18953_Middle_Hill__INVENTORY_REPORT_10-23-2019_reduced_(1).pdf

Architectural Inventory for the

City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

Planning Sector 15: Hill District and Uptown

Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village Neighborhoods

Report of Findings and Recommendations

The City of Pittsburgh

In Cooperation With:

Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission

Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

October 2019

Bedford Dwellings Building 5 (2257-2261 Somers Drive), showing detail of 2259 Somers Drive, September 1951. Photograph by John R. Shrader. In collection of Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center. historicpittsburgh.org (image identifier MSP285.B029.F27.I06).

Prepared By:

Michael Baker International, Inc.

Jesse A. Belfast Justin P. Greenawalt and

Clio Consulting

Angelique Bamberg with

Cosmos Technologies, Inc.

Tahir Sondo iv | P a g e

The Architectural Inventory for the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, was made possible with funding provided by the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office (PA SHPO), the City of Pittsburgh, and the U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service Certified Local Government program.

The contents and opinions contained in this document do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior. This program receives federal financial assistance for identification and protection of historic properties. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or age in its federally assisted programs. If you believe you have been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility as described above, or if you desire further information, please write to: Office of Equal Opportunity, National Park Service; 1849 C Street N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20240.

v | P a g e abstract

Abstract

This architectural inventory for the City of Pittsburgh (Planning Sector 15: Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village Neighborhoods) is in partial fulfillment of Preserve Policy 1.2, to Identify and Designate Additional Historic Structures, Districts, Sites, and Objects (City of Pittsburgh Cultural Heritage Plan, 2012). This project is the ninth phase of a larger undertaking which aims ultimately to complete the architectural survey for all of Pittsburgh’s Planning Sectors. The scope of this project provided for a complete inventory of Pittsburgh’s Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village Neighborhoods in Planning Sector 15.

This Report of Findings and Recommendations presents survey results and recommendations.

Recommendations pertain to 1) the eligibility of various resources for National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) listing; 2) the use of survey data by the City of Pittsburgh; 3) resources prioritized for intensive-level survey; and 4) a review of this survey effort’s methodology, with emphasis on lessons learned and recommended modifications for future surveys.

All previously surveyed resources within the Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village were field checked and an updated survey record was prepared. In addition, project historians considered whether any additional areas within the three surveyed neighborhoods could qualify as potential City or NRHP historic districts but ultimately concluded that no such areas exist in the neighborhoods. It is recommended that additional research and community outreach be conducted to determine whether parts of the surveyed neighborhoods could be listed in the NRHP as a Traditional Cultural Property (TCP).

Such a TCP may be significant as an urban neighborhood that is the traditional home of African Americans in Pittsburgh that also reflects that cultural group’s continuing beliefs and practices. Further, it is recommended that all or part of the survey area be supported for designation as a Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD) if desired and instigated by the local community.

Project historians surveyed the following resources:

PREVIOUSLY SURVEYED

• 64 Previously Surveyed Extant Resources

• 23 Previously Surveyed Resources – Now Demolished and Not replaced

• 5 Previously Surveyed Resources – Now Demolished and Replaced

• 92 TOTAL Previously Surveyed Properties Resurveyed

NEWLY SURVEYED

• 1,553 TOTAL Newly Surveyed Resources

TOTAL SURVEYED

• 1,645 TOTAL Resources vi | P a g e

ELIGIBILITY RECOMMENDATIONS

• 2 Previously Surveyed Resources listed in the NRHP (includes 1 individual resource and 1 district with 7 contributing resources)

• 5 Previously Surveyed Resources – Previously Determined Individually Eligible for the NRHP (includes 4 individual resources and 1 district)

• 3 Previously Surveyed Resources – Previously Determined Not Individually Eligible for the NRHP, but whose eligibility status is recommended to be re-evaluated.

• 46 Resources without an individual NRHP eligibility determination – Recommended

Potentially Individually Eligible for the NRHP (note this number includes 40 potentially individually eligible resources; and 6 resources that are potential historic district contributors)

• 56 Eligible or Potentially Eligible Resources Recommended for Intensive-Level Survey

One (1) resource, the New Granada Theater/Pythian Temple (Key No. 114824) is individually listed in the NRHP. One (1) resource, the Tuberculosis Hospital of Pittsburgh (Key No. 003886) is listed in the NRHP as a historic district. One non-contributing garage has been demolished since that district was listed; it is recommended that the 1949 Nurse’s Home (Inventory ID No. 003886.0008) be changed to a district contributor, as it is now greater than 50 years old and retains integrity. The five (5) resources in the survey area previously determined eligible for the NRHP include one district, Bedford Dwellings (Key No. 105850) and four (4) individual resources: McKelvey School and Field (Key Nos. 003885 and 100202, respectively);

Crawford Grill No. 2 (Key No. 005501; in process of being listed in the NRHP); Congregation Keser Torah (Key No. 005510/207002); and Centre Avenue YMCA (Key No. 005507). In addition, three (3) of the nine

(5) previously surveyed resources that have been determined not eligible for the NRHP by the PA SHPO are recommended for re-evaluation: the A. Leo Weil Elementary School (Key No. 005497), Anshe Lebavitz/Enon Baptist Church (Key No. 116213), and Watt Public School/Robert Lee Vann School (Key No.

005506). Allequippa Terrace (Key No. 105851), which contains5 extant resources, and the VA Hospital (Key No. 561224) have been determined not eligible for listing in the NRHP. The six (6) newly identified resources that are potential historic district contributors include three (3) streets (or portions of streets) with brick or stone pavement that could contribute to a larger city-wide district comprising all streets with historic pavement; one sandstone retaining wall along Parkman Avenue that could contribute to a city-wide district comprising all masonry retaining walls as well as to the Schenley Farms Historic District; one set of city steps on Hollace Street that could contribute to a larger city-wide district comprising all city steps; and the Ammon Recreation Center, which is both potentially individually eligible for the NRHP has an African-American recreation center and a potential contributor to a larger city-wide district comprising all city recreation centers from the ca. 1940 period. Ammon Field (Key No. 100196) should also be considered a contributor to the NRHP-eligible Bedford Dwellings Historic District, since it was constructed as part of the Bedford Dwellings Housing Project.

This project was administered by the City of Pittsburgh with support from PA SHPO staff. Professionals who designed this project, conducted the fieldwork, and wrote the report meet the Secretary of the vii | P a g e

Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Professional Qualifications Standards (36CFR61) for history and/or architectural history. Consulting firms include Michael Baker International, Inc., Clio Consulting, and Cosmos Technologies, Inc.

This project was funded in part by a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Certified Local Government (CLG) grant, the program guidelines of which can be found at http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/grants/3794/certified_local_government_gr ant_program/417950.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/grants/3794/certified_local_government_grant_program/417950 http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/grants/3794/certified_local_government_grant_program/417950 viii | P a g e

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ix | P a g e table of contents

Table of Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... v

Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................................... ix

Introduction

Goals and Objectives

Methodology

Historical Context/Background History

Results

Recommendations & Conclusions

Bibliography

Appendix A: Attribute Fields – PA SHPO & City of Pittsburgh Survey Requirements

Appendix B: Maps and Figures

Appendix C: Tables

List of Plates

Plate 1: 1855 Map show Middle Hill vicinity (J.H. Colton & Co., publishers)

Plate 2: 1862 Beers and Beers map showing Middle Hill vicinity, then part of Pitt Township

Plate 3: 1872 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat map showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 4: 1882 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat map showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 5: 1889 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat map showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 6: 1900/1906 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat maps showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 7: 1914 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat map showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 8: 1923 G.M. Hopkins Co. plat map showing Middle Hill vicinity

Plate 9: 1939 aerial photograph of Middle Hill vicinity (www.pennpilot.psu.edu)

Plate 10: 1957 aerial photograph of Middle Hill vicinity (www.pennpilot.psu.edu)

Plate 11: 1967 aerial photograph of Middle Hill vicinity (www.pennpilot.psu.edu) x | P a g e table of contents

List of Figures

Figure 1: Overview of Planning Sector 15, Hill District and Uptown

Figure 2: Previously and Newly Surveyed Resources (Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill)

Figure 3: Previously and Newly Surveyed Resources (Terrace Village)

Figure 4: Historical Integrity of Surveyed Parcels (Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill)

Figure 5: Historical Integrity of Surveyed Parcels (Terrace Village)

Figure 6: Location of Pre-1885 Properties (Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill)

Figure 7: Location of Pre-1885 Properties (Terrace Village)

Figure 8: Location of Potential Individually Eligible Resources (Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill)

Figure 9: Location of Potential Individually Eligible Resources (Terrace Village)

Figure 10: Geographic Distribution of the Four Most Common Building Styles in Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill

Figure 11: Geographic Distribution of the Four Most Common Buildings Styles in Terrace Village.

Figure 12: Vacant and Post-1975 Resources in Bedford Dwellings and Middle Hill

Figure 13: Vacant and Post-1975 Resources in Terrace Village

List of Tables

Table 1: Survey Completion

Table 2: Listed, Determined Eligible, and Potential Individually Eligible Resources

Table 3: Previously Surveyed Resources

Table 4: Pre-1885 Resources

Table 5: Newly Surveyed Resources

1 | P a g e introduction

Introduction

In 2013, the City of Pittsburgh received a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Certified Local Government (CLG) grant for partial funding of an architectural inventory of Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

The present survey (phase nine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Inventory) focuses on Planning Sector 15’s Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village neighborhoods. The survey was conducted in May and June 2019, and the report was compiled in September and October 2019. Previous phases of the survey include:

• Planning Sector 1 neighborhood of Troy Hill, October 2014.

• Planning Sector 1 Spring Garden and Spring Hill-City View neighborhoods, February 2015.

• Planning Sector 12 neighborhood of Larimer, September 2016.

• Planning Sector 5 neighborhood of Carrick, October 2016.

• Planning Sector 5 neighborhood of Brookline, September 2017.

• Planning Sector 4 West End and Elliott neighborhoods, September 2018.

• Planning Sector 2 neighborhood of Brighton Heights, May 2019.

• Planning Sector 6 Allentown and Knoxville neighborhoods, September 2019.

The City of Pittsburgh is divided into 16 planning sectors. Each sector contains a number of neighborhoods and is delineated based on a number of factors, including neighborhood and ward boundaries and topographical features. The City chose to focus the ninth phase of its architectural inventory on the Hill District and Uptown neighborhoods of Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village because the neighborhoods have been subject to increasing levels of large-scale redevelopment projects as well as vacancy and demolition in recent years. After 8 days of survey work, the three project historians surveyed 1,645 resources, of which 1,553 were newly surveyed and 92 were previously surveyed (Appendix B, Figures 1-3). This represents a complete survey of all parcels in the Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village neighborhoods. Properties were recorded using the PA SHPO minimum survey requirements (see Appendix A). Survey data were uploaded in real time to the City’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database via tablet computers. These data were later re-formatted and transmitted to PA SHPO in a Microsoft Excel file in accordance with PA SHPO’s Cultural Resources Geographic Information System (CRGIS) requirements.

This Report of Findings and Recommendations presents survey results and recommendations.

Recommendations pertain to 1) the eligibility of various resources for National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) listing; 2) the use of survey data by the City of Pittsburgh; 3) resources prioritized for intensive-level survey; and 4) a review of this survey effort’s methodology, with emphasis on lessons learned and recommended modifications for future surveys.

2 | P a g e introduction

Qualifications

Professionals who designed this project, conducted the fieldwork, and wrote the report meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Professional Qualifications Standards (36CFR61) for history and/or architectural history. Project historians included Jesse Belfast and Justin Greenawalt, of Michael Baker International, Inc., and Angelique Bamberg of Clio Consulting. Project maps and data tables were compiled by Tahir Sondo of Cosmos Technologies, Inc.

3 | P a g e goals and objectives

Goals and Objectives

In 2012, the City of Pittsburgh Department of City Planning released its Cultural Heritage Plan as a component of its first comprehensive plan. Resulting from the plan, the need to document historic architectural resources was identified with the goal to:

Document the City’s cultural and historic resources in ways that are accurate, meaningful, comprehensive, and useful to the City and the general public.

The Cultural Heritage Plan noted that the Historic Resources Inventory should be a “dynamic, comprehensive list of the City’s historic resources.” Further, according to the plan, the existing inventory of historic resources (over 13,500 parcels identified as being historic on some level) “needs to be field checked and continually updated as physical conditions change and additional resources are listed in the National Register of Historic Places or designated under the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance” (Cultural Heritage Plan, 112).

To realize these goals, the City prepared policies with corresponding action items in the historic preservation plan. This current field survey is in partial fulfillment of those items, including:

PRESERVE POLICY 1.2 - Identify and Designate Additional Historic Structures, Districts, Sites, and Objects

PRESERVE 1.2-A: Conduct a Citywide Reconnaissance Survey (cursory visual inspection).

Identify areas that are potentially eligible for new listings as City-Designated Historic Districts and NRHP Historic Districts. Focus on areas that:

• Have been previously identified as potentially eligible (see Cultural Heritage Plan Appendix B).

• Have a high percentage of structurally-sound and architecturally significant pre-1940 buildings.

Identify individual structures and sites outside of City-Designated and NRHP historic districts that are potentially eligible for individual nomination as a City-Designated historic resource and/or for listing in the NRHP. Focus on structurally-sound resources that:

• Would not otherwise be part of an eligible historic district.

• Are significant or unique for their architecture and/or engineering.

• Would severely and adversely impact the neighborhood's form, character, or economic growth potential if demolished or negatively altered. (Consider existing and former

4 | P a g e goals and objectives schools, religious buildings, and civic or quasi-civic spaces such as libraries, parks, fire stations, community centers, etc.)

The current survey effort represents the City’s second effort to identify previously unsurveyed historic resources within Sector 15’s Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village neighborhoods, in partial fulfillment of the above-mentioned goal. (The first effort occurred in 1992-93, when the Pittsburgh Register of Historic Places survey was conducted.) In addition, the City intends to use this project to further develop and refine the methodology for conducting architectural surveys that was used in the first through eighth phases of the Pittsburgh Architectural Inventory (October 2014/February 2015/September 2016/October 2016/September 2017/September 2018/May 2019).

5 | P a g e methodology

Methodology

Background Research

Prior to initiating fieldwork, the project team conducted background research and reviewed published literature to identify and obtain sources of information regarding the history and architecture of the Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village. A review of existing Pittsburgh history texts helped to predict the types of properties that should be expected in the survey area; historic mapping illustrated patterns of development and periods of growth in the neighborhoods.

Reconnaissance Survey

The survey team consisted of three architectural historians who spent approximately eight days in the field with tablet computers. The tablets were pre-programmed with county property parcel maps and a fillable database of attribute fields developed by the project team to satisfy CRGIS database requirements (see Appendix A).

The project team conducted a windshield survey before beginning the building-by-building survey to develop a plan for data collection. We determined to begin by surveying the Middle Hill’s major east-west corridors of Centre, Wylie, Webster, and Bedford avenues. From there, we worked north and south on cross streets to complete entire blocks. At its edges, the survey area contained large complexes of multiple related resources, such as the former Tuberculosis Hospital and the public housing sites; these were recorded as single sites enclosed by polygons (see below). Previously identified resources were checked and updated in the course of this survey. The project team was able to completely survey the Middle Hill neighborhood and adjacent public housing locations of Bedford Dwellings and Terrace Village within the period allotted for field work.

A new feature utilized in data collection for this survey was the ability to draw polygons around groups of contiguous parcels. By defining a polygon, surveyors gained the ability to create a single site record including multiple parcels. This was most useful in two circumstances: when recording a complex of related resources as a single site; and in recording multiple adjacent vacant lots. In the case of a site with multiple resources, surveyors used the Address Discrepancy and Comments fields to note address ranges and other features of those resources. In the case of multiple vacant lots, the ability to draw a polygon around several lots at once allowed surveyors to avoid tedious duplication of effort in recording every vacant parcel singly in the field. In order to have an accurate count of vacant lots at the end of the survey, the number of vacant parcels was noted in the comments field so that these could be totaled later in the office. A disadvantage of recording vacant parcels by polygon is that the City does not receive parcel-level data for vacant lots. In the future, it is expected that if data collection by polygon occurs, it will only be used to record very large building complexes.

Consistent with previous surveys, the survey consultants decided to photograph all non-vacant parcels (i.e. those with buildings, structures, or landscape features such as parking lots or gardens), regardless of age or integrity, because it required minimal effort when the surveyor was entering information on

6 | P a g e integrity anyway; moreover, the photographs would enable project historians to review the integrity assessments after the fieldwork was completed in order to assure consistency among surveyors. Such additional photographic data provide an overall view of an area’s integrity and the nature of intrusions in a potential historic district. In the future, this photographic documentation will provide a complete snapshot of a particular area and be a rich source of archival data to document change over time in Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods.

Members of the survey team found it critical to establish consistency in the use of certain fields at the beginning of the survey. Use of the following fields is explained:

• Potential Individual Eligibility: Surveyors entered “Yes” for a select few properties discovered through background research to have been significant in the historical context of the community and for properties whose age or architecture stood out, suggesting that further research on their history was warranted. Previously surveyed resources were re-evaluated in the field and marked as “Yes” if their architecture, integrity, and/or historical associations warranted.

• Potential District Eligibility: The project team determined during our windshield survey that the survey area, as a whole, was unlikely to be suitable for historic district designation. Accordingly, the survey looked for smaller sections of the neighborhood or groups of related resources with sufficient integrity for historic district potential.

Analysis of potential district boundaries was done after the field survey was completed and integrity maps of the surveyed areas had been generated. Therefore, the Potential District Eligible field was not used in the field, except for resources which contained related resources with historic district potential, for example, Bedford Dwellings, or for resources like city streets that could potentially contribute to a non-contiguous, NRHP multiple property listing.

• Integrity: For this field, broad categories of “High,” “Medium,” and “Low” were utilized.

Resources in the survey area were judged to have some integrity if, despite some alterations, their original character was discernible. A property which had artificial siding but all original trim, windows, and doors intact might be given a rating of “High.”

“Medium” was assigned to those which exhibited artificial siding and replacement windows and/or doors, but which retained their original size, scale, rhythm and proportion of openings, and possibly some original ornamentation. “Low” was used for properties with drastically altered facades, openings, massing, and/or materials, such that their original character had been obscured.

• Style: Correspondingly, where a resource’s original style was evident in its massing, extant detail (such as cornice or window design), and/or characteristic feature (such as brackets or turned porch posts), that style was entered in this field. Resources with no remaining features of their original style were assigned a value of “No Style,” even if context suggested a specific era of construction. “No Style” was also used for

7 | P a g e vernacular properties with no ornamentation or other stylistic gestures. “Mixed” was entered for transitional buildings which appeared to have had characteristics of more than one style when built. For buildings which exhibited an original style and a later one associated with additions or alterations, these styles were entered separately in the “Style” and “Secondary Style” fields. “Other” was used primarily for mid-twentieth century resources that were not described by any of the standard PHMC style categories, such as Cape Cods, and split levels.

• Vacant parcels and properties constructed post-1975 were noted with a “Yes” in those fields. Additional fields and photographs were not recorded for vacant properties. For post-1975 buildings, sites, and structures, photographs were taken and the current function was recorded. Integrity was not rated for post-1975 resources. Parcels that were not occupied by a structure but that were in use (such as parking lots, parks, and gardens) were entered as “sites” and assigned a relevant function from the CRGIS-supplied drop-down list; such sites were also photographed.

• The “Historic Use” and “Current Use” fields allowed only one use to be selected. For mixed-use buildings, such as those with storefronts on their ground floors and apartments or offices above, the first-floor use was entered.

� “Year Built” dates were entered in the field and were derived from observation of materials, method of construction, style, and context. Historic maps, loaded onto surveyors’ tablets, were cross-referenced when possible. A secondary Year Built field enabled the survey to record the dates of additions or secondary structures. In a few cases, exact dates were known from research. For the rest, surveyors entered “C” for “circa” along with an estimated date.

• Several fields allowed surveyors to record addresses and other locational information that was different or missing from the pre-loaded county property information. The “Address Discrepancy” field was used to record street addresses that differed from the addresses in the county database. If errors were found in address fields, the “Full_address” field (which is the one listing the Allegheny County address) was not changed or corrected. Instead, secondary address fields for street name and number were populated after the survey was completed with address corrections that had been noted in the “address discrepancy” field. “Location” was used to record the address, parcel, or descriptive location of resources added by the survey team in the field, for example, structures such as billboards, bridges, and segments of streets which retained historic paving. A “Skip” field allowed surveyors to note that a data point was redundant with another already completed for a property. For example, in a condominium building, a county address point is present for each unit, but only one record usually needs to be completed for the building. In this case, surveyors would fill out one record for the whole property, note the range of addresses in the “Comments” field, then select “Yes” in the “Skip” field for each additional address. In order to make

8 | P a g e the survey results compatible with the City of Pittsburgh’s GIS database, which records property attributes according to Allegheny County tax parcel number, multiple entries were not used in the “PIN” or “Lot-and-Block” fields. Rather, in the case where a property was composed of multiple tax parcels, the additional tax parcels were noted in the “Comments” and/or “Location” fields.

• Separate records were often completed for individual addresses in attached rows of identical party-wall buildings, such as rowhouses. In the “Comments” field, the notation “Rel” was used to record the range of related addresses in the row. However, commercial buildings with more than one storefront were recorded as one resource and the full address range was entered in the “Address Discrepancy” field. After the survey was completed, the database was updated to include address ranges with low and high street numbers in secondary address fields. The survey data tables in Appendix C use these corrected address fields, including address ranges, rather than the Allegheny County address data, which use address ranges inconsistently. In cases where there was a large number of attached identical dwellings (such as in the case of a block-long row), the surveyor had the option to record the resource with a polygon and representative photos rather than completing a large number of identical records for each address point.

• The “Comments” field was used by surveyors to record any additional features of note or unusual circumstances. Project historians also used the Comments field to note the condition of multiple buildings on a single parcel, i.e. “house + garage.”

• The “Number of Buildings” field was interpreted in the literal sense and only used to count resources that were buildings. For other resource types, such as structures, objects, and sites, “n/a” was entered in the “Number of Buildings” field.

Database Management

Once the reconnaissance survey was complete, the City GIS department uploaded the results from the platform software to Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet data were reviewed for accuracy and completeness.

PHMC Key Numbers and Inventory ID numbers were manually entered for all 1,645 surveyed resources.

After the Excel File was complete, it was used to generate mapping (Appendix B) and tables (Appendix C).

The Excel file was sent back to the City for re-upload into the City’s GIS system so that the City would have the most accurate and complete data from the survey. The GIS data concluded the deliverable for the City to incorporate into its Historic Resources Inventory.

PHMC required a slightly modified spreadsheet to update its CRGIS database. A copy of the City’s database spreadsheet was modified by removing irrelevant data fields, by reformatting column headings to use CRGIS naming conventions, and by adding primary (i.e. common) Inventory ID records for grouped resources that share a key number. Information included in the primary record for the resource group included such fields as address range, architectural styles, and materials. The primary Inventory ID number consists of the CRGIS Key Number plus the suffix .0001, and related resources are numbered

9 | P a g e sequentially beginning with the suffix .0002. Thus, for a grouped resource with Key Number 123456, the primary record’s Inventory ID would be 123456.0001 and the first related resource’s Inventory ID would be 123456.0002.

10 | P a g e historical context

Historical Context/Background History

Introduction

The Middle Hill neighborhood is located approximately one-and-a-half miles east of downtown Pittsburgh in City Planning Sector 15, Hill District and Uptown. It is situated on a high plateau between the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers and is bounded by Bedford and Webster avenues to the north; Rose Street, Reed Street, and Centre Avenue to the south; Herron Avenue to the east; and Devilliers Street to the west.

The Middle Hill is a subsection of the larger area known as the Hill District, and much of the Middle Hill’s early history is inseparable with that of the Hill District generally. The Hill developed as the village of Pittsburgh expanded eastward from the Point; therefore, its built environment is among the oldest in the city. The Middle Hill consists largely of densely-sited, small-scale brick and frame dwellings and commercial buildings from the mid-to-late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Today, City neighborhood maps divide the Hill into several separate sections. West of the Middle Hill, between it and downtown Pittsburgh, is the neighborhood of Crawford-Roberts, also sometimes called the Lower Hill. To the Middle Hill’s east is the Upper Hill, which contains a middle-class African American neighborhood historically known as Sugar Top.

Adjacent to the Middle Hill to the north and south, respectively, are two neighborhoods, Bedford Dwellings and Terrace Village, which are also part of the survey area. Both of these neighborhoods were extensively rebuilt with public housing in the mid-twentieth century, giving them a very different character from the earlier areas of the Middle Hill. Both also contain historic and current institutional uses. Bedford Dwellings includes the former Tuberculosis Hospital of Pittsburgh (a National Register Historic District), and Terrace Village encompasses part of the University of Pittsburgh’s upper campus as well as the VA Medical Center of Pittsburgh.

PreservePGH lists the Middle Hill among neighborhoods which are not currently historic districts but “contain a density of resources with historic integrity that the Department of City Planning determined could benefit from bolstered preservation efforts” (Executive Summary, 9). The plan notes that the Middle Hill—along with the rest of the Hill District—“has a large collection of pre-1940 buildings; however, distressed properties affect the historic appearance and integrity of many blocks. Even so, architecturally significant dwellings and commercial buildings are scattered throughout” (PreservePGH, 91).

PreservePGH notes that Bedford Dwellings “is a residential area where about half of the original housing stock was removed and replaced by public housing,” but that the former Tuberculosis Hospital of Pittsburgh is an important feature of the neighborhood. In Terrace Village, “a few streets in the eastern section… retain some older homes, but they have lost their historic integrity” (PreservePGH, 91). Prior to initiating fieldwork, the project team conducted background research and reviewed published literature to identify and obtain sources of information regarding the history and architecture of the Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village. A review of existing Pittsburgh history texts helped to predict the

11 | P a g e types of properties that should be expected in the survey area; historic mapping illustrated patterns of development and periods of growth in the neighborhoods.

History of the Middle Hill, 1850-1939

The Hill District is one of the earliest Pittsburgh locations outside of Downtown to be settled by Europeans.

The plateau on which the Hill is located marked the eastern boundary of Pittsburgh until the mid-nineteenth century. Prior to this, the area consisted of large rural tracts. Streams coursed eastward across them from the Monongahela River at a point near Try Street.

Development of the Hill District as an urban neighborhood began in the late 1840s, when banker Thomas Mellon bought a tract of farmland on the slopes of the hill nearest the city and subdivided it into speculative building lots. The Hill District built up rapidly with homes for well-to-do families who sought cleaner air above and beyond the central city. By 1852, the Hill’s population was 1,269, although most of this appears to have been concentrated east of Devilliers Street in what is now Crawford-Roberts. At the western end of the Middle Hill, the Bedford Reservoir was established by 1855. Most major streets in the current Middle Hill, Bedford Dwellings, and Terrace Village had been laid out by about 1860, but not many blocks were subdivided. Most pre-Civil War houses in the area were freestanding, with few sharing a block with neighbors. Streetcar tracks ran along Centre Avenue, which followed a stream valley along the lowest route through the Hill.

The Civil War was a strong catalyst for Pittsburgh's expansion. In the 1860s and 70s, the Hill continued to urbanize and densify, though east of Kirkpatrick Street new construction was mostly frame, implying that there was value to living closer to downtown. The Hill’s earliest residents moved away during this period and were replaced by successive waves of immigrants. The Hill became the “point of entry” to the city, where immigrants settled first and established themselves before moving on to other neighborhoods (HABS, Bedford Dwellings, 3). Jews from Russia and eastern Europe began settling in the Hill in large numbers between 1870 and 1890. Other immigrants came from Ireland, Italy, Greece, Syria, and Germany. Separate residential enclaves formed, with Scots-Irish residing mostly between Tunnel and Congress streets in the Lower Hill, on Webster and Bedford avenues, and on Wylie and Elm in the Middle Hill; most Jews between Wylie and Fifth avenues; and Syrians, Armenians, and Lebanese along Webster and Bedford avenues close to Grant (Bigelow) Boulevard. Greeks settled on lower Webster and Bedford avenues. African American settlement during the late nineteenth century was concentrated in the Lower Hill (Diane DeNardo, “Archaeological Narrative,” in African American Historic Sites Survey of Allegheny County, 89).

The Hill District’s immigrants sought employment in the mills and plants booming along Pittsburgh’s riverfronts, commuting to and from the hilltop via steps or incline. The Penn Incline had its upper landing on Arcena Street near Ledlie Street and descended to 17th Street in the Strip District near Penn and Liberty avenues. It operated from 1884 to 1953 and was dismantled in 1956. Businesses, smaller factories, and sweatshops in the neighborhood also offered employment, especially to African Americans and Jews barred from industrial jobs by discriminatory unions and employers during this period. Cigar production, 12 | P a g e for example, employed many Jewish workers in unskilled labor prior to 1913, when a workers’ strike effectively shut the industry down.

The Hill’s population underwent another major shift in the early twentieth century. As Jews grew more established and attained middle class status, many left the Hill for suburban neighborhoods further east of downtown, such as East Liberty and Squirrel Hill. Meanwhile, the Great Migration brought a surge of African Americans from the rural south to northern industrial cities such as Pittsburgh between about 1915 and 1930. The Hill had had a small African American population since the 1830s, mainly concentrated in an area known as Arthursville or Little Hayti centered along Roberts Street in the Lower Hill. Now, due to patterns of segregation that prevented newly arriving blacks from living in many other areas of the city, the Hill District began to become predominantly African American.

In the years between the world wars, African American commercial and entertainment establishments emerged along the Hill’s main thoroughfares of Wylie and Centre avenues. Because segregation excluded Pittsburgh’s African Americans from many mainstream businesses (as employees or customers), gathering places, and community institutions, the black community created its own in the Hill. Wylie Avenue in particular, was known as the “Broadway of the Hill District” for its blocks of theaters, restaurants, and music clubs. The Hill itself was known as “Little Harlem” from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Even non-recreation-oriented black businesses were important centers of social and leisure activities in a community which lacked official recreation centers; by the same token, theaters, bars, and social halls were often the sites of business meetings (Daniel Holland, “Sports, Recreation, and Leisure Activities,” in African American Historic Sites Survey of Allegheny County, 52). Many of the Hill’s important commercial locations from this era have been demolished, but some buildings which remain include the former Pryor’s Furs (2435 Centre Avenue), Pernell Printing (2405 Wylie Avenue), George Blanche Billiard Parlor (2012 Centre Avenue), Savoy Ballroom (2312 Centre Avenue, now converted to a church), New Granada Theater (2009-2013 Centre Avenue), and former bars and music clubs The Flamingo (2407-2409 Wylie Avenue), Johnny’s (2015-2017 Centre Avenue), and Crawford Grill No. 2 (2141 Wylie Avenue). The New Granada Theater replaced an older Granada Theater on a site a few blocks west in 1937; the New Granada building was originally constructed as Knights of Pythian temple in 1927. Its architect, Louis Stuart Arnett Bellinger, was one of only 60 African American architects registered in the United States at the time. Bellinger and his wife also resided in the Hill in a house he designed on Francis Street, which has been demolished.

The Hill District also had a branch of the Carnegie Library designed by Alden and Harlow. Built in 1899 at 1911 Wylie Avenue, just west of the current Middle Hill boundary, the building is now used as a mosque.

Organized athletics were popular in the 1910s and 20s as part of the Progressive emphasis on healthy outdoor play and took on an especially important role in African American communities, where sports provided a physical and social outlet. In the Middle Hill, a now-vacant site at the corner of Chauncey Street and Humber Way was the location of Central Amusement Park, a baseball field constructed in 1921 by Alexander M. Williams for the Pittsburgh Keystones, a Negro League team. The stadium was designed by Louis A. S. Bellinger, the African American architect who also designed Greenlee Field for the Pittsburgh

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Crawfords as well as the New Granada Theater. Central Amusement Park was demolished in 1925 and Greenlee Field—built in 1931-1932 on part of the present site of Bedford Dwellings—in 1940.

Other landmark buildings in the Middle Hill are its educational, religious, and medical institutions. The neighborhood’s high ridge provided fresh air and a relatively isolated site seen as ideal for treating infectious diseases in the nineteenth century. Beginning around 1875, a “Pest House”—a facility for isolating patients with communicable diseases—stood on a site off Bedford Avenue between Watt and Francis streets. This expanded to include a municipal hospital ca. 1895. The site’s advantages were also attractive to the Tuberculosis League of Pittsburgh, which erected and expanded a complex—the former Tuberculosis Hospital of Pittsburgh—at the eastern end of Bedford Avenue between 1912 and 1949.

Medical advances in the treatment of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases led to the discontinuation of inpatient care in 1955, after which the hospital became a mental health facility. Its remaining buildings have been adaptively reused as a residential complex known as Milliones Manor Apartments. It was listed on the National Register in 1992. The hospital on the Pest House site was demolished for the Bedford Dwellings public housing project in 1940.

Montefiore Hospital was founded in 1905 or 1908 by the Hebrew Ladies Hospital Aid Society in the Greek Revival Jacob Ewart mansion, which was built in 1841 and faced Centre Avenue at the base of Herron Avenue. Montefiore trained and employed Jewish physicians and offered care on a nonsectarian basis, but it focused on the needs of Pittsburgh’s Jewish population. After remodeling and expanding the Ewart house, Montefiore Hospital built a new facility in Oakland in 1929. The original Montefiore site is now that of the University of Pittsburgh Sports Dome.

The Hill District has had both public and parochial schools since the mid-nineteenth century. The ones currently standing date to the first decades of the twentieth century. The former McKelvy School (now Miller African-Centered Academy), built to the design of Carlton Strong in 1915-1916 on a former brickyard site adjacent to the Bedford Reservoir, is distinguished as the first platoon school in Pittsburgh.

Platoon schools were large, lavish buildings containing both classrooms and specialized spaces, such as gymnasiums, auditoriums, libraries, home economics rooms, and workshops. Students rotated among these areas in groups, or platoons, thus accommodating large student populations efficiently. The schools were supposed to justify their expense by serving the community after hours; thus McKelvy was built with a “School House” classroom wing and a “Community House” auditorium wing with its own separate entrance. McKelvy served as the prototype for subsequent platoon schools built by the Pittsburgh Board of Education. Other school buildings in the Middle Hill are the former Watt Street Middle School (later Robert L. Vann School, and now St. Benedict the Moor School, ca. 1914), at 2524 Webster Avenue; A. Leo Weil School at Centre Avenue and Soho Street (1935, 1942); and the original St. Richard’s (later St.

Benedict the Moor) parochial school (ca. 1912) at Bedford Avenue and Wandless Street.

The Middle Hill’s churches are generally less architecturally significant than they are notable as touchstones in the history of organizational strength and leadership in the African American community.

The Wesley Center AME Zion Church (2701 Centre Avenue) and Bethel AME Church (2720 Webster Avenue) are among the oldest African American congregations in Allegheny County, though their current buildings are newer (1927 and 1959, respectively). The Central Baptist Church (2200 Wylie Avenue) was

14 | P a g e constructed in 1945. The Zion Hill Gospel Baptist Church (2037 Webster Avenue) and Enon Baptist Church (110 Erin Street) are notable for being in former synagogues, remnants of the Jewish culture that once permeated the Hill.

The Centre Ave YMCA (2621 Centre Avenue) is another important community institution. The organization dates to the late nineteenth century, and the current building opened in 1923 as the only YMCA for African Americans in western Pennsylvania. Its construction was funded in part by a grant from Julius Rosenwald, then vice president of Sears, Roebuck and Company. The Centre Avenue YMCA functioned as a multi-purpose community center, offering rooms for rent, food service, meeting space, recreation, entertainment, and classes, and it was the site of symposia by nationally prominent African Americans, such as George Washington Carver and W.E.B. DuBois, during the 1930s and 40s. In the 1950s and 60s, membership declined due to displacement of families from the Hill, while desegregation lessened demand for the YMCA’s housing and food services. The building was designated a City Historic Structure in 1995 and is currently planned for renovation as housing for low-income men by Action-Housing.

Public Housing: 1939-1950

In the late 1930s, the Hill District became the location of some of the first public housing developments in the country, Bedford Dwellings and Terrace Village. Rapid industrialization, immigration, and environmental degradation, combined with lack of regulation of the building industry, all compounded the problem of substandard housing for Pittsburgh’s low-paid workers and their families. The city’s African American population, which burgeoned during the first decades of the twentieth century, was worst affected. A 1930 survey of the Hill, which was between 40 and 50 percent black at this time, exposed conditions of dilapidation, overcrowding, lack of electricity and sanitary facilities, and other threats to health and well-being in the neighborhood.

During the 1930s, the Great Depression plunged more Americans than ever before into housing crisis.

Mobilization for war re-invigorated Pittsburgh’s industry and drew even more workers to the city, further outstripping the supply of decent housing in the Hill and elsewhere. Voters as well as politicians became more open to an increased role for government in providing safe, sanitary, comfortable housing that the private sector would or could not. In 1937, Congress passed the Wagner-Steagall United States Housing Act. The Act established a permanent United States Housing Authority (USHA) to make low-interest loans to local housing authorities (LHAs) to plan, build, and manage multi-unit, low-income housing developments. The law further dictated that one unit of substandard housing be demolished for every unit of public housing built. This was to placate the real estate industry, which opposed the law out of fear that public housing would flood the market (Bauman, 7).

Pittsburgh had already created a local housing authority in anticipation of the passage of the Act. The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP) had ready on its drawing boards three public housing projects: Bedford Dwellings, Addison Terrace, and Allequippa Terrace. All were located in the Hill District.

A Real Property Inventory sponsored by the City Planning Commission had determined the Hill was the area of the city most in need of housing, with over 70 percent of homes built before 1917, over 22,000 in need of major repairs, and 487 tenants living in 667 dwellings deemed unfit for human habitation

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(Bauman, 8). Another factor in favor of building Pittsburgh’s first public housing in the Hill District was topography. Public housing planners favored hilltop sites, which tended to be more available and less expensive to acquire and assemble than more desirable flatter tracts. In its first projects, the HACP wished to demonstrate the feasibility of developing hilly sites for low-income housing.

The HACP appointed a team of architects from different firms to collaborate on housing design: Raymond Marlier, William Boyd, Edward B. Lee, and Bernard H. Prack. Marlier served as the team’s coordinator, and it hired planner Frederick Bigger as chief consultant and Charles Stotz as a consultant on social issues (Bauman, 9).