Father Pitt

Tag: Streetscapes

  • Court Place in Chinatown

    Pittsburgh’s Chinatown was tiny but packed. Much of it was destroyed in the building of the Boulevard of the Allies after the First World War, but it remained a Chinese enclave for another decade or so, and Chinese businesses rebuilt along the stump of Second Avenue beside the Boulevard ramp.

    The Chinatown Inn is the only business remaining from the old days of Chinatown. Another Chinese restaurant is a modern addition. The rest of the two blocks remaining in Chinatown is mostly given over to lawyers’ offices.

    Addendum: The Chinatown Inn occupies the On Leong & Merchants Association building, designed by architect Sidney F. Heckert.

  • Tunnel Park on a Misty Evening

    Tunnel Park in the SouthSide Works isn’t very picturesque, especially in the winter; and yet anything can be picturesque with a layer of mist added.

  • Wood Street on a Misty Morning

    Walking along Wood Street as the skyscrapers fade into the mist.

  • Uptown Mount Lebanon

    A compressed view of the northern half of the Washington Road business district in Mount Lebanon, one of our more affluent urban suburbs.

  • Fall on Sarah Street

    Fall colors persist far into November in the city, though the trees in the suburbs are mostly naked twigs by now.

  • Autumn on the South Side

    Fall colors on the sidewalk of Jane Street.

  • Kosciusko Way, South Side Slopes

    Kosciusko Way, apparently named for the famous Polish hero of the Revolutionary War, is a narrow and crowded street that makes a brave attempt to go straight up from Josephine Street into the South Side Slopes, but makes it only a block before being utterly defeated by topography.

    Map

  • Wood Street

    A view down the whole length of Wood Street from Liberty Avenue, early on a rainy morning.

  • Back End of the South Side Flats

    Edwards Way is the very edge of the South Side Flats. The greenery-covered wall on the left is the stone retaining wall below the railroad that separates the Flats from the Slopes. Of course this tiny narrow space is nevertheless too valuable to leave unbuilt, so the free side of the alley is lined with typical South Side alley houses.


    Map

  • 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.


    Map