The 'Burgh and the 'Burbs

Urban growth patterns

The pedestrian city

The commuter suburbs

Making mountains
Rolling on rivers
Moving mountains
Burgh & burbs
Cleaning up

The Pedestrian City

While the steam engine--in steamboats and in trains--was a good solution long-distance travel in the mid- to late-1800s, travel within the city was still accomplished on foot--either humans' or horses.' Nineteenth century neighborhoods were constrained in size to what a person could walk in a half-hour. Within that circle, most people live, worked, shopped, worshipped, socialized, and went to school.

Painting of first Allegheny County Courthouse at Market Square
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks

First Allegheny County Courthouse at Market Square ("The Diamond") with market stalls surrounding it.

A common 18th century arrangement for new towns was to arrange streets around a central square where a market or courthouse would be located--a logical place for people to gather. The streets in Pittsburgh were laid out around Market Square or "The Diamond." The first Allegheny Courthouse was located right in the Market Square along with vendors trying to sell goods to people walking through the square.

1868 photo of Allegheny's North Commons
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks
Postcard of North Side's Market House, 1912
Collection of Susan Donley

TOP: Allegheny's North Commons in 1868 showing grazing cows. This area is now part of Allegheny Square.

BOTTOM: The North Side Market House in 1912.

Allegheny had both a Commons and a Market House at Allegheny Square. Birmingham was also laid out around Bedford Square (at the present Twelfth Street) where a Market House allowed farmers to bring produce in for city dwellers to buy. Clustered around Bedford Square you can still see shops, houses, churches, a school, and a factory, all right next to each other. It is a typical compact, mixed-use pedestrian town of the early 1800s when everyone (even horses) walked everywhere.

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Diagram of development of riverfront towns

Another typical town planning scheme was to line streets parallel and perpendicular to a waterfront to make a grid. Businesses that depend on river traffic spring up in a strip along the wharf to handle the boats, their cargo, and to sell goods to people going back and forth. The city grows out from the wharf. A through-road will often parallel the river to take advantage of the level route, it creates a strip of commercial businesses to serve both travelers and residents. When a through-road--the Washington Turnpike --went through Birmingham, the focus of the town changed from Bedford Square to the "strip" -- the Victorian commercial district we know as Carson Street.

Postcard of Carson Street in 1913
Collection of Susan Donley

1913 postcard of Carson Street on the South Side: A typical 19th century "strip" around a through-road.

These patterns repeated themselves throughout the 1800s as towns around Pittsburgh established themselves along the river plains. Towns typically move out as they grow, extending their grid plan as they go. Of course, most grids don't adapt well to being draped over a hill, sunk into a valley, or cut threw by a river!

Union Local Express ad
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks

Local Delivery service ad, 1900. Long after trains and steamboats revolutionized long distance travel, local traffic still depended on the muscles of humans and horses.

Pittsburgh's neighborhoods were further confined by the practical limitations of hills, valleys, and rivers. City stairs and later inclines allowed settlement of the hilltops once the "flats" (river floodplains) were full. An inclines' two cars are attached by cables so that they counterbalance each other: when one goes down the slope, it helps pull the other car up, reducing the amount of engine-power needed to transport people and freight up hill. Pittsburgh had 17 inclines at one time, with the South Side claiming 12! Now only two survive the Monongahela and Duquesne Inclines, which flank Station Square. Mon is was the first in 1870 and amazingly still survives, but the Duquense Incline still has its original 1877 cars!

Postcard of Mon Incline in 1913
Collection of Susan Donley

1913 postcard of the Monongahela Incline showing the freight incline to the left of the passenger incline. Notice the convergence of transportation systems at this point: trolley, pedestrian, and behind the photographer, the P&LE Railroad Station and Smithfield Bridge.

Commuting

Even the railroad did not change the pedestrian neighborhood, except for the wealthy who could afford to move out of the city and ride the train to work. Homewood, Shadyside, and Oakland were suburbs where wealthy factory owners and bankers like Carnegie, Frick, Westinghouse, and Mellon could escape the smoke and noise of the city and ride the train of have a private coach take them to work.

Postcard of Penn Avenue East Liberty
Collection of Carole Anderson

1912 Postcard of Penn Avenue East Liberty. During its heyday as a streetcar suburb Penn Avenue had very little other vehicular traffic: Commuters and even freight were delivered by trolley.

When the electric trolley developed as a cheap, reliable short-distance form of transportation in the 1890s, it began a revolution in urban life: the era of the suburbs and the commute. Unlike much larger trains, streetcars could go almost anywhere there were.., well, streets! Just at the time the large steel firms raised up a prosperous class of "white collar" middle management workers, the trolley made it possible for them to escape the city and commute to the developing "Downtown" central business district. Out in the trolley suburbs where space wasn't so sparse, they could have detached houses with lawns to raise their families. Dormont, Wilkinsburg, East Liberty, Bellevue, and Aspinwall, like typical trolley suburbs, still have a "strip" of commercial development on the street where the trolley ran.