Point Breeze (Pittsburgh)

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Coordinates: 40.449° N 79.910° W
Point Breeze
The Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary is located on Penn Avenue in Point Breeze.
Neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Population (1990): 5909^[1]
Population (2000): 5665^[1]
Area: 1.004 mi² ^[1]

Point Breeze is a largely residential neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

It is adjacent to the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, and is nearby the neighborhoods of Homewood South and Shadyside. Like nearby Squirrel Hill it boasts a large Jewish population, but is still majority Catholic and contributes to a high percentage of students enrolled in Taylor Allderdice High School and Central Catholic High School (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).

The most prominent feature of Point Breeze is Henry Clay Frick's Clayton, which is a part of the five-acre Frick Art & Historical Center. Nearby is St. Bede School, a Catholic school. It is also the home to a popular Pittsburgh Public Schools elementary school, Linden Academy, Westinghouse Park, and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. The Shady Side Academy Junior School is also located in Point Breeze.

Point Breeze's claim to literary fame is due to writers Annie Dillard and John Edgar Wideman. Pulitzer Prize winner Dillard's popular memoir, An American Childhood, is set in Point Breeze in the 1950s. Both of Wideman's memoirs, Brothers and Keepers and Hoop Roots, use Westinghouse Park as a setting, as well as in his fictional Homewood Trilogy.

Although officially distinct neighborhoods separated by Penn Avenue, "Point Breeze" is also sometimes taken to include Point Breeze North.