Looking up Walbridge Street from Main Street in the West End.
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Walbridge Street, West End
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Bloomfield in 1999
Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield, as it appeared in 1999. The picture was taken with an old folding Kodak Tourist camera.
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Looking North on Washington Road
Looking north from Alfred Street on Washington Road, Uptown Mount Lebanon, toward the tower of St. Bernard’s.
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Art Deco Row, East Liberty, 1999
East Liberty was down on its luck at the end of the twentieth century, but this row was still filled. The buildings have not changed much since then, fortunately, since this is one of the better Art Deco streetscapes in Pittsburgh, which never really embraced Art Deco as much as many other cities did. Surprisingly enough, Sam’s (no longer Bostonian) Shoes is still here; the terra-cotta tiles have disappeared from the front of that building. Its neighbor Anthon’s is also still in business. Most of the rest of the businesses in the row have changed, but the buildings are still there, and since East Liberty is a trendy neighborhood now, they have a good chance of preservation.
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The Boulevard
Brookline Boulevard, known simply as “the Boulevard” in the neighborhood, is the broadest commercial street in Pittsburgh—which surprises visitors from flat cities, where it would be at best a middling business street. It’s a curiously one-sided business strip: almost all the businesses are on the southwest side, the northeast side being primarily residential.
That may be because, for much of the neighborhood’s life, it was effectively two streets. When trolleys ran in Brookline, Brookline Boulevard was two narrow strips for cars, with trolleys in a separate median in the middle—much like Broadway in Dormont along the current Red Line. Removing the trolleys and paving the median created the exceptionally broad street.
The Brookline business district is one that is seldom thought of as a destination for shoppers from out of the neighborhood. But it should be. It has very few chain stores, but it is prosperous enough that storefronts are seldom empty for long. The result is a delightful mix of little one-off shops, cafés, and ethnic restaurants.
The tower in the distance is the lookout tower of Engine House Fifty-Seven.
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Snow and Cables
A snowy scene on a back street of Beechview. The hill in the distance is Brookline.
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Looking Southward on Washington Road
The Washington Road business district as seen from Mount Lebanon Cemetery. Below, the Rollier’s clock tower, a relatively recent addition that anchors the north end of the business district perfectly.
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Grandview Avenue
A stroll along Grandview Avenue, Mount Washington, on a sunny day in early fall.
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Masonic Hall, Carnegie
The old Masonic Hall on Main Street in Carnegie.
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Brown’s Block, Carnegie
A block of modest storefronts from 1883, built in the Italianate style.
