Frick Environmental Center Set To Open Saturday

SEP 9, 2016 

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gone is the siding-covered trailer that for more than a decade sat like an intruder behind the stone gatehouses at Frick Park’s Beechwood Boulevard entrance and served as a Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy classroom.

In its place, native plants like those used in the 1800s by escaping slaves for food, medicine and shelter are taking root in the “From Slavery to Freedom Garden.”

The garden is part of a four-acre, $19 million park facelift that features the new Frick Environmental Center, designed to be a “living classroom for environmental education” and the “greenest” public building in the world.

The center, a project of the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the city, will open to the public at 10 a.m. Saturday. Day-long activities will include free tours of the 15,500-square-foot building in Squirrel Hill, environmental education program sampling, music and entertainment, and food trucks... Read the full article