Entertainer and musician Sean Styles said he was frustrated to learn that the Jam on Walnut summer concert series in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood had been canceled.
“It’s a shame — they’ve spent decades cultivating this thing, the marketing is great,” he told TribLive. “People look forward to it every year. There’s going to be a lot of people that are upset about it.”
Jam on Walnut was an annual summer concert series and outdoor block party that transformed Walnut Street in Shadyside into a nighttime festival with live music, food and crowds filling the street. The event was typically held four or five times each summer.
The cancellation, announced this week by the Shadyside Chamber of Commerce, was driven by growing concerns over community safety, cleanliness, underage drinking and what the organization described as a “lack of capacity” by the previous nonprofit that ran the event. It was not immediately clear Friday which nonprofit the chamber was referencing.
The concerts raised money over the years for Animal Friends, an animal welfare organization. Officials there could not be reached for comment.
Matt Turbiner, co-owner of Shady Grove restaurant off of Walnut Street, said he was disappointed to hear the news.
“I think it’s a loss for the street,” he said. “I’ve seen nothing more than you would see at other social events.”
Jam on Walnut has been an integral part of Shadyside summers since the 1980s, said Gregg Caliguiri, Shady Grove co-owner.
“It’s always been a great event for the community,” said Caliguiri, who has lived mere feet away from Walnut Street for almost 30 years.
“We just want to keep it going,” he said. “I understand the concerns of some people in the neighborhoods.”
Turbiner said he’s never felt unsafe at Jam on Walnut or on Walnut Street in general and said he disagrees with the reasoning behind the cancellation.
“(There are) things that can be done to make things safer,” he said. “I’ve never felt unsafe; I’ve had my family at all of them.
“I have felt crowded that’s for sure, but that’s kind of the point.”
Turbiner said he believes Jam on Walnut was not at a point where anything was at risk.
The Shadyside Chamber of Commerce did not immediately return TribLive’s request for comment Friday.
In lieu of Jam on Walnut, the chamber said a new free summer music series will be held on Saturdays from June to September on Walnut Street, with the first one taking place from 3-6 p.m. on June 13.
Safety concerns
Known as lead singer “Spiffy” in his band Walk of Shame, Styles, of New Alexandria, has performed at Jam on Walnut several times.
“Every time I’ve ever been to Jam on Walnut, it’s been an amazing experience,” he said.
Youth violence has been increasingly permeating Pittsburgh, according to city leaders and officials.
Jeremy Waldrup, president and CEO of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, addressed this week what he called Downtown’s “youth safety challenge.”
“Like many urban centers across the country, Downtown Pittsburgh has been navigating a serious challenge as an increase in unsupervised teen gatherings has, at times, become unsafe,” he wrote. “Large groups, fights and chaotic incidents have created situations that put young people and the broader public at risk.”
Caliguiri attributed the recent uptick in problems elsewhere to broader conditions in the state of the world rather than to Jam on Walnut itself.
“I don’t think it reflects on that,” he said. “I think we have some genuine concerns from the neighbors about taking care of some issues, but we’ll work with the city. There’s gotta be a better way.”
Styles said there are valid concerns about underage drinking and violence.
“There are ways to police that in the community, and there are ways to coordinate that in the community, but also I understand not wanting to handle the liability of dealing with that … and it stinks, because again, everybody loses out.”
A lot of these issues have always existed, according to Styles, but more recently, they’re becoming more brazen, he said.
“They’re not even trying to hide it,” he said. “It’s just in the open … the last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself, and these young folks now don’t seem to care.”
A community affair
With thousands of people in the audience at every Jam on Walnut, Styles said, those numbers matter, especially to the remaining small businesses on Walnut Street.
”All those local businesses now are going to suffer,” Styles said. “They’re not going to get those big days where they’ve got 1,000 people there trying to buy drinks or order food or see their little shop on Walnut Street.”
Styles and his band have been compensated well at Jam. Performers could get between $1,000 and $4,000 to play, he said.
”You could afford that when you have 3,000 people there because all the businesses are involved, and the revenue that is generated from that pays for itself,” Styles said. “It’s also going to hurt the businesses because that is something that they’ve worked really, really hard for to make a sort of a staple of the calendar every year for 20 years, and now it’s not there.”
Turbiner said he’s been going to Jam on Walnut for about 25 years and had largely positive experiences.
During the four or five Jam on Walnut days every summer, Shady Grove has seen its highest sales generated for the entire summer, according to Turbiner.
“It’s a definitive amount of money we’re losing,” he said.
For Walnut Street businesses that feel they might not directly benefit from Jam on Walnut, Turbiner said the value may not be immediate profitability — particularly for retail shops closed in the evening — but rather visibility.
“It’s advertising for the street,” he said. “People are here — they are seeing your storefronts. I would say that one of the things that’s great about it is it brings things here.”
Accessibility of music
Jam on Walnut gave Pittsburghers — and people who came in for the concert series from outside the city — a chance to listen to free music, according to Styles.
“I’m angry,” he said. “(It’s) one of the events that a lot of people in Pittsburgh look forward to every year, especially in times where people don’t have, $200 to buy a concert ticket. … it’s a rough economic time.”
Attending Jam on Walnut, Styles said, was an accessible alternative for many people and families.
“It’s one less gig that we get to play a year, too, and one that we always look forward to … it’s an amazing experience,” he said. “There’s not a lot of things you could do in Pittsburgh, where first of all, it’s free … then you can just go and listen to live music.”
As a performer at Jam, Styles and his bandmates were instructed not to use expletives onstage and to keep the show family friendly.
“We want that to be an experience that is very inclusive of everybody,” he said. “That’s gonna hurt a lot because there’s not a lot of things that happen in Pittsburgh that are sort of all ages, everybody welcome, bring your puppy, bring your kids.”