“It’s a little bit of a Frankenstein building; it’s actually two buildings completely joined together,” he says. “The original building is the terminus building for the Troy Hill incline. The other building was built later. Inside, you would not know there were two buildings.”
Mirapaul has invested in four buildings nearby that house cafes and art houses.
Scratch F&B, a homey restaurant and bar owned by Don Mahaney, is located across Lowrie St. from the former bank. A building at 1800 Rialto St. houses Pear & The Pickle, an eatery with the nostalgic look of a vintage corner grocery that Alexis Tragos and Bobby Stockard opened in a former antique shop. For two other houses on Rialto–La Hutta Royal and Kunzhaus–Mirapaul recruited artists to fill their rooms.
“I was very happy that Scratch didn’t turn into yet another drink-all-day sort of bar,” he says. And Pear & the Pickle has “the best breakfast sandwich you’ll find anywhere in Pittsburgh.”
Also nearby are a hair salon, small grocery, gas station and an artist-run bookstore called Spaces Corners, which is open on Saturdays and by appointment on weekdays. There’s a vacant storefront on Lowrie in need of TLC but Mirapaul hasn’t set his sights on that.
“I’ve been always interested in affecting positive change,” he says. “Troy Hill, like any Pittsburgh neighborhood, could go in either direction. It could deteriorate, or it could have a positive future. I don’t think it’s going to be the next Lawrenceville, but it certainly has the makings of lots of positive things happening to it and I wanted to be a voice in that. To the degree that I’ve been able, I’ve added elements I thought would move that along.
“People are aware something creative is happening in Troy Hill. I’ve been very gratified to see artists and students and young professionals move in, in a way they weren’t when I first came here.”
But Mirapaul sees Troy Hill hanging onto its roots.
“On the other hand, I think that Troy Hill will forever be a very mixed neighborhood, which I think is great. I want to have lots of neighbors who are generationally Troy Hill, who know everybody and have neighborhood memories about the way things were.”
Got an idea? Contact Mirapaul here.