Monday, January 12, 2004

In a city lousy with pessimists, the members of Ground Zero stand out with their beer-fueled optimism.

Almost four years ago, this quirky, wisecracking, establishment-baiting, late-to-bed and late-to-rise disorganization started getting together Thursday nights at the Chart Room Cafe, a no-frills bar on a battered stretch of Forbes Avenue.

"Revitalizing Downtown one beer at a time" was their motto, and many were the $2 bottles of Iron City and Yuengling that disappeared as they conjured a mega-party in a great old building or a new weekend bus route.

So last week, when these irregulars in the war against "global blanding" found the doors of the Chart Room shut, it seemed a defeat -- at least to me. So I drove a pair of them, Pat Clark and Darcy Trunzo, to the Upper St. Clair home of the bar owners Thursday afternoon to find out what was up.

There, in the driveway of Zacharias and Mary Vlahos' home, we heard an answer like so many other answers from longtime saloon-keepers, in this or any other town. Seventeen years of working six days a week was enough. Zach Vlahos is ready to retire. Mary is talking to her mom, the co-owner of the building at 310 Forbes, about whether they will sell or lease, but the Vlahoses say they're too old to overhaul the business.

It was a bit stunning to hear a Pittsburgh couple pass on the chance to blame Mayor Tom Murphy for their troubles, but there it was, simply the natural passing of a small business.

"I was going to call you," Mary Vlahos said apologetically to Clark.

Clark was just glad to hear they were OK, and said he might know people who would want to buy a Downtown bar. By that afternoon, some members of Ground Zero were e-mailing each other like kids in those old Mickey Rooney movies where everyone gets together at the old barn to put on a show.

"Maybe we could at least still hold events down there and get a beer sponsor to raise money," one guy wrote, "raise enough money to get the owners back in gear. Maybe once the Chart Room can raise enough funds to get back in biz, Ground Zero can create a Chart Room Advisory board and ... "

Yeah, right. Let's see if we can take a building assessed at $277,700 and make it a clubhouse. Sounds like Plan Z.

There wasn't enough Yuengling in the Smithfield Cafe Thursday night to make that idea seem workable to the dozen or so Ground Zeroes who showed. But they hoped someone could see this untapped potential, because their Thursday beer money needed a home.

These are hard times in Pittsburgh. It has been more than three years since Murphy's Downtown revitalization plan crumbled of its own weight, and those of us who argued for a more incremental approach have watched things get incrementally worse.

The Waterfront, just over the Monongahela from the city, which opened the year the grandiose plan for the Golden Triangle collapsed, now has some of the national names that city planners had wooed. But The Waterfront opened on a cleared 270-acre site with free parking. The city is a different animal. Boosters who currently seek more housing and a small supermarket Downtown have a more realistic approach. Cities are organic. Places come and go.

"I'm going to miss all that wood and the windup cymbals monkey behind the bar," Clark said of the Chart Room.

But his friend, Matt Knoblock, suggested everyone give up "all hipster fantasies" about running a bar and follow him into Hubs Pub in Lawrenceville this Thursday night. Among Knoblock's e-mailed house rules:

Nobody says "regionalism" unless they're prepared to get their teeth kicked in.

Turn and stare at anyone who enters the bar, murmuring.

Anybody who says anything about strategies to keep youth in Pittsburgh gets a boot in the [three letter-word for fatty nether region].

With such wise counsel, the city is bound to bounce back. Meantime, a memo to owners and prospective owners of authentic urban bars: A Thursday night crowd has been cut loose. They respond to public policy debates, popcorn and $2 beer. My guess is they won't roam far.

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