June 11, 2020 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and will be updated if necessary.
* Correction, 8 p.m. June 11, 2020
A woman who died in a fall from Midtown Towers was in fear for her life before the incident, a childhood friend said Thursday.
Terrance McGeorge said Aaliyah Johnson, who was transgender, was threatened with murder by a man with whom she had been linked, and who was angry and embarrassed because other people might find out.*
McGeorge, who is one of the leaders of a group called Project Matters, is helping to organize a march that is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. Friday at the Jerome Avenue Bridge, proceed past the Public Safety Building on Lysle Boulevard, and end near Johnson’s apartment.
The march is intended to be peaceful, he said. Attendees are being asked to wear blue — Johnson’s favorite color — and to carry a candle. Participants should park in the lot near the McKees Point Marina, he said.
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June 11, 2020 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: Announcements, McKeesport and Region News
Clarification: An organizer of the event says the vigil and march will start at the Jerome Avenue Bridge, Downtown, not the 15th Avenue Bridge as was originally reported, and will end near the victim’s apartment on Sinclair Street. The march will not proceed to O’Neil Boulevard. Updated June 11, 2 p.m.
Friends and family of a woman who died May 26 in a fall from a Downtown apartment building plan to march on Friday to call attention to the circumstances surrounding her death.
Organizers claim that Allegheny County police have not adequately investigated the death of Aaliyah Denise Johnson, 32, who was pronounced dead after her body was found on a sidewalk in the 500 block of Sinclair Street.
County police told Tube City Almanac that Johnson is believed to have fallen or jumped from her ninth-floor window at Midtown Towers and that surveillance cameras showed that no one entered or left her apartment before or after the incident.
But Johnson, who was an MC at local events and clubs, and also worked as a hairstylist and makeup artist, had a large social media following. Her friends said she was targeted for harassment and abuse because she was Black and transgender.
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June 11, 2020 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport city council has approved the demolition of a former Hungarian church just off Evans Avenue.
At the June 3 meeting, council awarded a $77,900 contract to demolish the former St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church on Beacon Street to Lutterman Excavating of Greensburg. Lutterman was the lowest responsible bidder, city officials said.
Built in 1900 and 1901 to serve the city’s Hungarian Catholic population, St. Stephen’s closed in 2002 following the death of its longtime pastor, the Rev. Stephen Kato, who had first come to the parish in 1962.
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June 10, 2020 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport officials are envisioning a day when the regional hiking and biking trail network could be connected to Renziehausen Park, Grandview and other city neighborhoods.
By 6-0 vote, council this month approved an application to the Active Allegheny grant program for $81,000 for a project called “Pedestrian Access to McKeesport’s Trail Systems.”
Administered by the Redevelopment Authority of Allegheny County, the Active Allegheny program provides financial assistance to municipalities to develop bicycle and pedestrian connections from neighborhoods to local destinations, and increase opportunities for residents to get exercise.
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June 06, 2020 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Rohaan Wasim, this year’s valedictorian, poses with some of the accolades he’s been given by his classmates. (Richard Finch Jr. photo for Tube City Almanac)
Hamida Wasim says she raised her three sons to be “obedient, hard-working, sensible and focused.”
“I like my boys to be well educated and do well in their lives,” she says. “They know what they want in life and how to get it.”
It must be working. All three sons have succeeded academically at McKeesport Area High School. In 2018, her son Zohais was named salutatorian and son Ashar graduated with honors.
This year, her youngest son, Rohaan Wasim, was named valedictorian for the class of 2020. He plans to attend the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing & Information Sciences in the fall.
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June 05, 2020 |
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Jill Lape takes the oath of office Wednesday night from Magisterial District Judge Eugene Riazzi. (Tube City Almanac photo)
A McKeesport Area School District teacher has been appointed to fill a vacant seat on city council formerly held by her late sister.
At Wednesday’s council meeting, Jill Lape was nominated by Councilman Keith Soles and approved by a 5-0 vote of council to complete the term of her sister, Councilwoman Jamie Brewster-Filotei, who died May 12 after battling cancer for nearly three years.
Brewster-Filotei was elected in November 2017 to a four-year term that ends Jan. 1, 2022.
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June 04, 2020 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
(Richard Finch Jr. photo special to Tube City Almanac)
Parents, grandparents and neighbors lined Eden Park Boulevard on Wednesday night to celebrate graduating seniors from McKeesport Area High School.
In lieu of the regularly scheduled commencement, district officials encouraged students to participate in the “senior procession” of cars, trucks and motorcycles from the high school. McKeesport fire and police vehicles led the parade through Renziehausen Park and Penn State Greater Allegheny and back to the corner of Hartman Street and O’Neil Boulevard.
McKeesport Area and other school districts were forced to cancel all in-person classes and activities on March 13 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With some restrictions in Allegheny County being lifted this week, district officials said last month they are still hopeful that a graduation ceremony can be held for seniors on June 30.
More photos follow the jump.
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June 04, 2020 |
By Emily Pidgeon | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
Megan Resnik, sons Carter and Cole, and husband Kevin are the proprietors of CCR Gardens, an urban farm located in the city’s Haler Heights section. (Emily Pidgeon photo for Tube City Almanac)
“Most people have no idea where their food comes from,” says Kevin Resnik of Haler Heights.
But he and his wife, Megan, do. So do their sons, Carter, 7, and Cole, 3.
The Resniks operate CCR Gardens, which is entering its second year of providing McKeesport and surrounding areas with homegrown, organic produce fresh from the Resniks’ hoop-style greenhouses. The garden is named for Carter and Cole Resnik.
Longtime residents and graduates of McKeesport Area School District, the Resniks presently farm about one half-acre of their property and follow the bio-intensive method of gardening.
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May 31, 2020 |
By Richard Finch Jr. | Posted in: McKeesport and Region News
McKeesport Area School Board held a moment of silence at the start of the May 27 meeting to honor retired educators Jamie Brewster-Filotei and Robert J. Pupich Jr.
Brewster-Filotei, 46, was a teacher in the MASD for more than 20 years. Pupich, 63, was a coach and teacher in MASD and the Thomas Jefferson School District.
Both succumbed to illness and passed in recent weeks.
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May 29, 2020 |
By Staff Reports | Posted in: Announcements, Duquesne News, McKeesport and Region News, North Versailles Twp. News
Roman Catholic churches in Duquesne and Wilmerding are among more than 60 in Western Pennsylvania that will merge into new parishes on July 1, Bishop David Zubik announced this week.
The mergers, which affect every part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, will create 15 new parishes, the diocese said in a press release.
They are among the latest changes that began in 2015 under the program the diocese calls “On Mission for The Church Alive.”
In a letter to parishioners released Wednesday, Zubik said the parishes to be merged had already been working closely together since October 2018 in regional church groupings to share clergy and resources.
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