Southside Flats (Pittsburgh)

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Southside Flats

View of the historic East Carson Street business district

Neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Population (2000): 5726[1]
Area: 0.94 mi² [1]

The Southside Flats is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's South Side area. It is located just south of the Monongahela River. The neighborhood has one of the City of Pittsburgh’s largest concentrations of 19th century homes which has prompted outsiders to call the neighborhood the City’s Georgetown.[2] It includes many bars and restaurants as well as residences. The main throughway in the Southside Flats is East Carson Street. This street is home to a significant portion of Pittsburgh's nightlife.

Contents

[edit] Surrounding and adjacent Pittsburgh neighboroods

Arlington, Bluff (via Birmingham Bridge), South Oakland (via Hot Metal Bridge), South Shore, Southside Slopes (also borders Baldwin Borough)

[edit] History

The South Side was once composed of a number of smaller communities. These included Birmingham and East Birmingham, both named for the English Midlands industrial center; Ormsby, originally a part of East Birmingham, incorporated as a borough in 1866; South Pittsburgh, the area immediately adjacent to the Smithfield Street Bridge, and Monongahela, named for the adjacent river. These boroughs were collectively annexed to the city in 1872.[3]

The South Side and much of the hillsides to its south had been granted to Major John Ormsby in 1763 in recognition his assistance in the building of Fort Pitt. By the 1770’s Ormsby had built an estate on these land and established a ferry for connecting his home with the community in Pittsburgh.

In 1811, Ormsby’s son-in-law, Dr. Nathaniel Bedford, laid out a town on the flats, naming it Birmingham in tribute to his native city. Bedford had come to Pittsburgh around 1770 and was the first practicing physician in the district known as Allegheny County.[4] He named the streets after Ormsby’s children; names which the South Side streets still bear – Mary, Jane, Sarah, Sidney. Carson St. was named after a sea captain who lived in Philadelphia and was a friend of Dr. Bedford. In the early days it was part of the Washington Pike, the main road to Washington, PA. The nearby municipality of Mount Oliver would be named for John Ormsby’s son Oliver Ormsby.

Birmingham quickly became a sizable industrial center because of the easy access to river and rail transport. The region would first become a center of glass production, followed by a concentration of iron and steel manufacturing. In 1850 Benjamin Franklin Jones invested in a South Side iron works. During the depression of 1873 he formed a partnership with a banker, James Laughlin. The firm of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company would eventually become the South Side’s largest employer. By 1910 it would employ over 15,000 workers. The expansion of the plant in 1950 would require the demolition of residential homes between 31st and 33rd streets.[5]

Majority of the workers who had settled in the area were immigrants of Eastern Europe. They found home throughout the Flats and Slopes of South Side and had brought allot of their culture and traditions to the area. Many of the Eastern European churches, clubs and bars are still present in the South Side .

The decline of the steel industry would be a major blow to the neighborhood. In addition to layoffs at the J&L Plant, the Levinson Steel Company which had been located on the South Side closed in 1981.[6] The facility had been located along the river between 19th to 21st streets, and was later converted into a strip mall.

A series of arsons would hit the South Side neighborhood in the early 1980s.[7] Prominent buildings on the corner of 18th and Carson Streets and the Arcade Theater on Carson St. would also be demolished by fire.[8] The Arcade Theater had opened in 1929 and was the first theatre outside of Downtown Pittsburgh to have sound and air-conditioning. A Rite-Aid pharmacy sits on the site of the theater.[9]

The early 1980s would see the beginnings of redevelopment on the South Side. The South Side Local Development Company was formed in 1982. In 1985, the South Side’s East Carson Street was selected to participate in the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Main Street Urban Demonstration Program. Community involvement would play a major role in the redevelopment of the former J&L site.

The Jones and Laughlin Company had merged with the Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) Corporation in 1974. The company would merge its J&L Steel subsidiary with Republic Steel to form LTV Steel in 1984. The South Side J&L/LTV plant would shut down in 1986. Once closed, City of Pittsburgh Councilman Otis Lyon wanted the site’s Bessemer converter building, an open hearth building, four smokestacks, and a J&L sign to be preserved. The plan fell through when it was determined that these structures posed a safety hazard, although the J&L sign is mothballed beneath the Panhandle Bridge for future use. Riverboat gambling was considered for the site and in 1993, and the City of Pittsburgh Urban and Redevelopment Authority (URA) purchased the site with money loaned by a potential developer for $9.3 million.[10] The URA would eventually redevelop the site to be the Southside Works complex. The project has brought national retailers to the eastern end of the neighborhood.[11]

[edit] Trivia

Kaufmanns Department Store was founded as a tailor shop on Carson St. on the South Side in 1871.[12]

The South Side had the first electric railway in the City of Pittsburgh. The line started at 13th and Carson and traveled to Mount Oliver Borough.[13]

The base of the Knoxville Incline was at 12th Street on the South Side. The incline was built in 1890, had an 18-degree curve, and was the longest incline ever built in Pittsburgh.[14]

Carson Street is also the namesake of a local acoustic/reggae/frat-rock band "Last Call on Carson", celebrating the cherised history of the South Side's nightlife. The band is strongly influenced by the legendary Bob Marley who played his last show at the Stanley Theater (now the Benedum Center). The band is deeply rooted in Pittsburgh, pulling members from all sides of the city.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b (January 2006). "Census: Pittsburgh". . Pittsburgh Department of City Planning Retrieved on 2007-07-19.
  2. ^ Delahan, William (1966-06-12), “Renaissance On The South Side”, Pittsburgh Press 
  3. ^ “An Atlas of the South Side Neighborhood of Pittsburgh 1977”, Pittsburgh Neighborhood Atlas, Pittsburgh Neighborhood Alliance 
  4. ^ Killikelly, Sarah H. (1906). The History of Pittsburgh. Its Rise and Progress. B.C. & Gordon Montgomery Co., 356. 
  5. ^ Batz, Bob (1999-09-21), “Sweet memories. Former residents gather to remember a South Side neighborhood razed in 1950”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 
  6. ^ "Southside landmarks to fall", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, [1984-6-11]. 
  7. ^ Perlmutter, Ellen M.. "Portrait of an arsonist", Pittsburgh Press, [1984-6-17], pp. A1. 
  8. ^ Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. Research: Spotlight on Main Street: Fatheads. Retrieved on 2007-04-04.
  9. ^ Cinema Treasures. Cinema Treasures Arcade Theater. Retrieved on 2007-04-04.
  10. ^ The Western Pennsylvania Brownfields Center, =. Background Information LTV South Side Works. Retrieved on 2007-04-04.
  11. ^ O’Toole, Christine. "Pittsburgh's South Side, Resurrected", Washington Post, [2006-10-29]. 
  12. ^ Stouffer, Rick. "'Kaufmann's is gone,' analyst predicts", Pittsburgh Tribune Review, [2005-3-5]. 
  13. ^ South Pittsburgh Development Company. Pittsburgh's Trolley History. Retrieved on 2007-04-04.
  14. ^ South Side Local Development Company. Pittsburgh's Inclines. Retrieved on 2007-04-04.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also