Westinghouse Park

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Westinghouse Park is a small municipal park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The park's lands are the site of the former mansion, "Solitude", which was home to George Westinghouse (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914), the American entrepreneur and engineer.

The site also housed his private laboratory, and natural gas derricks towered above the estate's Victorian gardens. Here, Westinghouse invented methods to control and transmit natural gas for both industrial and residential consumers.

The park's history began when Westinghouse, upon his death in 1914, bequeathed the Point Breeze mansion to his son, who in turn sold the property in 1918 to the Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania. The Society's intent was to establish both a city park and a memorial to Westinghouse there. The house was razed and the park was developed; the George Westinghouse Memorial, however, was erected a few miles away in Schenley Park.

Westinghouse Park's claim to literary fame is due to writer John Edgar Wideman, who frequently makes reference to it in his books. Both of his memoirs, Brothers and Keepers and Hoop Roots, use the park as a setting, as well as in his fictional Homewood Trilogy.

[edit] References

• Kidney, Walter C. (1997). Pittsburgh's Landmark Architecture: The Historic Buildings of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation. ISBN 0-916670-18-X. 
• Toker, Franklin (1986, 1994). Pittsburgh: An Urban Portrait. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5434-6.