on throughout her life the girl
tried to make things work
Throughout the good and the bad
Even though others tried to change her
She said to herself
“As I grew up I understood that sometimes
life is a mess or can be hard
but don’t let you downfalls slow you down
Dreams are real, all you have to do is believe”
My dream is to be a lawyer and a nurse
Have two kids and a wife
Make good money
If you believe in yourself, your dreams will
come true
That girl was tough
That girl was strong
That girl was confident
That girl had pride
That girl was me!
will show us a light.
Grandma once said Evil Man do exist
The gunshots blur the man holding up
his fist
Take a deep swim in this world and tell me
who you meet
A billion loved ones gone and missed.
The lion goes to sleep wishing for one last
kiss.
She drinks the coconut. Does it really matter where you’re from to get the teachers to
believe in us?
The storm will pass as the coco trees shake
your family dream of making it out
That’s our great escape.
Wake up to children playing on the red clay
Their ideas, thoughts, and dreams will guide
our way
The monkey is me and I am him
The battle grounds kept them children away
No, Where to go, yes oh yes
Them babies seen better days.
The waves roll tide
The ocean freezes at night
You said you’ll never leave my side
Mufasa leaves home
Another black American dad story deep inside black caves
You don’t have to worry
The love is there.
Do we run wild because the guidance isn’t
there?
Fear of losing their sons in the ocean are our
mother’s greatest fears.
The sand is diamonds in the sun.
“The Waves Roll Tide”
by Sharvel Pulliam
The waves roll tide
Who’s going to wipe them tears from your
mother’s eyes?
Boy from miles away looks just like me on
the TV screen
The water is too cold this time of spring
I know there’s trouble in the jungle tonight
Our generation runs wild because no one
Watz Up Doc
Summer, 2013
“Goodbye” by Autumn Wilson
Face down
Motionless
Speechless
His face lying on the frozen concrete
Buried in blood
His blood
His body slowly getting colder and colder
That’s how they left him
Questions
Questions that flew through everyone’s
mind
Like free birds in the open sky
Who did this and why?
Pain
The pain I felt wasn’t really there
It disappeared like you did into thin air
Or maybe I chose not to face it
I was numb and I was afraid
Memories
The memories that wouldn’t leave me alone
They were coming one, by one, by one
Bit by bit my heart started to break
It split into pieces that will be lost forever
Goodbye
Goodbye I cried out
Goodbye, goodbye
My friend, my brother, my love
Goodbye
Braddock is Beautiful
Steel Mill Haikus
by BYP’s Media Team Youth
A haiku is a traditional Japanese style of
poetry consisting of three lines and, usually, a syllable count of 5, 7, and 5 syllables
in each line, respectively. The youth were
challenged to write a haiku inspired by the
steel mill.
Red and blue flames came
Large white clouds appeared there
Large trucks were coming down
Shawntre Scott
by Bree Grimes
Carnegie library, filled with kids
BYP full of laughter and cheer
Hot summer days
to cold winter nights
Walking up to Zips or going to Stamboli’s
USS
Once booming success
In a man was a city
Now hear Braddock’s cry
Janea Berkley
for a bite
Down the street and around the corner,
playing football in the field or hollerin’ at
the shorties
And now I sit and look around
Braddock is beautiful,
and it grows with time.
Street Sign Poetry
Loud, huge & blue
Constantly going, never stopping, old &
standouts
Hot in the winter days
Jalique Burks
Other Topics
by Shawntre Scott
The Media Team began this poetry exercise by walking around Braddock and taking
pictures of street signs, plaques, billboards, etc. They then printed out these pictures and
cut out words, or sometimes individual letters, from these signs to make their own poems
entirely inspired by, and composed of, Braddock itself.
Beale Street
Flippers flip with grace
Where Elvis was once worshipped
Measured by beauty
Te’Erra Johnson
Cereal
Cocoa Pebbles, bomb
Makes a song in my stomach
Chocolaty and fresh
Brianna Grimes
Summer, 2013 Watz Up Doc
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Braddock Speaks
Hear the Voice
of Braddock
Residents
The BYP Media team set out to get real
opinions from Braddock residents about
their community. What is your best memory
in Braddock? Where do you see Braddock in
five years? Here are their answers to these
burning questions.
Interviews by
Sharvel Pulliam
and D’Ondre Kelly
Michele of Braddock, PA
What is your best memory in Braddock?
I’m gonna have to say watching the community change from being a bad environment
to going to a little bit better since I’ve been
here in the mid 90s.
How do you see Braddock in five years?
Hopefully a better community, more stores,
more stuff for the children in the community to do, an all around better community
for the people in Braddock.
What is your favorite place in Braddock?
5. I’m gonna have to say my favorite place
in Braddock would have to be the Braddock
Library because it provides a lot for people
in the community.
What would you do to help the community?
I would love more stores in the community,
more activites for the children, more jobs in
the community, a safer place, more policemen, that’s about it.
If you could open a store, what would
it be, and why?
I would make a sandwich spot. I would
open a restaurant. Why? Because it would
be good for the community, another reason
is because I can cook and I could also give
back to the community as well.
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If you could have any super power,
what would it be?
To be the most powerful woman in the
world. I would save those who need to be
saved whether in sickness or in war, disease, and so forth .
Monica of Braddock, PA
What is your best memory in Braddock?
I have to say my greatest memory in Braddock is being part of the Braddock Youth
Project and helping it become so much
more than what it first started out to be, and
helping make changes in Braddock to help
beautify it.
How do you see Braddock in five years?
I’m hoping to see Braddock with a lot more
stores hopefully, even a gas station would
be lovely. I just hope to see more businesses
in five years.
What are your thoughts on the new development at the hospital site?
I think it will affect Braddock in a great way.
I think it will bring more money into the
town. It will bring more people.
What is your favorite place in Braddock?
I think I have to say my favorite place in
Braddock is the garden. Just looking at it as
I walk by everyday, it just makes me feel so
good inside that I had a part in helping that
become a garden.
What are Braddock’s biggest assets?
I think Braddock’s biggest assests are definitely its history, that’s number one. Definitely the new things that are up and coming.
I think people will come out and see the new
things Braddock is trying to accomplish.
What would you do to help the community?
I would have a cleanup day for Braddock
every weekend that would involve young
kids and even older people from Braddock
and even North Braddock that would come
together and help cleanup the community
every weekend.
If you could open a store, what would
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it be, and why?
It would definitely be a gas station. All
the gas stations we have are a bit far and
it would definitely bring in money to our
town, and bring more people in and out of
the town.
Youth, Ages 12 & 13 of Braddock,
PA
How do you see Braddock in five years?
I guess as a better place, things fixed up a
little bit more, no more shooting, people getting together more in the community.
What is your favorite place in Braddock?
My favorite place is the basketball court,
because I get to have fun and shoot around
with my friends…I get to play with my
friends and stuff.
If you could open a store, what would
it be, and why?
I would put a hospital right next to my
house. Across from the library I would
make a basketball shop so people could get
gear and basketballs…I would put a football shop by my house, so if someone needs
something, they wouldn’t have to go all the
way to Dick’s or something to buy it.
If you could have an super power, what
would it be?
My super power would be to shoot from all
the way up there. (points to the top of the
hill) I would be the best basketball player
ever.
Interviews by
Quadary Jackson,
Autumn Wilson,
and Brandy Quarles
Resident of Braddock, PA
What is your best memory in Braddock?
Giving lunches to the kids up at the park.
What is your favorite place in Braddock?
Summer, 2013
My favorite place in Braddock is 4th Street
Market. That is because it’s been there for
10,000 years and I watched it evolve. It’s
been there since I was a kid, its there now,
my kids are going there. It’s like a figment
of Braddock.
Enrique of Braddock, PA
What are Braddock’s biggest assets?
What would you do to help the community?
The community. I believe that the community is Braddock’s biggest asset because we
all stick together.
How do you see Braddock in five years?
I see it expanding. I see the café growing. I
see more pictures being painted. I see the
parks being rebuilt.
go chill out with their friends and have a
good time.
Who is someone you look up to?
My brother because he’s always been the
positive one and he always keeps moving
forward, and he’s true to his group, true to
his job.
I would put a swimming pool here. Instead
of getting hot in the summer, kids can just
If you could have any super
power, what would it be?
What is you favorite
place in Braddock?
Age 7: “to fly to help
lost people find their
way home...”
Age 8: “I like the
library because I
like to read, play on
tablets, and screen
print.”
What would you do to
help the community?
Age 13: “Stop the
violence in the
community”
What is your best
memory in Braddock?
Age 13:
“The
basketball court”
Jr.
Braddock
Speaks
Thoughts from
Braddock’s
littlest residents
Age 8: “When they
built the playground
there was a bouncy
house and a lot of
people at the park.
It was fun!”
If you could open any
store in Braddock what
would it be?
Summer, 2013 What is you favorite
place in Braddock?
What would you do to
help the community?
Age 8: “ I would
plant flowers in
the park.”
What is your best
memory in Braddock?
Age 8: “ I would
have a toy store on
the Ave. and sell yoyos.”
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“My greatest memory is when a couple
days ago I made five
half court shots, I
made four threes in
one game.”
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This summer’s BYP Media Team had a challenge: Imagine that your superpower is the
ability to manipulate the world as if it were a Tetris board. How would you change Braddock for the better? This was their response.
The Adventures of the Beautiful
Braddock Tetris Squad
by Tiona Henderson, Tina Jones, Shamika Miller, Brianna Grimes
O
ne sunny day in Braddock, four
friends and I were just hanging
around in the park. We were all
laughing and having a good time when suddenly the sky became dark and cloudy. We
all stopped playing to look up into the sky.
Out of nowhere it started hailing Tetris
blocks, so we ran to take cover.
As we made our way to shelter, Tina
was hit in the head with a long skinny Tetris block and she screamed and fell to the
ground. We all ran over to Tina as she was
shivering and shaking and attempted to help
her to her feet. When we tried help her up,
something like a large thunderbolt struck
her and electricity ran through her body,
shocking us as well. We all flew backwards
onto our backs, and Tina flew into the air.
When Tina came back down, we all
opened our eyes and realized that we were
all wearing capes with different colored
tights and a different Tetris block on each of
our chests. Bree threw her arms into the air
out of confusion, and the swing set nearby
came up out of the ground and shrunk to
miniature size. Looking amazed, Shamika
held out her hand to see if this would work
for her too, but it didn’t. However, when she
clapped her hands together, all of the litter
in the park turned into grass and everything
was clean.
Danielle walked across the street to the
abandoned storefront and started to run
around the store very fast until it turned
into a Sneaker Villa. Finally, I decided to try
to see if I was able to do anything cool, but
nothing happened. I cried, “How do I get my
powers to work?” All of a sudden, people
appeared in the new Sneaker Villa that Danielle had created. Looking closer, I realized
that the guy on the corner was inside working the cash register. And when I said the
word “work” again, other people that I had
seen without jobs were suddenly working! I
had the power to employ the unemployed.
We felt a rush through our bodies and decided to use these powers for the good of
the community.
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We got started right away. We all flew into
the air to look for something that needed to
be done. As we were flying, Shamika spotted dead flowers. She clapped her hand and
they all came back to life. Bree raised her
hand to the sky and gestured toward two
buildings, which had begun to fall apart. Effortlessly, the two structures came together
and combined as one completely in-tact
building!
Together all five friends had a part in
making Braddock a better place, not only
for themselves but for others. They weren’t
exactly Power Rangers or Spiderman, but
they had good powers for helping the community. After that we all met up and came
up with an idea to do something like this
more often. “When you work together, good
things happen for the better.”
Check us out!
http://braddockyouth.org
or on facebook: Braddock
Youth Project
Watz Up Doc
Watz Up Doc
is a community-based newsletter, serving
the greater community of Braddock. It is
published by the Braddock Youth Project,
a youth employment program that seeks to
foster skills that will aid youth in advancing
toward positive life outcomes, by providing meaningful and sustainable community
development projects, generated and maintained by the youth. These projects harness
the energy and creativity of the youth to promote posititive, culturally relevant change in
their community.
Produced by the BYP Media Team, 2013
Contributors: Autumn Wilson, D’Ondre Kelly, Quadary Jackson, Brandy Quarles, Tiona
Henderson, Tina Jones, Deontae Robertson,
John Fierst, Shanwtre Scott, Te’erra Johnson, Jalique Burks, Brianna Grimes, Ayonna
Uhuru, Janea Berkley, Shamika Miller, Kori
Williams, Devon Caldwell, Tatiana Crosby,
Dee Betton, Robert Grey, Rich Brown, Danielle Green, Joey DeSantis, and Neisha Bryan
Summer, 2013