One of the streets named for great writers in the Schenley Farms section of Oakland; this writer happens to be the most famous of the lot because of his association with a well-known contest. Above, bronze letters in the sidewalk still mark where Lord Lytton meets Mr. Parkman. Below, the street, lined with beautiful turn-of-the-twentieth-century houses and mature sycamores, points straight toward the Cathedral of Learning.
To judge by other pictures of E. Martina plaques on line, a decorative surface of exposed pebbles seems to have been this contractor’s trademark style. This sidewalk is along 18th Street on the South Side.
The delightfully eclectic Pittsburgh Orbit site has made a thorough study of sidewalk plaques and stamps. It will open your eyes to a whole world of artistic treasures literally under your feet.
This tree has long since outgrown its little square of dirt along Jane Street on the South Side. Now it is meditating a hostile takeover of the sidewalk.
The sidewalk along Sidney Street, South Side. Old brick sidewalks are pleasant and picturesque; they do tend to be just irregular enough to be hazardous to pedestrians whose eyes are glued to their phone screens.
The base of a tree against a sidewalk in Schenley Farms.
Fall colors on the sidewalk of Jane Street.
The last block of Jane Street on the South Side Flats (as opposed to the resumed Jane Street on the Slopes side of the tracks) feels delightfully private, lined on the north side with charming Second Empire rowhouses facing an old herringbone-pattern brick sidewalk. The colors of the houses and flowers shine out all the brighter in the gloom of a rainy day.
Allegheny West is one of Pittsburgh’s most pleasant neighborhoods, and Beech Avenue may be the most delightful residential street in the whole city. The street is only two blocks long, but you would be hard pressed to find a better collection of domestic architecture on any street in the city. Add shady trees, a magnificent Gothic church at one end, and literary associations (Gertrude Stein was born here, and Mary Roberts Rinehart lived here when she wrote her most famous novel), and you can see why old Pa Pitt loves this street.
