South Side Flats (Pittsburgh)
The South Side Flats is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's South Side area. It is located just south of the Monongahela River; the neighborhood has one of the City of Pittsburgh's largest concentrations of 19th-century homes, which has prompted outsiders to call the neighborhood the City's Georgetown. It includes many restaurants as well as residences; the main throughway in the South Side Flats is East Carson Street. The street is home to a significant portion of Pittsburgh's nightlife; the South Side was once composed of a number of smaller communities. These included Birmingham and East Birmingham, both named for the English Midlands industrial center, Birmingham; these boroughs were collectively annexed to the city in 1872. The South Side and much of the hillsides to its south had been granted to Major John Ormsby in 1763, in recognition his assistance in the building of Fort Pitt. By the 1770s, Ormsby had built an estate on these lands and established a ferry for connecting his home with the community in Pittsburgh.
In 1811, Ormsby's son-in-law, Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, laid out a town on the flats, naming it Birmingham in tribute to his native city. Bedford had come to Pittsburgh around 1770 and was the first practicing physician in the district known as Allegheny County, he named the streets after his Ormsby's children. Carson St. was named after a sea captain, a friend of Dr. Bedford. In the early days it was part of the main road to Washington, Pennsylvania; the nearby municipality of Mount Oliver would be named for John Ormsby's son Oliver Ormsby. The two areas were once connected by a coal incline run by the Keeling Coal Company, now the site of South Side Park. Birmingham became a sizable industrial center because of the easy access to river and rail transport; the region would first become a center of glass production, followed by a concentration of iron and steel manufacturing. In 1850, Benjamin Franklin Jones invested in a South Side iron works. During the depression of 1873, he formed a partnership with James H. Laughlin.
The firm of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company would become the South Side's largest employer. By 1910, it would employ over 15,000 workers; the expansion of the plant in 1950 would require the demolition of residential homes between 31st and 33rd streets. The majority of workers who had settled in the area were immigrants of Eastern Europe, they found home throughout the Flats and Slopes of South Side and had brought much of their culture and traditions to the area. Many of the Eastern European churches and bars are still present in the South Side; the decline of the steel industry was a major blow to the neighborhood. In addition to layoffs at the J&L Plant, the Levinson Steel Company, located on the South Side closed in 1981; the facility had been located along the river between 19th to 21st streets, was converted into a strip mall. A series of arsons hit the South Side neighborhood in the early 1980s. Prominent buildings on the corner of 18th and Carson Streets and the Arcade Theater on Carson St. were demolished by fire.
The Arcade Theater had opened in 1929 and was the first theatre outside of Downtown Pittsburgh to have sound and air-conditioning. A Rite Aid pharmacy sits on the site of the theater; the early 1980s saw the beginnings of redevelopment on the South Side. The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation helped establish and partner with the South Side Local Development Company in 1982. In 1985, the South Side's East Carson Street was selected to participate in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Main Street Urban Demonstration Program. Community involvement played a major role in the redevelopment of the former J&L site; the Jones and Laughlin Company had merged with the Ling-Temco-Vought Corporation in 1974. The company would merge its J&L Steel subsidiary with Republic Steel to form LTV Steel in 1984; the South Side J&L/LTV plant shut down in 1986. Once closed, City of Pittsburgh Councilman Otis Lyon wanted the site's Bessemer converter building, an open hearth building, four smokestacks, a J&L sign to be preserved.
The plan fell through when it was determined that these structures posed a safety hazard, although the J&L sign is mothballed beneath the Panhandle Bridge for future use. Riverboat gambling was considered for the site and in 1993, the City of Pittsburgh Urban and Redevelopment Authority purchased the site with money loaned by a potential developer for $9.3 million. The URA redeveloped the site to be the Southside Works complex; the project has brought national retailers to the eastern end of the neighborhood. The South Side Flats covers 0.936 square miles. The South Side Riverfront Park runs the majority of the border of the Flats to the Monongahela River, it hosts a myriad of events, like the annual Pittsburgh Dragon Boat Festival. The Three Rivers Heritage Trail runs through the park; the east-west section of the South Side Flats are bordered by the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of South Shore to the west and South Side Slopes to the south. The Flats curve to follow a north-south direction; the Flats run adjacent to three Pittsburgh neighborhoods across the Monongahela River and are directly linked via bridges.
The Birmingham Bridge connects the Flats w
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
South Hills (Pennsylvania)
The South Hills is the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh and the neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh south of the South Side Slopes. The Pittsburgh neighborhoods include Knoxville, Mt. Oliver, Mt. Washington, Allentown, Beechview, Brookline and Overbrook. Two suburban municipalities that are included in the South Hills outside of Pittsburgh are Bethel Park and Mt. Lebanon, as well as the boroughs of Castle Shannon and Green Tree; the South Hills includes the townships of Baldwin, Peters, South Park, Upper St. Clair, plus the boroughs of Baldwin, Bridgeville, Mt. Oliver, Whitehall, Pleasant Hills, Jefferson Hills, West Mifflin. Much of the South Hills was a land grant to John Ormsby. All of these places are located within Allegheny County, with the exception of Peters Township, in Washington County. Major roads in this area include Brownsville Road, Pennsylvania Route 51, U. S. Route 19 and Pennsylvania Route 88; the Port Authority of Allegheny County operates a light rail system that connects the communities in the South Hills with downtown Pittsburgh and the North Shore
Chatham Village (Pittsburgh)
Chatham Village is a community within the larger Mount Washington neighborhood of the City of Pittsburgh, an internationally acclaimed model of community design. It is bounded by Virginia Ave. Bigham St. Woodruff St. Saw Mill Run Blvd. and Olympia Rd. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005 as a remarkably well-preserved example of Garden City Movement design; the village is operated as a cooperative by its residents. Chatham Village was built 1932–1936, was designed by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright on the principles of the Garden City Movement of the early 20th century, it is in the Georgian Colonial Revival style. It was built to show that affordable housing for the working class could be attractive and safe, however it became a middle- and upper-class neighborhood because it was so attractive; the funding was provided by Pittsburgh's Buhl Foundation. In 2007, Chatham Village was included in the American Planning Association's list of Great Neighborhoods as part of its Great Places in America program, which recognized 10 neighborhoods from across the nation for good design, function and community involvement.
In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, writer Jane Jacobs criticizes Chatham Village as an example of how Garden City planning created islands of class homogeneity, thus fostering economic and social distance within Pittsburgh and other cities. Jacobs cites Chatham Village residents' inabilities to cooperate with other parents once their children entered the more economically and diverse local junior high school, which drew lower-class and lower-middle-class students from outside of Chatham Village. In Jacobs' view, the success of Chatham Village as an urban community in a park-like setting depended upon the residents' tendencies to trust one another due to the similarities in their professional and social status; the ideals of city planning expressed in the Garden City Movement, Jacobs argues, are only suitable for upper-middle-class lifestyles and, fail to engage the endemic economic and social diversity of cities. The homes are red-brick-and-slate-roof townhomes, they are situated in clusters toward interior courtyards with their rears facing the loop roads around the property.
The homes do have rear-access integral garages in the basements but these are recessed several feet to reduce the visual impact. The community is regarded as one of the best-preserved examples of the Garden City concept by city planners and landscape architects, it is a National Historic Landmark, on the National Register of Historic Places, is on the List of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks. The complex includes the Bigham House built in 1849, renovated for use as a community clubhouse, known as Chatham Hall. Thomas James Bigham was an abolitionist lawyer, his house was "purportedly a station on the Underground Railroad". Chatham Village Website 2005 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article on the community
North Shore (Pittsburgh)
The North Shore is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's North Side. It has a zip code of 15212, has representation on Pittsburgh City Council by both the council members for District 1 and 6; the neighborhood is home to PNC Park and The Andy Warhol Museum. It is developing around and between the two stadiums. Two new light rail stations opened in the spring of 2012; the North Side station is located beside PNC Park and near the north portal of the Allegheny River Tunnel. Allegheny station is located by Heinz Field, is the current western terminus of the line. In October 2014 two 11-story office skyscrapers were proposed for the area by local parking lot manager Alco Parking; the project is to move forward, as soon as an anchor tenant can be found. The North Shore runs along the Allegheny River and its confluence with the Monongahela River to form the Ohio River, it is bordered by Chateau to the west, Allegheny West to the northwest, Allegheny Center to the north, East Allegheny to the northeast and Troy Hill to the east.
The Roberto Clemente, Andy Warhol and Rachel Carson Bridges provide direct links to Downtown Pittsburgh as do the first southbound exits across the Veterans and Fort Duquesne Bridges. List of Pittsburgh neighborhoods Interactive Pittsburgh Neighborhoods Map
Spring Garden (Pittsburgh)
Spring Garden is a small neighborhood on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's North Side. It takes its name from Spring Garden Avenue, which follows the floor of the valley that separates the two adjacent hilltop neighborhoods of Spring Hill and Troy Hill. Like those neighborhoods, Spring Garden was settled by the descendants of Germans and Austrians who had emigrated from Europe to East Allegheny in Allegheny City; these initial residents of Spring Garden worked in slaughterhouses, rendering factories, tanneries located in this valley neighborhood. A 1974 report by Pittsburgh's Department of Urban Planning explained that "Historically, this neighborhood because of its location and convenience for industrial expansion out of the valley floor from the East North Side, has been of mixed industrial and residential uses. Today, the industrial uses are becoming marginal due to the lack of room to expand; this has left row type residential uses to survive along the narrow streets on the valley floor and hillsides."
Between 1974 and 2010, the neighborhood's population changed in several respects. In 1974 the neighborhood housed about 2,000 people and about 5% of the houses were vacant. In 2010, the neighborhood's population had declined to about 800 people and about 25% of the houses were vacant; until 1959 the neighbourhood was served by the 1 Spring Garden trolley operated by Pittsburgh Railways. Spring Garden has four borders including the Pittsburgh neighborhoods of Troy Hill to the south and southeast, East Allegheny to the southwest, Spring Hill to the west as well as Reserve Township to the north and northwest. List of Pittsburgh neighborhoods Interactive Pittsburgh Neighborhoods Map
Central Northside (Pittsburgh)
Central Northside is a neighborhood in the North Side of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. It has a zip code of 15212, has representation on Pittsburgh City Council by the council member for District 6. Known as "The Buena Vista Tract", it is densely filled with restored row houses, community gardens and tree lined streets and alleyways. In the late 19th century, Pennsylvania became known for its stately homes, occupied by some of the area's wealthy families. One such area became known as the Mexican War Streets; the Mexican War Streets were laid out in 1847, during the Mexican–American War, by William Robinson Jr. ex-mayor of the city of Allegheny. Robinson, who contrary to some tellings did not serve in the war, subdivided his land and named the new streets after the war's battles and generals. Central Northside has seven city neighborhood borders with Perry South to the north, Fineview to the northeast, East Allegheny to the southeast, Allegheny Center to the south, Allegheny West to the southwest, Manchester to the west and California-Kirkbride to the northwest.
The 1979 sports/cult classic The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh used the neighborhoods southern border of North Avenue's gritty former "burlesque row" adjacent to the Garden Theater to depict Stockard Channing's gypsy fortune teller characters office and residence. Thirty years in 2010, the Katherine Heigl film One for the Money uses the same exact buildings complete with Garden Theater marquee to once again depict a gritty inner city environment—though much of the characters and vice of the North Avenue corridor has been corrected, the structures still adapt well on the areas southern border. On 10 September 2012, the Central Northside Neighborhood Council voted to change the neighborhood's name to Allegheny City Central. However, according to an FAQ published by the CNNC in August 2012, the Council reported that official city maps would "probably not" reflect the name change and that the city planning department is "always reluctant" to alter established names; the same document refers to the name change as a "branding initiative", part of a "new brand and marketing strategy".
List of Pittsburgh neighborhoods City of Pittsburgh's Central Northside page Interactive Pittsburgh Neighborhoods Map Mexican War Streets Society Allegheny City Central
