It’s time for a bonus episode! Pittsburgh Explainer editor Lucy Perkins interviews host Liz Reid and development & transportation reporter Margaret J. Krauss about another WESA podcast they worked on together: Land & Power.
Land & Power tells the story of a big apartment complex on the corner of Negley and Penn Avenues in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood called Penn Plaza. The apartments opened in 1967, but when gentrification crept into this historically Black area of the city, they were torn down. That was about 5 years ago. Local media covered the protests and public meetings that happened back then, but a few years later, WESA’s Margaret J. Krauss went back to the site. She talked to residents, developers, city officials and activists about the story that those headlines missed.
The series won a regional Edward R. Murrow award for best podcast this spring.