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Wednesday, 05 October 2011 08:20

Written by Diana Nelson Jones

Squirrel Hill is a treasure in itself, but within this great neighborhood are a few smaller treasures that the Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition will be honoring at a celebration this Thursday from 4 to 8p on the lawn of the 6th Presbyterian Church.

The first treasure is a place, to be dedicated at 5p: the corner of Forbes and Murray, where the church is located. This is the crossroads of the neighborhood, the intersection at which it is sometimes impossible to turn left or to cross.

The other three treasures are people. I will start with Sophie Masloff, my first Pittsburgh mayor and the one who first envisioned a baseball field on the North Shore. Remember? So many people laughed. I can't for the life of me remember why it was risible. I mean, c'mon. Who hasn't marveled at the location when enjoying a game at PNC Park?

Sophie did other things, too, but that vision was splendid.

I'll let the coalition's publicist take it from here:

Mayor Sophie Masloff, a true Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill treasure, served as mayor of the City of Pittsburgh from 1988 to 1994.  Our city’s first female and first Jewish mayor, Sophie was born in the Hill District just steps away from the newly designated Freedom Corner. 

A decades long public servant, Sophie Masloff first entered politics in the mid-1930s as a close ally to then Mayor David Lawrence, and was a crucial player behind the growth and organization of the Democratic Party in our region. 

After raising her family in Squirrel Hill and serving for 38 years as a clerk in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, Sophie was elected to Pittsburgh City Council and became Council President in 1988.

Deborah L. Acklin is president and CEO for the Emmy-Award-winning WQED Multimedia in Pittsburgh. She is responsible for strategy and day-to-day operations of the organization, which includes WQED-TV (PBS); WQED: The Neighborhood Channel; WQED: The Create Channel; WQEX-TV (A ShopNBC affiliate); Classical WQED-FM 89.3/Pittsburgh; Classical WQEJ-FM 89.7/Johnstown; local and national television and radio productions; WQED Interactive and The WQED Education Department.

Formerly Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of WQED, Ms. Acklin returned to WQED in 2002 as Senior Vice President of Production and Technology/Chief Content Officer after spending several years at the National Geographic Channel where she lead a team that conceived, developed and produced National Geographic Today, a daily television journal about life on “planet earth.”  

The executive producer at WQED from 1996-2000, Ms. Acklin oversaw production of national documentaries for PBS, created the nightly television magazine program, OnQ, which ran for 11 years from 2000-2010 and co-created a series of national concert programs featuring Doo-Wop music.

Ms. Acklin’s work has been honored with many awards, including a national Emmy award nomination for a documentary about the legendary Mister Rogers and seven Emmy awards (Mid-Atlantic).

Robert Levin, president of Levin Furniture, entered the Pittsburgh-based family furniture business in 1993 after having spent several years in Washington, DC in the fields of Health Policy and Aging. He holds a Masters degree in Gerontology from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining Levin Furniture, he was a member of the Capitol Hill Recycling Project, an environmental group in Washington.

He is currently active in his family’s main charity - the Howard Levin Clubhouse - an interactive day program for adults with mental illness. Robert is single and lives in Pittsburgh.

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