It has been a tumultuous year for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, but now the center is turning things around.

And tonight, we'll show you what has changed and what they have planned for 2005.

Also tonight, an impressive expansion is transforming the Children's Museum into one of the most innovative museums for children in the country.

And were going to take you inside next so stay connected.

Welcome to On Q magazine.

I'm Stacy Smith.

The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts has long been a place of pride in the community, a place where local artists showcase and sell their work, where the public can take classes.

But last summer, the center made headlines when it shut down for financial reasons.

And that, of course, upset a lot of people.

But now the center has reopened with a new lineup of exhibitions and classes.

Tonight On Q, contributo Cindy Hsu Han looks into the fut of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts in our cover story.

Its a familiar sight to anyone who travels Fifth and Shady avenues in Squirrel Hill.

This bright yellow building is home to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.

Known for its art galleries and classes The center recently fell on hard times.

So hard, in fact, that last year it had to close because of skyrocketing debt.

More than a dozen workers lost their jobs.

A lot of it had to do with just drops in enrollment within the school.

Some of it had to do with expenses that were rooted in a infrastructure or physical infrastructur that's been in need of repair, and resources had to be put into that.

It just and it escalated over a period of time.

But now, the center is on the re Thanks in part to the dedication of patrons, volunteers, and the Pittsburgh Filmmakers in Oakland.

And my office is right above it in a sun porch.

Charlie Humphrey heads the Filmmakers.

It's a nonprofit school for studying film and video.

Humphrey also devotes part of his time to reviving the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, in the hopes that the two organizations can merge by the end of the year.

If you think about it, they both have very similar missions.

They both have extensive exhibition programs for the arts.

They both have extensive education programs for the arts, and they both serve the interests of individual artists.

I mean those are their primary goals.

Those are the primary missions.

Once the merger is complete, both organizations will be able to retain their own distinct identities.

It'll be one board of directors.

There will be separate boards for each organization.

And the most important thing to remember is that the Center for the Arts will maintain its identity.

It's not going to change its name.

It's not going to change its mission.

It's not going to suddenly become, you know, Pittsburgh Filmmakers East.

So is it safe to say that people can expect this center to stay open now?

And there's a lot of money that still has to be raised.

But having said that, I think we're very much on the right track.

Now, you also have a little bit of a personal link to this building and to its history.

Well, I do.

Yes.

My great grandfather built this house and my grandmother was the last of seven children to be born and raised in this house.

And they were the only family that ever actually lived in this house.

It was given by my famil to the city in the early 1940s.

Then the Center for the Arts was formed in 1945.

But I've walked through this building with my grandmother.

In fact, her wedding photograph is on these very step that I'm sitting on right now.

And what's her name?

Jane Marshall Fisher.

And so it was the Marshall family.

Yes.

That owned Charles Donnell Marshall House.

And he was a business partner with the with the Mellons.

He was a structural steel engineer.

Ran some Steel Mills.

The home has undergone many changes over the years.

There are now rooms for art exhibition, a gift shop, and offices.

There's also the Scaife Mansion next door, where art classes are taught.

But the Center is more than a place for art, its also where special events like wedding receptions are held.

And now that the Center and the school are slowly getting back on their feet, some laid off staff members an instructors are being rehired.

And what they're doin with color and composition and and pattern, I think is really exciting.

I mean.

Laura domestic lost her job here last year.

Today, she helps run the place.

We have a staff of five people at this point.

In August there was a staff of 13.

And, when everybody was laid off, there was literally one person on staff when Charlie came on in early October.

Then I was hired.

What kind of feedback have you heard from people about this place?

It just that they just can't see it not being here.

I mean, that's the biggest thing, is that it's just so important that, that it would just be suc an enormous loss for the city.

An artist herself, Laura is excited about the lineup of new exhibitions scheduled for this year.

This, sort of, fresh energy in this room.

Right Yeah.

One of the things that I really like about this show is that there's a lot of new work, new artists that haven' necessarily shown here before.

So I think that's one of the things we want to open the Center up to.

And, in the future, you're looking to sort of mix that up with the older artists that you've had.

Of course.

I mean, it's not that really changing mission, or anything.

It's more of a melding of the two.

We have our core artists, our guild artists are very important to us, and we want to maintain that.

The Center for the Arts has always received lots of support from its volunteers.

When Loretta Stanish of Squirrel Hill heard the center was reopening, she immediately volunteer to help.

And when I read that Charlie Humphrey had stepped forward to act as executive director, I contacted him and said you know, I'd love to help you.

What can I do?

And he said, really?

Will you run our holiday shop?

It's been fun.

Everyone's been so nice.

And I mean, I think it's been an important part of the resurrection of the PCA.

And that resurrection includes changes in the look of the mansion.

At the first opportunity, I think we're going to retur the house to its original color, which was, just off white, mostly white.

There's some other things we have to do first.

Is there any one thing tha you feel the most excited about for the future here?

I'm really excited about opportunitie for the Center to do two things.

One, to collaborate with other organizations, not just with Pittsburgh Filmmakers and some of the exciting programs.

I think that could come out of that.

But to collaborate with other arts organizations as well, visual arts organizations.

The other thing that excites me is just the sens that we have an opportunity here to recreate something out of almost nothing.

I mean, when you close the doors, you begin at zero again, and there's something to be said for that.

Charlie Humphrey expects the merger between the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and the Pittsburgh Filmmakers to be complete by either November or December of this year.

And as you heard earlier, Charlie and the board of directors overseeing the facilities remain committed to keeping both organizations separate.

And I think, Stacy, the basic goal is to get the center so that it's self-sustaining.

And there's a big event planned for what, tomorrow night?

Yes.

They have a gala reception.

They're finally really up to speed.

So they're celebrating that with I think six new exhibitions opening.

They've got collaborations with the Mendelssohn Gallery in Shadyside, they're working with th Pittsburgh Watercolor Society, and the classes are all full throttle.

They've got 60 new classes going for the winter.

It sounds like everything is up to speed.

Yeah, and people are excited about that because they didn't realize till it closed that they were missing some of these things.

Exactly.

Sending thanks so much.

Look forward to your next report.

Okay.

Still to come.

You may have read about the big expansion, but wait until you see it.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh just completed a $28 million makeover.

On Q is going to take you on a tour coming up and then also coming up a little bit later.

You have heard the familiar question.

Can you hear me now?

Well, you're going to meet a local woman who roams the highways in the byways checking cell phone signals.

It's all coming up, so stay connected.

You're watching On Q magazin because these foundations care enough about local programing to help pay for it.

The Howard Heinz Endowment the Richard King Mellon Foundati The McCune Foundation.

The Pittsburgh Foundation.

The Hillman Foundation.

The Grable Foundation.

And these corporations.

Also support On Q. PNC grow up great.

Preparin young people for school and life so that an entire generation won't just grow up.

They'll grow up great.

Have a greater hand in your health.

With Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.

And we couldn't do it without you.

The members of WQED Now, one of the region's most popular attractions has a new look.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh recently completed a $28 million expansion.

And if you have yet to see this impressive makeover, On is about to take you on a tour that could mak you want to see the real thing.

The Children's Museum opened in 1993, in this building, and was only in the basemen of the old Post Office building.

I have the Buhl Planetarium next door to us.

It had been vacant since 1991.

And we realized that we were going to be agent of change in the neighborhood, and we had to do something with that building.

On the left side is the old post office building, which was an 1890s building.

The middle building is the 21st century building that we just built.

And then the last building is in 1939, Buhl Planetarium.

And we think that it's the only museum that actually spans three centuries.

The project took us from a 20,000 square foot tiny little museum to an 80,000 square foot facility.

I'm Jane Werner, and I'm the Executive Director of the Children's Museum.

I'm actually in the old building of the original building of the Children's Museum.

And what's going on is that the entire first floor is a studio, and we have open access to art materials, kits.

We have printmaking We have all different kinds of printmaking.

We have silk screening, painting so kids could paint their hearts out.

And papermaking.

We're making paper.

The climbing thing is actually the one of the original exhibits.

We wanted to leave a touchstone here at the museum that said, this is still your place Mr.

Rogers Neighborhood was produced in 1998, was funded by the Grable Foundation.

We worked with Fred and we worked with Family Communications to produce that exhibit.

I think when I walk into that room, I wonder what Fred would think about the whole museum and hope that he would be proud of it.

Kids really love to play with puppets in Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

They can be King Friday or Queen Sarah.

Some grea drama happens between the kids because they know the character so well.

so I think what's really great is to see parents who grew up with Fred, playing with their children, who are growing up with Fred.

And there's it's kind of nice, you know, when you remember your childhood, that's the first step in really understanding what your kids are going through.

And I think that space, we can really see it has.

That attic is all about perception.

Walk into a room that's on an angle, and your whole world kind of slides one way.

Everything looks straight on, but everything in your body is saying Im tilted Im tilted Im tilted.

The balls run uphill in that room.

It's a real bizarre mix of the senses sliding down the bowling alley slide is a real trip, very fast, with a real kick at the end.

The Children's Museum commissioned half $1 million wort of interactive artwork and Text.

Brain is one of those pieces.

The letters fall from the ceiling.

If you put your arms out, you can catch them into words and sentences.

I've seen grandparents.

They're working to get the whole poem together, but then I've also seen three year old walk in and just bounce letters because they're learning their letters.

Garage Workshop is our area to build things, In the woodshop they can just work on counting nails.

Simple skills like that.

The Climber is all about getting people up into that grand planetarium space.

The ball machine are just beach balls.

They kind of go all the way up to wires and they wrap around the planetarium.

But Water Pla is a great area because it works so well for so many different ages.

This my boat!

And you can see the kids are building boats and then they test them out in the water.

They use the blowers to blow them across or they sink them which is my favorite thing to do to sink the boat in the whirlpool.

The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is the first green children's museum in the country.

100% of our energy is renewable.

All of our material that have gone into the project are either recycled or green of some kind.

I mean, if we're goin to be talking about the future, then we better be talking abou the future environmentally too.

Weve accomplished something different.

And I'm very proud of that.

And I'm very proud of the staff who did it.

I know this place is a success because I can hear the kids.

It's important for the future that kids have healthy experiences and experiences that make them grow and think and change and have something to talk to their parents about.

It's just so much fun.

To really watch the delight in the kids faces, it's a privilege that I don't take lightly.

Its the best job in Pittsburgh.

Now, funding for the expansion came from the states, the foundation, and corporate communities, as well as individual donors.

The museum has an impressive list of partners working on behalf of children, including Reading is Fundamental, Child Watch, the Saturday Light Brigade.

Pittsburgh Public Schools has plans for two pre-K classes in the museum, and the University of Pittsburgh has already has a learning lab there to research how children learn in a museum setting.

And for more information on the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, there is a link at our website WQED.org Click the On Q button on the first page.

Now, still to come an On Q story that you asked to see again, featuring the popular commercial catch phrase can you hear me now?

It's coming up next, so stay connected.

There's an easy way to get information on our recent stories or find out about upcoming guests.

You can get web addresses or phone numbers we've given, and you can send us your viewer comments.

Just go to our website, WQED.org and click On Q. When viewers request, we respond.

Is there an On Q story you think bears repeating One you heard about from friends?

Or maybe missed the first time around?

Let us know by logging on to our website WQED.org.

Then click On Q to submi your request for an On Q story.

This next story is a viewer's request, one that so many of you asked to see again We're going to honor your request.

Now, chances are you're using your cell phone more and more these days, probably even more than your landline.

And cell phones are great when they work, but they can also be very frustrating if the call doesn't go through.

While we have seen the commercials can you hear me now?

And a couple of months ago, On Q, Tonya Caruso caught up with a woma who does that job in real life.

Can you hear me now?

Good.

Yeah.

Good, good, good.

Because Verizon Wireless works on making it good with 60 real testers nationwide who roam thousands of miles.

They make more than 300,00 phone calls each year to ensure that everyone can hear me now.

Now.

Now, Now Sue Godlewski is one of those te She's a baseline technicia engineer for Verizon Wireless.

Her office is this SUV where she spends eight hours a day, five days a week driving throughout the Pittsburgh region, tracking cell phone signals.

My goa would be to detect any network problems, any dead zones, so that I can bring the information back to the engineers so that we can troubleshoot and add capacity enhancements, or possibly a tower, so that we keep our customers fully satisfied.

To do that, Verizon installed some pretty expensive high tech equipment in Sue's car.

This is the voice testing equipment and we have eight phones, four in either box that are connected to eight antennas and a GPS that's on the roof.

And all of the phones are connected to a laptop computer in the front.

Oh my God.

Okay, so now you have you have everything here, not only Verizon but your competitors as well.

We have all the major competitors from Western PA.

And why is this?

What do you do with this?

Where do you go from here?

We test all of the competitor and Verizon for signal strength, voice quality, lost calls, and ineffective attempts.

So that we can see where we rank and how well we're doing.

Today, Sue is covering the area along route 50 through South Fayette Township.

Every month, she drives between 2 and 3000 miles.

We get lists from the Department of Transportation of the most commonly travele roads in western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and they decide which roads should be tested that have the most traffic and the most people on.

I have different markets.

I have eight different markets that I do.

The pit metropolitan service area is all local Pittsburgh as far north as route 422 and as far south as the West Virginia border.

And that actual market is done every other month.

And my other markets which go as far north as Erie, as far east as Altoona, they're split up and they're all done four times a year.

The boss ran the show with a watchful eye.

He ran halfway to the hardware store The boss ran the show with a watchful eye.

He ran halfway to the hardware store.

What are we hearing?

The club cracked, shelled its contents.

Well, theyre phonetically balanced test sentences known as Harvard sentences.

They're designed to measure speech clarity during cell phone noise.

It's one of the ways Verizon tests the quality of their wireless reception on television all the time.

We see Can you hear me now?

Do you ever say tha in the course of your workday?

No, I don't say that.

The phones communicate with a local landline that's connected to a computer in the office, and they have eight sentences that vary with syllables.

Audio range four male voices, four female voices that simulate actual calls.

These days, the chicken leg is a rare dish its tell the depth of a well.

The system also checks how successfully calls are connecte and how long you stay connected.

The calls for each phone last two minutes.

30 seconds, which is the average length of a cell phone call.

These are normal phones that you can go in to any local provider store and buy.

They're not adjusted in any way.

The equipment does not enhance or alter the performance of the phones.

It just automates everything so that I can actually drive the route, and all of the phones can operate at once.

Sue has a laptop that tracks everything.

She's constantly monitoring it, telling her when to pa attention in a particular area.

We have different things that affect the calls the terrain, hilly terrain, bridges, rivers.

Yeah rivers They carry signal strength a long way.

Different terrain effects that we have.

The green or.

I'm sorry, the green leaf effect.

The change of seasons.

So obviously, a snowstorm coul wreak havoc on signal strength.

When the leaves turn green, the signal strength doesn't get through as well as it did when the trees were bare.

So sometimes a network needs tweaking at that point.

We also have what we call the orange barrel effect.

It's the construction.

Because normally with construction, there's detours and traffic jams.

And the first thing that people do when you're sitting in traffic, in a traffic jam, you grab your cell phon and you want to call somebody.

So that adds capacity on to towers and cell sites that we weren't expecting.

At the end of the day, Sue maps out her data, looking for the areas in need of improvement.

And even though Sue doesn't look like the can you hear me now guy It's always the same question.

Can you hear me now?

The first thing they say is, can you hear me now?

Can you hear me now?

I get a lot of people who say, you don't look like the test guy.

When I get into details, I tr to explain it in layman's terms so that they can understan that we do all of this testing so that we can enhance our network so that we can be the best, so that we can provide the best to our customers.

Can you hear me now?

Good, good, good.

Can you hear me now?

How's that job for a conversation starter?

And Stacy, Sue tells us that whenever you travel through an area and you're having problems, your phone, your cell phone drops out.

You should call your phone company or service provider and let them know so they can better serve you.

And it's kind of interesting.

Who would ever think.

Sue said to me she never thought this would be a job that she would do.

Meaning everybody is so relying on cell phones these days.

Who would have thought that this would be a job that would actuall be very important, very needed.

And I presume other companies do the same thing?

Yeah, pretty much every company has some sort of system that they use to test cell phone calls.

Similar, probably not exact, but there are people out there driving, making sure that we can hear ourselves.

Now, what should you do if you happen to pick your phone rings, you pick it up.

And what's the line?

Oh.

That was my favorite.

There were so many lines.

These days, Chicken legs are a rare dish.

A rare dish.

Harvard Sentences has in that sentence all the phonetics.

And they test them with male and female voices so that they're hopefully checking every part of a sentence and hopefully making sure that they work in the skies with all the satellites up there.

Well, I don't know what you're doing after the program.

Maybe we can get some chicken legs or something.

There you go.

There are rare dish.

They are a rare dish.

All right.

Thanks Tonya.

And now here's a look at what's happening tomorrow night On Q. By popular demand, On Q is Off Q. live at 7:30 on Friday nights.

Tomorrow night Off Q regulars Alan Cox from 105.9 the X Fred Honsberger from KDKA radio and Ruth Ann Dailey from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Sound off on the news of the week with special guest Sonya Tole from the New Pittsburgh Courier.

It's Off Q Live at 7:30 tomorrow night on WQED TV 13.

Stay connected.

And thank you for watching.

And be sure to tune in live a 7:30 tomorrow night for Off Q. Stay connected and have a good night.