More on Troy Hill please

[otters21]

Originally Posted by Q-tip motha

Its very similar to our (by that I mean you and I) current neighborhood (Polish Hill). People describe it as being "gritty", which is really just saying that there are a lot of older homes there that were built and owned by working class people over the past century. There's an older contingent who have lived their lives in the neighborhood who still make their homes here. Most of their children's generation have left for one reason or another, and so as these homes are vacated by their current residents they often fall into disrepair, are rented out, or made section 8. Each neighborhood has its own little quirks that are the result of the immigrant populations who moved there in the past. Parking in either neighborhood could be better, but you have to take the bad with the good.

The two areas also differ in a few ways. For starters Troy Hill is flat for the most part which is nice. Polish Hill, as you well know, isn't. Homes are more expensive in Polish Hill (from what I've seen). I'm not sure why this is, as they're very similar. Perhaps its just due to the fact that Polish Hill is viewed as an up and coming neighborhood, where as Troy Hill isn't. The place we bought in Troy Hill for 50k would likely be 75k in Polish Hill.

Troy Hill also seems to have more practical local businesses. I might go to Gooskis perhaps once or twice a month for wings (if the employees weren't bohemian snobs), the Polish deli down the block every other week, and the coffee shop/record store/other bars/comic book store/consignment shop never. Troy Hill on the other hand has a convenience mart that I've visited more often for something to drink while working on my new house than I have gone to the punk bar across the street from where I've lived for the past two years in Polish Hill. Troy also has a pharmacy, some sort of doctors office, a physical therapist/rehabilitation services office, a gas station, multiple banks, a few pizza shops, a cafe, a sit down restaurant of some sort, the Penn Brewery (which I've visited a handful of times in the past two months). This is not to say that Polish Hill couldn't develop them in the future as more people seem to be moving into the neighborhood, its just that they aren't there yet.

There are two bars in Troy Hill my hubby and I like to visit when we are in Pittsburgh. One is named Top of the Hill or something like that and the others is Billy's. Neither one is fancy but your typical neighborhood corner taverns. The people there are very down to earth and seemed pretty friendly and had absolutely no "chi-chi frou-frou' air about them and thats what we like. As far as food is concerned Billy's does have a menu ( at least they did when we were there) and the other bar might fry you a burger( they do have a small grill if I could recall) or nuke you a small pizza. If you ever decide to check them out you'd be surprised-you'll may find a few gems and even meet new friends if you move into TH.

[XRiteMA98]

From what I've noticed people like to know where foreigners come from and they seem quite surprized to hear. I don't know if people in TH are racist. I don't think so. For a while i had my eyes on a house there - still I am not decided, safety being my #1 concern - and, it crossed my mind to call the neigbors of that house to ask if they have alrm systems etc...

I couldn't find their phone numbers in whitepages.com doing a reverse address search so I wrote them. I explained i was a foreigner bla, bla, bla, bla and they did call me back and they said it's lovely, they don't have alrm systems but mean dogs and yes, there is an incident here and there, now and then.

RR, I'd also say don't count on your land lady to go to a nursing home. I saw for example 2 houses in Mt washington this week, whose owners, little old ladies, are already in nursing homes. but I agree that not everybody goes to nursing homes as well as not everybody upsizes. I will certainly don't.