Fun, Food and Finds at the Neighborhood Flea
The free outdoor event in Pittsburgh’s Strip District features a number of local vendors.
This isn’t your typical flea market.
Sure, there are vintage finds, but the Neighborhood Flea, an eclectic urban marketplace — which pops up on the second Sunday of each month through October — also features a mix of handmade goods, art, housewares, natural bath and body products, jewelry, workshops, coffee, food and more.
This month’s free event takes place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, in the parking lot on 23rd Street between Smallman Street and Penn Avenue in the Strip District.
In addition to a roundup of food trucks, there will be a mobile sculpture workshop, plus tunes by DJ EZ Lou.
The Neighborhood Flea has been popping up in the Strip since 2014. For more information, including a list of Sunday’s vendors, visit neighborhoodflea.com.
Growing Garden
The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden has a new leader.
On Aug. 1, Keith Kaiser became the garden’s interim president. A graduate of The Ohio State University with a degree in ornamental horticulture, Kaiser spent 27 years at Fellows Riverside Gardens, a 12-acre public display garden in Youngstown, Ohio. Prior to that, he worked at Kingwood Center Gardens and Cleveland Botanical Garden.
He also participates in the American Public Gardens Association and recently served as chair for the Small Gardens Section and host of the Small Gardens Professional Development Symposium.
“The Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is an exciting young garden that has completed so much in the short period of time it has been open,” Kaiser says in a press release. “I look forward to expanding the role of public horticulture in the greater western Pennsylvania community.”
He replaces former interim president Christine Koebly, who recently joined the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh as the director of finance.
Located on 460 acres of former mining land near Oakdale, the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden is being transformed by horticulturists into a premier garden featuring 18 distinct gardens, a visitor’s center, an amphitheater for outdoor concerts and more.
The garden’s first 60 acres, including a restored acid mine drainage pond, opened year-round to the public in 2015.
