New Kensington men enjoy brisk sales of 'I heart Biff' shirts
If you're from New Kensington, chances are you've seen it — "I (heart) Biff” spray painted on the side of the old General Electric building at the corner of Constitution Boulevard and Seventh Street.
The building is mostly demolished now, in the process of being torn down to make way for new uses, and the graffiti is gone.
But don't worry. "I (heart) Biff” lives on in T-shirt form.
"It started off as a joke,” said Rick Radvansky, the owner of RAR Sportswear in New Kensington. "It's just a funny thing that we came up with.”
"We” means Radvansky and his buddy Chris Lowe, both longtime New Kensington residents. The two decided to make T-shirts that sport the iconic graffiti because they knew it was something unique to New Kensington.
"Someone from out of town has no idea what you're talking about, but someone locally … laughs as soon as they see the shirt,” Radvansky, 55, said.
The graffiti had been on the side of the building that faces Freeport Road for at least 30 years. The building owners would paint over the illicit message, but it never stayed covered for long because people would just go back and redo it.
"I'm 42, and I remember it happening my whole life,” Lowe said. "(There were) maybe a couple weeks a month when it wasn't up there, but, boom. Somebody always came back and put it back up there.”
Neither man could clearly say who "Biff” is, but several people have reached out to share stories of his supposed origins.
Radvansky has heard that "Biff” could possibly be a deceased man by the name of Biff Cooper, but that's hearsay. Lowe said he's heard so many stories he doesn't know what could be true.
"(I heard) it was a girl that was in love with a guy, and she posted it on the wall,” Lowe said. "Another story I heard was that it was a girl from Burrell and a guy from Valley. He broke up with her, and he had to walk that way to school every day, so she wrote it on the wall. I've also heard that people just didn't want it to go away, so they wrote it.”
The T-shirts are designed to look like the old building. The color matches the building's, and the font of the 'I (heart) Biff' decal is identical to what was spray painted. The men ordered the shirts from California, and Radvansky added the decals at his shop.
"If you took it down there and put it next to a brick, you'd be pretty darn close,” Lowe said.
The shirts already have proved popular. They ordered seven dozen earlier this month, sold out, and had to order more.
Lowe said people ran up to his house to buy them during the annual Mt. Vernon community yard sale. He's even had requests to ship them as far away as Thailand.
"I never, ever thought that it was going to take off like this,” Lowe said. "I thought we'd sell a few shirts and that would be it.”
Radvansky also is surprised at the community reaction to the shirts.
"I figured we'd sell a few dozen of them, but it started to take off just because it's been there forever,” Radvansky said.
Lowe said the two will likely keep selling the shirts until the interest wears down or they come up with something different. In the future, they may hold a contest to win a free "I (heart) Biff” hooded sweatshirt. The winner would be the person who wears the shirt in the location farthest from New Kensington.
Lowe said the T-shirt could very well be a collector's item among residents.
"Maybe 'I (heart) Biff' will pop up somewhere else in the city, but it was always in the same spot for 30-some years,” he said. "As long as anybody can remember, it's been there.”
To purchase visit the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/I-heart-Biff-486352338454201/
Madasyn Czebiniak is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Madasyn at 724-226-4702, mczebiniak@tribweb.com, or via Twitter @maddyczebstrib.
