A Chatham University blog about the work funded by Bank of America
Recently, Dr. Grossmann’s master-level course, Building Sustainable and Resilient Cities took a field trip to Homewood to have a tour of Cluster 4 with Operation Better Block’s (OBB) Gabby DeMarchi. The current Homewood grant project team members are in this class along with other first and second year Falk School of Sustainability graduate students. Gabby […]
On August 7 and 9, I completed Blocks 1, 11, and 12 – finishing the Business and Institutional Core Cluster! On the small portion of Block 1 (Hamilton Avenue), I identified Catalpa speciosa (Northern Catalpa). On Block 11, there were Cornus florida (Flowering Dogwood), Taxodium distichum (Baldcypress), Tilia cordata (Littlelead Linden), and Liquidambar styraciflua (Sweetgum), as […]
I’ve been doing research on lead in soil, how to interpret soil tests, and potential methods of removing soil from lead in urban areas where there are lots of people. Studies of phytoremediation (using plants and natural methods to extract lead from soil) are fairly recent and there is no definitive answer on what the […]
The past month at Operation Better Block has served as a great learning experience. Some of my assignments have been surrounding the topic of housing in Homewood. Housing is a major issue in many, if not all, Pittsburgh neighborhoods, and housing contains significant value in sustainable cities. Interestingly, the City of Pittsburgh owns many vacant, […]