ZELIENOPLE

Median Home Price: $126,400
Population: 4,123
Factoid: The Strand Theater gets
an all-star renovation

Main Street U.S.A.
Six blocks off Main Street, two locals pleasantly pass the time of day: a pair of chestnut-brown horses grazing nose-to-nose in a field two minutes from the hardware store, bank and post office.
There really is a country-style Main Street running through Zelienople, a 200-year-old settlement on the banks of Connoquenessing Creek, and it's still the beating heart of this Butler County town.

"It's got a charm unlike anywhere else in Western Pennsylvania," says Allan Walton, who's lived in the area since 1991 and makes a daily 40-minute commute to his post as assistant managing editor of features at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "It's original and genuine, with a really active Main Street with lots of window shoppers."

Many Pittsburghers get to know "Zelie" while ferrying youngsters to a favorite summer haunt: The YMCA's Camp Kon-O-Kwee is just down the road. Less than 10 miles north of Cranberry, with which it shares the Seneca Valley School District, Zelienople is smaller, older and more settled than its booming neighbor. But the youngest ones still think it's a treat to be lifted up to the lion water fountain at the corner of Grandview Avenue and Main Street, or to visit Santa Claus there each December.

Main Street is anchored by two marquee attractions. One is the red-brick Kaufman House, a genteel restaurant that was once a solid old hotel. The other is The Strand Theater, a former movie theater now being refurbished as a performing arts, education and community outreach center after decades of neglect. Donations and state grants are turning the lights back on. "We should have a functional structure by March," says Ron Carter, who's led the preservation effort. "We'll present films again, and have professional tours of off-Broadway stuff and music." Local lore says Judy Garland introduced one of her films at the Strand in the late 1940s.

Main Street's handsome storefront facades--the hardware store, grocery, newsstand, coffee shop, bank and post office--are spic-and-span, and vacancies are rare. Victorian homes, some converted to bed-and-breakfasts and funeral parlors, cluster along the side streets. When German diplomat Baron Dettmar Basse bought 10,000 acres here in 1802, he named the town for his daughter, Zelie, who married Philipp Passavant. The couple's well-preserved home is now the headquarters of the town's historical society.

Less-grand homes are just as well-preserved. Victorian painted ladies, brick four-squares and solid stone walls bespeak permanence and pride. The community park is the site of a popular youth triathlon, this year on Sat., July 29, which uses its pool, biking and running trails. Out of town, nearby parks include massive Moraine State Park and Hereford Lake for shore fishing.
With luck and clear conditions on I-79, Zelie's a half-hour from downtown Pittsburgh. Unless, that is, you fly: Zelie's municipal airport (a mile from town) is a public, general-aviation facility that offers daytime excursions to Pittsburgh; it's operated by Zelienople Municipal Authority and owned by the borough.

BLOOMFIELD

Median Home Price: $73,500
Population: 9,089
Factoid: Founded by German immigrant John Conrad Winebiddle in early 1800s

That's Amore
The booth benches are hard, the light is dim, but the burgers are great. And whatever you order at Tessaro's, you'll always get a side order of nostalgia, and maybe even run into your old classmates from the former St. Joseph's Catholic School on your way out the door to Liberty Avenue.

Lombardozzi's, Del's and Donatelli's dotting Liberty Avenue aren't just good eating; they're also the heart of Pittsburgh's Little Italy, supported by generations of locals. Flat, walkable and stable, the neighborhood at the northern end of Bloomfield Bridge draws strength from plenty of decades-old institutions, including thriving Liberty Avenue merchants.

"People buy their rings here, get married there, and send their kids to Mac [Immaculate Conception School]," says Karla Owens of Bloomfield Jewelry, who's president of the local business group. "We have a strong ethnic identity." One of the neighborhood's most visible ethnic groups are the Italians, represented in September with the local Italian Festival.

St. Joseph's Catholic Church is a reminder of the neighborhod's early German heritage. It's now part of Immaculate Conception-St. Joseph Parish.

St. Joseph's Church and West Penn Hospital lend a touch of height and red-brick grandeur to this neighborhood of row homes.

Splitting Friendship Avenue into two squares behind the hospital, Bloomfield's Friendship Park provides green space close to the business district. It's a popular destination for residents of this neighborhood, which offers large, older homes or cozy row houses. "We have smaller row houses here, giving Bloomfield an edge over Friendship. It's more affordable than Friendship," says graphic designer Terry Aiello. Her Lorigan Street home has been in the family since the early 1900s.

There's room for new, too, like the Luna Square development, a mixed retail-office plan for Baum Boulevard at Cypress.

FRIENDSHIP

Median Home Price: $152,500
Population: 1,791
Factoid: Annual Event:
May Folk and Flower Festival

Old-School New Urbanism
Maps. Transit schedules. Grids, vectors and commuting times. When Drew Armstrong faced his first semester of teaching at University of Pittsburgh, the Toronto native scientifically plotted a search that would net him a handsome, well-restored home in a safe, diverse neighborhood a few minutes' bike ride from its Oakland campus. Shadyside? Squirrel Hill? Armstrong, a professor of architectural history, chose Friendship, "because it's diverse--it's not uniform in its population," says Armstrong, 38, who moved to Harriet Street from Toronto last August. "I don't have a car, and it's not a burden," he adds. The area reminds him of The Annex, the comfortably diverse neighborhood adjacent to University of Toronto. "Friendship's not trying to chase people out or achieve conformity."

Whether they are revamping turreted Victorian homes, returning parking lots back to parks and even re-using the old public school--which will house the private Montessori School starting in August--the people in Friendship are passionate when it comes to protecting the built environment. Even the Victorian-Gothic home of architect Charles Bartberger, who designed the school, has been preserved on South Pacific Avenue.

"The houses are larger than in Bloomfield," says Susan Petersen, drawing a distinction between her eastern Pittsburgh neighborhood and the one that lies between Friendship and Lawrenceville. "We're one of the smaller neighborhoods in Pittsburgh, just residential streets bordered by Penn, Baum, Liberty, Gross and Negley Avenue." Downtown commuters grab the downtown bus or stroll to the East Busway; Oakland academics like Armstrong can bike to work.

Credit local activists--many of them planners and architects--who saw the district's potential 20 years ago. Petersen is president of Friendship Preservation Group, which works with Friendship Development Associates, Penn Avenue Arts Initiative and other groups to protect the old and encourage the new.

"An astounding number of properties have been rehabbed," says Petersen. "The Development Associates focused in recent years on the Penn Avenue businesses. We've had major victories in zoning issues, like closing nuisance bars and limiting the number of units in buildings. And we've planted lots of shade trees."

The results have paid off. Home prices in the community have risen 127 percent since 1995, the biggest jump of any city section.

For other walks, especially those with dogs, the destination is tiny Baum Grove, a green space reclaimed from a fate as a parking lot at the intersection of Harriet, Roup and Fairmont. Other residents stroll to the outdoor tables at Silky's at the corner of Liberty and Evaline for a happy-hour beer.

Some newcomers are young artists, whose presence could be a result of the Arts Initiative's conversion of more than 108,000 square feet of vacant property into artist workspace. With "Unblurred," its arts-related open house, PAAI is preserving the neighborhood's right to party. The Quiet Storm coffee house, Attack Theater and Garfield Artworks are pulling young alternative musicians, dancers and artists to lofts and rentals. Feel free to show those tattoos--here's where Friendship is most fluid, energetically mixing it up with Bloomfield, Garfield and Lawrenceville.

"It's a quiet change," says Manny Theiner, who runs Garfield Artworks. "There's a real demographic shift of young people away from Oakland and Squirrel Hill and Shadyside over to here."

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