Started at the Bastille at 0830 with S. and R. again, but today's temps were 45F at the start which seemed much more civilized than yesterday's 35. We rode around the North Side, and were stopped by a crew filming an Exxon commercial along the bike trail. Considered not stopping, but they said "please" so we played nice.
Crossed the 16th Street Bridge, so took a picture of this Chevy mural at 1519 Penn Avenue:
And while I was standing there, took another shot of the "Welcome to the Strip" mural:
I finally came across this commercial art when the door was closed and nobody was parked in front of it:
Rode up to Polish Hill, which was great because I'd never been up there before (even though I generally try to avoid places with names that include words like Mount, Hill, Summit, etc). Polish Hill seems like a great neighborhood.
Our target was a Sprout Fund sculpture at 3106 Brereton Street, a mural-by-other-means called "Meeting-Departure" by Paul Bowden, a Polish Hill resident who is also an illustrator for Carnegie Museum of Natural History's Mammals Department.
My own photograph doesn't do it justice, so I'm presenting a photo from the Polish Hill Community Association's blog:
With the artwork found, we set about locating LiLi's Coffee*Shop for our Coffeeneuring mission. Wow!
Lili's Coffee*Shop is located at 3138 Dobson Street, in the same building as MindCure Records and the Copacetic Comics Company. Must. Be. Seen. Among other things, a few more of Paul Bowden's sculptures are mounted on the walls. There was some vegan chicken soup on the menu, that seems to require a too-willing suspension of disbelief.
My fourth coffeeneuring expedition of the 2012 Coffeeneuring Challenge:
drink: Cafe Au Lait with an oatmeal-raisin cookie, very good
shop: Lili's Coffee*Shop
location: 3138 Dobson Street, Polish Hill, Pittsburgh PA
date: 10/12/2012
mileage: 26 miles
ride details: Rode with S and R, enroute to Sandcastle for groundbreaking ceremony. Bike friendly coffee shop. The place is named "Lili" after owners Robert Levkulich and Carrie DiFiore's young daughter.
Coming out of Polish Hill, I stopped to take a picture of the mural at Klavon's Ice Cream.
We rode around the Point and took the Jail Trail to the Hot Metal Bridge, made a (heated, indoor) potty break at REI, and continued along the SouthSide Trail and the Keystone Metals walkway to get to Sandcastle just in time for the groundbreaking ceremony for the Sandcastle-Keystone-Metals trail section, due to be complete by April 15, 2013.
In this photo, Linda McKenna Boxx and Rich Fitzgerald stand by while former mayor Tom Murphy talks about trail building. I thought it was really excellent that they recognized Tom Murphy's contributions to Pittsburgh's trail development:
After the ceremony we rode north to Station Square, then continued north to the West End Circle and stopped at Hunt Stained Glass. We knew there was a mural by Nick Parrendo on top of the building that really couldn't be seen from off-site, and we made bold to stop and ask permission to come inside and take a picture of the mural. They were very gracious and invited us in.
This is how the mural looks:
We were given a tour of the workshops, including a room where we saw several young craftsman doing amazing things.
26 miles on a day that went from drizzle to blue skies, and ranged from naked sculptures to media events to sacred artwork. Not bad.
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