PHOTO BY DAVE DICELLO

As I walked from a packed park to a bustling stadium this weekend, passing bars and restaurants surrounded by people, I was reminded that the North Side is busy these days.

That’s an assessment that is in no way limited to the strip of land that connects two giant stadiums. The neighborhood officially known as the North Shore is certainly the busiest section of the landmass north of the rivers; with two stadiums, Rivers Casino, Stage AE, the Carnegie Science Center and an ever-growing strip of bars and clubs, it would be.

But there’s much more going on beyond the train tracks that carve the North Shore off from its neighbors. Last week, I dined for the first time at EYV, one of the city’s most exciting new restaurants — and one of several top-tier eateries on East Ohio Street amid a resurgent Deutschtown. Over toward the equally historic Mexican War Streets, Mattress Factory has expanded and is more vibrant than ever. The beautiful Allegheny Commons Park wraps around Allegheny Center — which contains the ever-tempting Federal Galley, among several landmarks. This sits just south of City of Asylum’s headquarters, which includes Alphabet City, perhaps the region’s best bookstore.

And I haven’t yet mentioned the Warhol, Randyland, the National Aviary, the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Penn Brewery or Bicycle Heaven.

This isn’t a neighborhood — this is its own city. Allegheny City, to be precise.

The controversial annexation of the former Allegheny by the City of Pittsburgh was not a popular decision back in the early 1900s; most residents opposed it. I’m not informed enough to wade into a twelve-decade-old civic argument, so I’ll assume it was inevitable that Pittsburgh (or, at the time, Pittsburg) would eventually swallow up its northern neighbor; such things were happening frequently around the country at the time.

But here, I think, is the real offense: We started calling it the North Side.

What was once its own city — and a proud one — suddenly was referred to merely as a “side” of a greater whole. It’s not an uncommon naming convention (I live on the South Side, after all), but it was a linguistic disservice to the significance and character of old Allegheny.

Historically, this was a center of manufacturing and industry; “Made in Allegheny” goods were shipped across the country. It’s also the birthplace of an impressive roster of notables: Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Mary Cassatt, Art Rooney, Nellie Bly and many more.

In other words: It’s no mere “side” dish. Allegheny is its own entree.

This holds true today, when the greater neighborhood is among the city’s most vibrant and busy — and has certainly supplanted the South Side as the city’s going-out district. I’m not sure if a century’s worth of reductive nomenclature can be reversed, but I’m going to make it a habit of confusing those around me by referring to the area as Allegheny City whenever possible. While I hold no illusions that this quirk will catch on, it feels like a necessary upgrade to my own mental image of the neighboring city to the North.