Weird Pittsburgh "Micro-Neighborhoods" (York, Washington: houses, subdivision, living)

[eschaton]

One of the odd things coming to Pittsburgh for me is how neighborhoods here are so comparably tiny. There are neighborhoods in New York City that have more people than all of Pittsburgh, and Boston, an older city roughly twice the size of us, has only 21 recognized neighborhoods.

One could argue about which neighborhoods don't merit the name, but that's perhaps for another post. What I have noticed is there's select areas, mostly secluded residential ones, which form micro-neighborhoods which have little to do with their official affiliation.

One is Four Mile Run. When my daughter was still an infant, and needed to be driven to nap, I chanced upon it randomly. Technically part of Hazelwood, the only way to get there is to go to where Greenfield Avenue turns off Second Avenue, and make a left onto a street called Saline, rather than a right onto Irvine, which would bring you into Hazelwood.

It's an odd area, tucked right under the highway, and near (but with no direct access to, as far as I can tell) Schenley Park. The housing is mostly frame/siding, built in semi-suburban detached style, but looks quite old. Still, it's not distressed looking like Hazelwood proper - few noticeable missing teeth, and almost all the buildings look occupied. It feels like a West Virginia holler town, and it's hard to believe you're only around a mile away from Oakland.

An even smaller and stranger one is an isolated rural-seeming area very close to downtown indeed. You can get there by taking the 28th Street Bridge as if you're going to Polish Hill, but turning right once you clear the Busway rather than left. Pittsburgh technically calls this area part of the Strip District, although it's more akin to Polish Hill. It's only two streets and a way, with seven houses and something called "Mount Horran Baptist Church" at the bottom of the area, and three houses further up the topmost road.

While the houses are nothing special (although the ones at the top are a bit larger - almost suburban-looking), they are all well-maintained. The oddest thing is there's clearly a huge amount of missing teeth up there - not only on the streets proper, but with "ghost roads" that show up on some maps which extend as far down as 24th Street. Clearly there were around 100 houses up there at some point. It's just odd that the area looks safe, and it's mostly vacant, but no one's showed an interest in redevelopment.

I'm sure you guys can think of other examples.

[ditchdigger]

Duck Hollow comes immediately to mind, off of Brown's Hill Road, in the shadow of the Homestead Grays Bridge. That one is probably known to many people though.

Then there's Eiseltown, in the valley between Arlington and St Clair Village. Parkwood Road runs up the valley from Becks Run Rd. (or down from Mountain, depending on which end has most recently slid into the valley), and there are two streets in Eiseltown, Eisel and Eads, IIRC. There's a whole bunch of folks named Eisel still living there though...

[ferraris]

Off of Carson there is a little micro neighborhood right here. I suppose it's officially part of Esplen or Sheraden, but it seems rather disconnected from both.

[sskink]

Originally Posted by eschaton

One is Four Mile Run. When my daughter was still an infant, and needed to be driven to nap, I chanced upon it randomly.
It's an odd area, tucked right under the highway, and near (but with no direct access to, as far as I can tell) Schenley Park. The housing is mostly frame/siding, built in semi-suburban detached style, but looks quite old. It feels like a West Virginia holler town, and it's hard to believe you're only around a mile away from Oakland.

Well, now you know where to find the best sandwich in all of Pittsburgh. Big Jim's in the Run!

[shogun221]

While poking around behind the Lawrenceville Shop and Save, I came across an overgrown set of stairs that led me to the neighborhood here:

Google Maps

Sandwiched between Lawrenceville and Stanton Heights, it's a neat little spot, with homes built into the hills. Most of them look to have been pretty modest when built, but have been maintained and improved over the years.

My favorite feature of this neighborhood is that that many of the homes are completely inaccessible by car. To get to the houses located between Joy way and 57th, you park on Duncan and head up about 5-10 flights of stairs, straight into the woods. Despite the lack of convenience, most of the houses up there look to be occupied, with the exception of the home at the end of the stairs that is almost completely unchanged from when it was built in the early 1900's. For being in the city, it's amazing how isolated these houses are, up a hill in the woods, 200 feet back from any road. It's definitely a neighborhood that came to be in another time, before modern requirements on accessibility had taken root.

On a side note, I would like to salute the initiative and/or physical fitness of the person who takes property assessment pics for Allegheny County. Here's what all of the homes on 57th street look like, according to the County Assessment website:

http://images.county.allegheny.pa.us/CLTcgi2/webimage.dbw?Project=Allegheny&ParcelID=%270120P00 168000000%27&Image=1&Resize=350x263 (broken link)

[I_Like_Spam]

How about the last remaining portion of Lower St. Clair Township- along 51 between the Parkway and Woodruff Street?

At one time, Lower St. Clair was a vast area covering much of the city south of the river as well as many of the close in suburbs.

By 1924, this little section was all that was left when it was incorporated into the city, and there are still homes on Lewis St., Woodruff St. and Lime St. in this little part between Mt. Washington, the West End and Beechview.


There was a restaurant down there, and a gas station as well. Its as walkable of a neighborhood as one can have surrounded by major highways.

[ditchdigger]

At one time, Lower St. Clair was a vast area covering much of the city south of the river as well as many of the close in suburbs.

The manhole lids on Parkwood Rd., that I mentioned above, are imprinted with "St Clair". I don't recall whether the "Lower" part is there or not. I imagine that's where St Clair Village got it's name.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by ditchdigger

The manhole lids on Parkwood Rd., that I mentioned above, are imprinted with "St Clair". I don't recall whether the "Lower" part is there or not. I imagine that's where St Clair Village got it's name.

That was definitely part of Lower St. Clair Township, and was later part of St. Clair Borough before it became part of the City of Pittsburgh.

[eschaton]

Another example I thought of, while not quite isolated, is the part of Bloomfield south of the East Busway. It's only connection with Bloomfield is the South Millvale Bridge, and a busway ramp completely cuts it off from the extension of North Oakland to the west. It's well-connected to Shadyside, but the busy, semi-industrial nature of Baum and Center through the area means it's sort of isolated in that direction too.

I dated a girl who lived on Maripoe Street years back, so I got a pretty good idea of the layout. At the time I lived in the "warrens" of South Bloomfield, and noted how the houses were generally far nicer, and often brick - more similar to North Oakland or Friendship. There's a weird, though decades old, planned subdivision in the area furthest back from Baum as well. I could see it being a very pleasant area to live, for some people.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Another example I thought of, while not quite isolated, is the part of Bloomfield south of the East Busway.

I never saw those streets as part of Bloomfield at all, but as part of North Oakland with the bridge as the border.


The folks I've known that have lived over there, always described it as Oakland- although I know about the quasiofficial city neighborhood lines to which you refer that put Central Catholic in Squirrel Hill, Lawrenceville east of 57th Street in Stanton Heights and the Waterworks in Lincoln Lemington.