A frosty morning on one of the many Belgian-block streets in Beechview. In neighborhoods of this vintage (about the beginning of the twentieth century), Belgian block was usually reserved for steep hills like this one, and cheaper brick pavements used for the flat spots. Brick lasts almost as long as Belgian block, but it gives very poor traction in wet or icy conditions.
Late-afternoon sun catches a Route 42C train headed inbound across Dagmar Avenue on the Fallowfield Viaduct in Beechview. In rush hour, two-car trains run on all routes except 52. Route 42C will soon be the Red Line, according to the Transit Development Plan
In the nineteenth century, churches usually built their cemeteries outside the city. At the turn of the twentieth, when the rapidly expanding streetcar lines triggered a storm of new development all around Pittsburgh, many of those cemeteries ended up surrounded by crowded urban neighborhoods. This one in Beechview is not quite forgotten; someone comes to mow it two or three times a year, but much of it is so overgrown by now that it’s immune to the mower.
Many Pittsburghers from between the rivers firmly believe that streetcars are extinct in Pittsburgh. They are indeed extinct between the rivers, except where they run underground in the subway; but south of the Mon they still run on the street in Allentown and Beechview, and on their own right-of-way far out into the southern suburbs.
Above, a Route 42S car rolls outbound up Broadway in Beechview. Below, an inbound car begins its crossing of the viaduct between Fallowfield and Westfield.
Snow falls on a row of houses typical of Pittsburgh streetcar neighborhoods of the early 20th century (in this case, Beechview, where the streetcars have been running on the street for more than a century). One of the distinctive features of Pittsburgh domestic architecture is the surprising variety of brick colors.
