University Times

The UP Gallery at the corner of Forbes Avenue and Bouquet Street will serve as a Pitt police sub-station for all but a few weeks of the next year, thanks to an agreement between the campus police and the Department of Studio Arts.

Pitt Assistant Police Chief Gary Moses called the sub-station, which opened this week, "a very visible, well-lit mini-station right at the corner of Forbes and Bouquet" — an area dominated by the Original Hot Dog Shop, and a frequent trouble spot in the past, especially during clashes between college students and local youths.

Campus police will continue to patrol the area on foot and from cars and bicycles, Moses said. "The new station won't replace those activities," he said. Rather, it will increase the Pitt police force's presence on Forbes Avenue and give students and others a place to seek help and report crimes and suspicious activities, Moses said.

Community relations officers will be assigned to the sub-station from 9 a.m. to 4 a.m. Should the officer on duty be called away and the station locked, persons will be able to use the emergency telephone that will be installed outside the building.

"This way, if students are walking along Forbes Avenue and they see something or someone suspicious, or they don't feel safe, they can come into the mini-station or call from the emergency phone instead of walking back to their dorms," Moses pointed out.

The building that houses the UP Gallery is targeted for demolition next summer to make way for Pitt's new multipurpose academic complex. (The complex itself will house a street-level campus police mini-station.) "Our understanding from the administration was that the building would be torn down during this past summer," said studio arts chairperson Michael Morrill. "So, as a result, we didn't schedule any exhibitions there — with one exception. Our annual exhibition of student work will be in there for three weeks in April. But otherwise, the gallery would just have been sitting there unused this year.

"When I was approached by Dick Howe [associate dean for administration in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences] about letting the campus police use the gallery as a temporary sub-station, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. It's an ideal location for them." Moses estimated that renovating the gallery for campus police use and installing the emergency phone will cost the University $500-$800.

— Bruce Steele