Pages by James Simon

About Pgh Murals
Spreadsheet of Pittsburgh Public Art and blog archives
Map of Pittsburgh Public Art

Meet Pages. Pages sits by the door of the Millvale Community Library, ready to great their customers. James Simon – sculptor, artist, musician, and patron of Pittsburgh Arts in general – created this book–balancing schnauzer. The library held a naming contest for their concrete guard dog, and Pages was selected.

The new library (the first library ever for Millvale) opened in 2013. It was an all volunteer project and has really taken off in the past couple of years. Much more than books, this small community library offers so much to this community with various programs and activities. In Jan 2016 they became accepted as members of the Allegheny County Library Association. Congratulations to them!

It took several years for all of the plans and renovations on this old building to come to fruition to house this library. When we stopped to admire and photograph Pages back in 2013, we were graciously invited inside to see the progress, and the beautiful, ornate brackets acquired for the wood support beams. Red Star Iron Works is responsible for these. (They’re located just around the corner from where the new library is and have their own mural.)

They’re inside the library and seem a bit out of our scope of outdoor public art for this project, however they were quite remarkable and worth stopping by to see. They depict images from the area including the street car that used to run to Millvale.

The door handles are another very cool artistic addition to the library. These creations were also custom made for the library by Red Star Iron Works and they turned out beautifully!

The inscriptions read as follows:

women who build nations learn to love men who build nations learn to love children building sand castles by the rising sea
Language is courage The ability to conceive a thought to speak it and by doing so make it true SR

Of course we can't ignore the bike rack installed out front, another of Red Star Iron Works creations. How cool is this?

For information on the library and it's programs, see their website or their Facebook page.