Downtown Pittsburgh business owners clean up, try to comprehend riot damage

Josephine Sanchez understands why people are demonstrating to protest the death of George Floyd. What she can’t comprehend is the rioting and looting that happened in Pittsburgh on Saturday.

Protesters smashed through windows of Cardamone’s Hair Salon owned by Sanchez and partner Joe Cardamone, and broke into the store at Wood Street and Forbes Avenue, Downtown.

Cardamone said they damaged equipment, and he suspected they stole items. He had yet to take inventory Monday morning.

“We’ve had window damage before, but nothing like this,” Sanchez said, adding the salon has been in the same location for 43 years. “I think it’s just hard for all of us. To not have worked for three months and then to have this happen, it just makes it a little disheartening. I never understand why people think violence will ever fix anything.”

City officials said protesters Saturday damaged 71 businesses across the city, set fire to two police cars and pelted officers with stones and bricks. Officials and building owners said they could not immediately provide damage cost estimates.

Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said rioters smashed windows of a police substation on Liberty Avenue. The station remained closed Monday, and Hissrich said he was unsure when it might reopen.

Across the city, building owners nailed up plywood to protect windows from possible damage and cleaned graffiti from exteriors. Plywood barriers surround The Tower at PNC Plaza and the other PNC office towers, all located in the Downtown areas where property damage took place Saturday. Numerous storefronts in Downtown were boarded up.

A crew was power- washing obscene graffiti from the outside walls of the historic Frick Building on Grant Street. Shawn Forcucci, labor foreman for DraxxHall Management Corp., which manages the building, said the black spray paint was difficult to remove.

“For us it was just the graffiti,” he said. “They didn’t break the windows or do anything else.”

The windows of City News Outlet on Wood were covered with plywood, but employee John Vazquez said it was there as a protective measure.

“We were one of the lucky ones,” he said. “They passed us by. It’s a shame with everything going on with the virus and we have to go through this.”

Jen Grippo, owner of the Original Oyster House, said a man threw a brick through a front window of the landmark tavern in Market Square on Saturday.

“We have that all on video and we gave it to the police,” she said.

She kept the brick.

“I’m keeping it as a memento,” she said. “I figured it would be a nice paper weight.”

The damage was bad enough, Grippo said, but on Sunday a woman sneaked into the bar and rifled through her purse while she and staffers were busy cleaning up the mess. Grippo said she saw the woman leaving the building and held her until police arrived.

Lou Nedz, a maintenance worker for the Manor Building on Forbes Avenue, said looters smashed windows of Big Daddy’s convenience store in the building and stole the cash register and lottery strip tickets.

“They’re not going to be able to win anything because (the tickets) have been canceled,” he said. “They found the register and it still had some money in it. Crazy.”