Explore Pittsburgh neighborhoods, engage with neighbors, and assess street safety and accessibility:
🚶♀️Sunday, April 26 - Neighborhood Walk in Squirrel Hill - 1pm
🚶♀️Tuesday, May 26 - Neighborhood Walk in Downtown Pittsburgh - 6pm
Sign up here: bikepgh.org/neighborhoodwalks
Polaroid of large shade trees at Dinan Park in Stanton Heights.
I think Mary would approve. ❤️🛷
Short wooden posts trudge up the steep hillside to the baseball field.
Probably not the best spot for golf, but how many neighborhood kids (or adults) have taken exhilarating sled rides down its slopes on snowy days?
Dinan Park sign on the fence at the tennis court.
While Dinan Park’s playground and athletic fields do not occupy the old “Picnic House” lands, the area is an ideal spot for those seeking a bit of peace and quiet amid steep, rolling hills.
Polaroid on the bleachers at the Dinan Park baseball field.
While Mary Schenley spent very little of her life in Pittsburgh, her generous gifts of land forever transformed the city, making recreation activities more widely available.
Large shade tree at Dinan Park and a bench underneath. Green grass and blue sky!
Sections of the empty mansion were used as a clubhouse and for large events. Unsurprisingly, throughout World War II, club membership dwindled, and the land was ultimately sold, with developers building some 400 homes on the site and demolishing the old mansion.
1923 map shows the golf course on the Mary Schenley property. Dinan Park was still many years away!
Until the mid-1950s, a large portion of Stanton Heights was home to the city’s largest private golf course. Opened in 1909 on the unused grounds of Mary Croghan Schenley’s Pittsburgh mansion, “Picnic House,” the property was leased from the Croghan estate. ⛳🧵
Stanton Heights is a very hilly neighborhood, so it's a bit mind-boggling that once upon a time, the City's largest private golf course was here. Today, all that's gone, and we have 400+ homes and Dinan Park. Get all the details w/o threads at: pghgreenandgray.substack.com/p/a-visit-to...
1923 street map of the area where the park and community garden are today.
...and for those older still, the slipping-away days of when a church occupied the corner space and even more homes lined the streets. ❤️🌸
The step of a slide with the Polaroid and a lost book, Nelly May Get's Her Say.
For that generation, the playground and garden are all they’ve ever known. For parents, perhaps there are recollections from the days of the “new” playground...
Mural painted on plywood of flowers.
I flip through the years and watch the space grow, become more established, more robust. The young kids who came with their parents back in 2012, when the garden began, are now teenagers or young adults.
Mayor Murphy era sign heralding the "site improvements" in 1997.
The playground still has its Mayor Murphy-era “Site Improvement” sign from 1997 (lol, these things were built to last!), and Google Street View shows the gradual transformation of the overgrown, litter-collecting lot into the lush area it is today.
Polaroid of the playground with community gardens in the background.
Just a few blocks from busy Butler Street, the McCandless Tot Park and community garden await attention. Pairing a small play space with garden plots is a smart choice, allowing kids and adults to move between the two for different activities. 🧵
Playgrounds and community gardens are a perfect pairing. Visit Lawrenceville's McCandless Playground and City Growers organic garden (without the threads) right here... 🌸pghgreenandgray.substack.com/p/a-visit-tomccandless-t...
1923 map of the area where Sophia Evert / Joe Natoli is today.
The 1923 map of the area shows that the City of Pittsburgh already owned the back acreage (where the hillside has a steep drop-off). Perhaps Renziehausen’s gift was the incentive for the Thomas Foundry to sell their holdings. 🏈❤️
Love locks on the fence at Natoli Park in Morningside.
That gift certainly influenced Joe Natoli’s life, and I don’t doubt that, in his 30 years as a coach, he passed it along to countless others.
Bulldogs mural on the old field house building.
While Renziehausen’s gift may not have been as grand as those that established Schenley or Frick Parks, it enabled the city to purchase land and improve residents’ quality of life.
Sophia Evert #4 sign over the door of the original field house.
It was here that he discovered the joys of playing football at the recently created Sophia Evert #4 park. In 1930, East Liberty whiskey distiller Fred C. Renziehausen passed away, and his will stipulated that funds be granted to the city to create five playgrounds in his mother’s name, Sophia Evert.
That longevity is impressive enough, but when you add that he retired with a final record of 271-19-8, it’s clear why residents petitioned the city to honor his contributions. Joe was born in 1927 in Bloomfield and moved to Morningside with his family ten years later.
Polaroid of the Joe Natoli Field sign.
Tucked away off the main streets of Morningside, there’s a neighborhood playground with athletic fields and a basketball court. The space is named for resident Joe Natoli, who worked for Pittsburgh Parks and Recs for 35 years and coached the Morningside Bulldogs youth football team from 1950-1979. 🧵
New story about Joe Natoli Park in Morningside. This neighborhood park and playground exists because of the generosity of a 1920s-era whiskey distiller! 😮 Read all about it without the threads at: pghgreenandgray.substack.com/p/a-visit-to...
Game recap from the 4/17/1876 Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle. Extra ting the text is a total mess.
Friendly reminder that tomorrow, 4/15, is the 150th anniversary of professional baseball in what is now Pittsburgh.
Yes, I'm paying my respects by visiting the site of the ballpark.
🤣 between the craters, ongoing water leaks and speeding vehicles it’s one of the more unpleasant roads in the city.
Yes, I’ve become very interested in him - a complex and polarizing figure for his time and now largely forgotten. He absolutely hated the Song to Nature sculpture for Mary Schenley and was very vocal about it!
Polaroid of a bench with a memorial plaque under a large shade tree.
Carefully tended by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and volunteers, their efforts are a continuation of the potential Bigelow saw in 1889 and what all of us eagerly look forward to with every visit. 🌳❤️🌸
View of the entrance gardens (in late October, not so colorful!) looking down from the city steps that lead to the reservoir.
And of course, there’s the super playground, zoo, and aquarium, which attracts families from all over the city and far beyond. Still, it may be the landscape design and flower beds greeting visitors at the park’s grand front entrance that create the strongest impression and most lasting memory.
"Flora" by Malana Adele Vassar, the newest piece of public art at Highland Park.
Today’s Highland Park holds true to Bigelow and Froesch’s original dreams while adding modern options that would have been beyond even their expansive imaginations! Considerable walking trails, a dog park, public pool, volleyball pit, public art and memorials, stone archways, and city steps.
1890 map of Highland Park - with all those lots, structures, and streets....
1923 map after Bigelow did his "negotiations" with the 120 property owners...
Over the next 15 years, Bigelow negotiated with 120 property owners to acquire additional land to expand the park’s footprint. Here are two maps: 1890 (l) and 1923 (r), showing where those lots (and streets!) were.
Highland Park informational sign - you can read all about Bigelow's original plans for this space that we love so much today!
E.M. Bigelow, Pittsburgh’s first director of public works, had a habit of seeing potential where others saw only infrastructure. In 1889, with City Controller E.S. Morrow’s support, he persuaded City Council to add park space at the Highland Reservoir and hire landscape architect Francis Froesch. 🧵
While E.M. Bigelow is mainly known for his work with acquiring and developing Schenley Park, he also worked a bit of "magic" in creating the Highland Park we all know and love today. Get the details and all the photos without the threads at: pghgreenandgray.substack.com/p/a-visit-to...