These primarily residential communities have spent the past years growing — and becoming more and more popular. With Pittsburgh International Airport nearby and increasing economic development, it’s easy to see why so many call this end of the region home.
Pittsburgh’s eastern neighborhoods always have shown a broad socioeconomic spectrum, from extravagant wealth to dire poverty. The Mellons, Fricks, Carnegies and Westinghouses built their mansions in this most-stylish part of town. But their departure for greener and more secluded pastures — and the mass relocation of families here after the razing of the Lower Hill — left much of this area economically depressed for decades. Now the long-awaited renaissance of East Liberty is beginning to bring major reinvestment here, too.
Once forbidden territory for settlers and reserved for the various Native American tribes who hunted and camped in the area, the lands north of the Ohio River became part of the Depreciation Lands used to pay Revolutionary War veterans for their service. The numerous small boroughs and townships along Ohio River Boulevard are collected into slightly larger (but still compact) school districts, befitting their continued status as popular hometowns to raise families generation after generation.
Most of these communities, which lie to the east of the Squirrel Hill Tunnels, are residential suburbs with small business districts — but don’t take that as a reason not to visit. There’s tons of beauty in these hills, which are packed with historic homes, parks, schools and churches, as well as evidence of Pittsburgh’s steel-making and industrial past, with warehouses, former blast furnaces and brownfields lining the Monongahela River and small waterways such as Turtle Creek.
Our editors' FRESH TAKES on our favorite Pittsburgh things, including the best place to develop a comic book obsession, where to go to make your own glassware and a Tour de Force improv act.
Our editors' FRESH TAKES on our favorite Pittsburgh things, including the best place to find a dream of an ice cream cone and where to order a decadent cake for breakfast.
Our editors' FRESH TAKES on our favorite Pittsburgh things, including the best old-school shoe repair shop and a bar with a burgeoning bobblehead collection.
Long before the accomplished cyclist’s cheating was exposed, he triumphed in Pittsburgh — but, as Rick Sebak explains, Armstrong’s local achievements aren’t without controversy.
