Staff Editorial

Duquesne continues to bleed and spill out from atop the Bluff down to the rest of Uptown along Forbes and Fifth Avenues. It makes sense that the administration would seek to add office space and parking lots given how the university has been expanding with the addition of a medical school and engineering program. The student body is growing! Ultimately, good news.

But it feels like something is lacking in this expansion — life.

An oddity considering the organizations and institutions that exist here.

Aside from Duquese, the neighborhood is home to UPMC Mercy, PPG Paints Arena, news outlet Public Source and community maker space HackPGH. Not to mention the roughly 6,000 residents.

Despite the institutions and organizations in Uptown, students, residents and workers alike need to go elsewhere to find any action not related to school or medicine. Certainly it doesn’t need to be this way. Why should we be confined to hamburgers or cafeteria food?

Well, we aren’t. There’s a pretty solid halal place on Fifth called Yaba’s (perhaps there’s a future feature story in there). But save for that, there isn’t much else.

Compare the Dukes’ situation to our friends in Oakland. The Panthers at the University of Pittsburgh are surrounded by food and retail. Or how about the pioneers at Point Park who are surrounded by shops Downtown.  

Why should we be forced to walk, drive or take a bus to find leisure?

There’s opportunity to be found in Duquesne’s expansion into the lower parts of Uptown. Why not do what we did with the Power Center, where storefronts occupy the ground floor and facilities for students and faculty occupy the top? Could we not do something similar on the rest of Forbes and Fifth? Why isn’t there retail in the ground floor of McGinley Hall (the little market doesn’t count since it’s only for residents).

We’ll concede, this is not an easy thing to ask. There are, of course, considerations around zoning and permitting. If the goal is to make space for growing and additional office space and classrooms, then perhaps that should stay the focus until there are resources to handle other projects. It would just be nice to see some of the parking lots be filled in with pharmacies and cafes and restaurants that don’t almost exclusively sell hamburgers.

For now then, Duquesne’s nightlife will continue to exist in the South Side, which isn’t so terrible. However, it would be nice if we could take an elevator back to our dorms after an eventful Friday night rather than a bunch of dark, steep steps up the side of the hill.

In due time, perhaps, Uptown will buzz when the Penguins are away too.