Northside Mardi Gras kicks off this week with New Orleans-themed food specials, music and entertainment throughout the neighborhood. 

Thursday, Feb. 21

Northside Mardi Gras Kick-off Happy Hour at Threadbare

Threadbare is kicking off the annual Northside Mardi Gras, Pittsburgh’s only neighborhood-wide Mardi Gras celebration, with Happy Hour at Threadbare from 5-7pm on Friday, February 22nd! Enjoy $5 Mardi Gras Punch and Sazarac cocktails. Festive food specials for the evening include muffaletta pizza, and king cake! For more details, click here. For a full list of Northside Mardi Gras activities, click here.

Youth Prom Planning Committee Meeting at The Warhol

The Sixth Annual LGBTQ+ Youth Prom will be held at The Andy Warhol Museum on Saturday, June 1, 2019. Do you want your voice heard in the planning of the Prom? The Youth Prom Planning Committee meets regularly on a drop-in basis leading up to the LGBTQ+ Youth Prom. LGBTQ+ youth and allies, ages 13-20, are invited to attend. These meetings are the best way to get involved in the largest LGBTQ+ Youth Prom in Southwestern Pennsylvania! Meeting is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. in The Warhol’s education studio. The Warhol provides transportation support, food, and a Prom ticket to all Planning Committee Members, whether you attend one meeting or all of them. For more information, click here. You can direct any questions to teens@warhol.org.

Art and Ballet with Karina Smigla-Bobinski at The Mattress Factory

Visual and performing arts collide for Art and… Ballet, with Mattress Factory Artist in Residence Karina Smigla-Bobinski. During this unique evening, art becomes the muse, as students from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School perform alongside Karina’s installation, “ADA.” The 40-minute performance will include a variety of vignettes choreographed by Jamie Murphy. Throughout the event, guests will also hear from Karina herself. She’ll discuss her career, practice and the inspiration behind “ADA.” This event is FREE for everyone, but registration is required. Click here to register. For more information, visit the Facebook event page.

Track Meet at the Ill Royale (Open Cypher) at Young Brothers Bar

Track Meet is an interactive hip hop experience that combines freestyle rapping, art, dancing and more into the cypher. Beatsmith Relay is a live beat cypher where three producers play beats in rotation featuring Charlie Scott, Edon Jacobs and DrGoo with Sena Jane Thompson on violin plus an Open Mic Cypher – Come Get on the Mic. No list – just show up and spit. More information here.

Friday, Feb. 22

Boilermaker Jazz Band at Allegheny City Brewing

As part of Northside Mardi Gras, join us as we host 3 members of the Boilermaker Jazz Band at ACB! No cover. Good times, good music, good beer. Also, Pgh Tortas Food Truck will be out front from 6-9ish, so show up early to grab a bite! For more event information, click here.  For a full list of Northside Mardi Gras events, click here.

Poke-Oke (Karaoke with Pokemon Friends) at Scratch Food & Beverage

Join Team Firestorm and go out for a night of fun and entertainment and make some of the area’s top trainers sing in front of their (hopefully not-unfortunate) audience! No requirements for trainers to get up and sing, only if they want! Any trainer that sings will be entered to win a prize! More information here.

Saturday, Feb. 23

Mexican War Streets Progressive Dinner

The Mexican War Streets Progressive Dinner is an annual Mexican War Streets Society tradition that helps people get out of their houses in the winter and meet their neighbors, both new and old. Participants will break out into small groups to have different parts of a meal at different host homes. MWSS provides all the wine and extras, while everyone pitches in with the food. Each person in a group contributes a part of the meal: an appetizer, salad, entree, or dessert. For more information, click here.

Tom Kurlander & Friends at City Books

Please join City Books at 7 p.m. to welcome Tom Kurlander and his band back to the bookstore! Tom has released two full length LPs entitled Work and Sugar Burn Sessions. He tours both as a solo acoustic artist and with his band. With him on Feb 23 will be multi-award winning guitarist Sean L. Spicer and rising star conductor/composer Kyle Simpson. The event is free, but donations to the nonprofit 21voices.org will be accepted at the door. Help to heat up the bookstore on a cold night! More information here.

Sunday, Feb. 24

Allegheny Black History Walking Tour

The Allegheny City Society invites you to come out and celebrate Black History on the Northside! Learn the stories of local men and women who fought against racism and discrimination. Topics include: Avery College, founder Charles Avery and important faculty and alumni; Underground Railroad, Fugitive Slave Act, and Civil War soldiers; Brown A.M. E. church; public education and employment opportunities; the Great Migration; social and charitable organizations; integration of swimming pools; and upcoming placement of the Avery Bell in a new community garden space. After the walk we will stop off at Deutschtown’s Allegheny City Brewing Company to sample their craft beer selections. Event information available here.

The Gun Show at Quantum Theatre

Quantum Theatre’s rendition of E.M. Lewis’s “The Gun Show (Can we talk about this?),” doesn’t take sides. Instead, it invites discussion. The Gun Show is a thoughtful one-man play excavating the playwright’s own complicated relationship to gun culture. Tonight’s performance is on the Northside at the West Hall of the Allegheny Campus of CCAC at 7 p.m. For more information, or to purchase your tickets, visit The Gun Show event page.

Have an event you’d like us to feature online in the Northside Happenings? Every week on our website, we announce free or almost-free events happening in the Northside on Thursdays through Sundays. Email a paragraph detailing the name of the event, location, specifics and a website or contact information to editor@thenorthsidechronicle.com. Deadline is 4 p.m. on the Wednesday before the weekend.