Audio File
Transcript
My name is Pernell Blackburn Jr. I’m 12 years old.
My name is Demond Briston. I’m 14 years old.
My name is Sheridan McHenry. I’m 17 years old.
We interviewed Justin Strong on August 13th, 2014.
Grew up in Point Breeze on Mead St., family environment. Our block in particular in Point Breeze is very mixed. You had every shade and color and then, you know, neighbors or just different groups of people, different economic status. You had a lesbian couple with an Indian daughter and you had my Spanish teacher around the corner. So it’s just like you had everybody on that one block. So I grew up with a perspective of just treating people fairly and getting to know them and not having preconceived notions. Grew up in the family business, “Strong Dry Cleaners.” We’re located on Ferguson Ave. in Homewood now. Mother was a teacher for 40 years in public schools systems. Our house was a place for parties and hosting events and get-togethers since my grandparents lived with us and Sunday dinners and birthday parties, all that fun stuff. Went to Allderdice, graduated in ‘96. I guess middle class, I’m not sure we describe it as, but you know, always active. Was involved in music and sports, played the drums since I was 8. Actually went to lessons to the old African American Music Institute, got involved in the marching band and wrestling when I was at ‘Dice. Back-to-back city champs in wrestling.
University of Pittsburgh for 4 1/2 years and I dropped out, I actually opened up the Shadow Lounge while I was at Pitt, so a lot of the precursors to Shadow Lounge, throwing events and parties of that nature, started probably like ‘98 and then got bored with class and theories and just decided to sign a lease for a room in East Liberty and start throwing parties there and and then one day I was in class and I just walked out and just stopped going. Don’t do that by the way. Pretty much known for starting the Shadow Lounge in Ava in East Liberty, a bomb in Highland ran as a music venue and bar and lounge for little over 13 years, and then we wrapped up Shadow Lounge March of 2013 and moved to Ava from East Liberty to North Oakland last year. I think when I was 16, I said I wanted to have a club by…I was 21, so I did that. Yeah. I just always wanted to just kind of create businesses and provide services and things that didn’t exist in Pittsburgh. So a lot of things we did was against the norm of the Pittsburgh nightlife scene. And people said it couldn’t get done. And we did it. And then we just move on to the next thing.
I think, my first business, I think I was 16. So I just always was around business. So we were designing and selling T-shirts, or selling Twizzlers out the locker or, back in the day, they had these phone cards that we sold. These prepaid phone cards that you guys will look at now and say “Why would someone buy that?” But it’s like “$0.25 a minute. Boy, that was a deal!” Showing my age. Yeah, so I just always around business, always trying something.
I have a company; it’s called 7th Movement Development LLC. It’s a entertainment and retail development firm and it kind of is a parent company to a couple other different projects. Our main one is our cafe lounge called Ava, which is located in North Oakland. So, kind of cafe by day, and then we do in about four events a week at night. Everything from like live reggae bands to poetry nights to birthday parties, and eventually we’ll move our liquor license over there and be a full bar and restaurant. We have the family business with the cleaners and a lot of things are based off of just having relationships with people. If you treat people correctly and you have a good reputation, a good name, believe me, those things come back around when you’re in need and you’re trying to make connections. If you treat people poorly, it definitely will come back, especially in a city like Pittsburgh that’s small and really connected. So if you have a good rep, you can get things done very quickly, and if you have a bad rep, even if you have all the money in the world, it-it can hurt you.
Be a little bit crazy, but like a healthy crazy to kind of like go against the grain cause you’ll have 1000 people telling you why something won’t work and just kind of see your goal and you just got to be a little bit crazy enough to put in the long hours and the no pay, and then to kind of see the outcome, and just really not getting yourself down when things don’t work out. You know, I had to vacate my spot, that I kind of built up on the corner bomb in Highland for 13 years and start over again. But I kind of just used that as motivation. So it’s not about failures. It’s more like a lot of failures leads to success.