Pittsburgh’s newest park, dedicated in November 2021, occupies a 3-acre cap over Crosstown Boulevard/I-579.
The park intends to reconnect downtown Pittsburgh with the Lower Hill District. In 1957 - 1958, in the name of urban renewal, over 8,000 people were moved, and 1,300 structures and a long-established street grid were demolished for the construction of the Civic Arena and its associated parking lots along with, in 1961 - 1962, the excavation of the canyon that is Crosstown Boulevard. The razing of the Lower Hill District obliterated a significant portion of the African-American Hill District neighborhood, severing its connection to the downtown business district. Some history of the Hill’s heyday can be found in the book Smoketown or WQED’s documentary Wylie Avenue Days on YouTube.
The map section below shows what occupied this area in 1914. The northwestern street is Webster Avenue, currently part of Bigelow Boulevard. The northeastern street is Washington Place. The southeastern street is Wylie Avenue, but the road has been bent into Centre Avenue. The southwestern street is Chatham Street. (As far as park borders, Washington and Chatham are the only recognizable streets from the past.) This street grid goes back to at least the 1850s. (Check out Pittsburgh Historical Maps at Pittsburgh Historic Maps (arcgis.com).)
So, after 64 years of literally nothing, a park has been created recognizing the African-American neighborhood that occupied this space and 95 more acres up the hill. The park includes: a story wall about Frankie Pace, a community activist, along with Thomas Delaney, another notable resident; a rain garden and novel gutter system for managing storm water runoff; a small amphitheater; places to sit; and numerous plaques with literary quotations and African proverbs. Like many modern parks, the planning included a great deal of community input. The park speaks for itself, and there isn’t any more that I need to add here.
The listed coordinates puts you at the crossroads of the main east-west and north-south paths. To log this virtual cache, please include a photo of the view up the path to the east towards the upper terrace and story wall or downhill to the west towards the lower terrace, drainage spiral, and gardens. But there is so much in this park, so feel free to take a picture of one of the other features within the park instead. Props to anyone who can manage a good picture of the sankofa bird.
Getting to the park may take a little effort, although anyone who works in the city or is in town for a visit will be able to walk to the park easily. If you have access to the “T”, go to Steel Plaza and head to the park from there. If you drive in, you might get lucky and find a place on Chatham, but otherwise, you’re on your own. (There is a small private parking lot abutting the park, but I don’t think it is normally accessible.)
Also, aerial photography, like GoogleEarth, hasn’t caught up, so in the old photos, the space doesn’t look like a park. Most of the map services have been updated to show the capped area over Crosstown Boulevard.
Congrats to THC73* for his FTF.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.