Father Pitt

Tag: Streetscapes

  • Eleanor Street, South Side Slopes

    One of Pittsburgh’s distinctive features is the huge number of public stairways. Many streets that appear on maps are actually stairways, like Eleanor Street here. In the early days of GPS navigation, trip instructions would often send drivers up or down these streets; but most GPS systems have now learned to recognize the streets that can accommodate pedestrians only.

    And bicycle cops. To be a Pittsburgh bicycle cop, you have to be able to ride down one of these stairways. If you are still alive at the bottom of it, you’re qualified.


    Map

    Open Street Map does a good job of showing the public stairways on the South Side Slopes. All the denser red dotted lines are stairways. The narrower, sparser dotted lines are walkways.

  • Sidewalks of Beech Avenue

    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.

  • Terraced Streets on the South Side Slopes

    Some neighborhoods are so steep that the only way to build a street parallel to the slope is to do it in two parts. These two streets on the South Side Slopes are on the list of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation historic landmarks, but they are not the only terraced streets in the city. The same thing happens in Beechview, for example, another neighborhood laid out in defiance of topography. Above is Stella Street; below, Shelly Street.

    Map

  • Greeley Street

    It is utterly absurd that anyone would think of running a street up into this deep and narrow ravine cut into the South Side Slopes; but this is Pittsburgh, and we make absurd adaptations to an absurd topography. How long before those enthusiastic wild grapes swallow those helpless little frame houses?


    Map

  • Mission Street

    Mission Street on the South Side Slopes looking westward toward St. Josaphat Church. The crowds of frame houses practically right against the street are typical of the neighborhood. By the standards of the Slopes, however, this is a luxuriously broad street.

  • Sixth Avenue

    A view of Sixth Avenue from the porch of the First Presbyterian Church, looking toward the Keenan Building with its fantastical dome. On the right in front of the Keenan Building are the Wood Street Galeries and Wood Street subway station.

  • Liberty Avenue from Seventh Avenue

    This is quite a stunning view for out-of-towners; Pittsburghers probably don’t realize how unusual it is to be confronted with such a well-preserved late-Victorian commercial streetscape, because we have quite a few of those.

  • Forbes Avenue, Oakland

    A 61C bus comes eastbound on Forbes Avenue toward the stop in front of the Carnegie Museum of Art. In the background we can see central Oakland, with two of the three Litchfield Towers, the distinctive cylindrical skyscraper dormitories.

  • Liberty Avenue at Stanwix Street

    If we put some imagination into this picture, we can see Liberty Avenue as it was in the middle 1800s, when it was the center of the wholesale food trade (which later moved out to the Strip). But the old storefronts from that era are dwarfed by the 12-storey Diamond Building at the end of the block, and that in turn is dwarfed by the later skyscrapers behind it.

    Camera: Canon PowerShot A540.

  • The Slopes Seen from the Flats

    The South Side Slopes are a vertiginous neighborhood of narrow streets crowded with little frame houses. Traditionally the neighborhood was mostly German Catholic, whereas the flats below were mostly East European. Above, we see the Slopes from the intersection of Sidney Street and 27th; below, a view from 24th Street that includes the back of the old St. Josaphat’s church.