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BRIDGES AND
TUNNELS OF
ALLEGHENY COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA

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Frederick Law
Olmsted
report to the
Pittsburgh Civic Commission

"Pittsburgh:
Main Thoroughfares and The
Down Town District"
1910

00 Cover Page

00 Contents

01 Down Town
   District

02 Main
   Thoroughfares

03 Surveys and
   a City Plan

04 Parks and
   Recreation
   Facilities

05 Special
   Reports

06 Index


PART II: Main Thoroughfares
Pittsburgh: Main Thoroughfares and The Down Town District
Frederick Law Olmsted report to The Pittsburgh Civic Commission, 1910


page 70

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Hill, is of secondary importance as a thoroughfare, owing to its steep gradients: but its usefulness can and should be increased by extending the street south along the line of the street railway from Forward Avenue, over Beechwood Boulevard on a viaduct or bridge, to Hazelwood Avenue.

Practically as a continuation of this line and of the Boulevard, the present roadway to Brown's bridge, now maintained by the Street Railways Company, should be widened and improved as a city street.

31. Beechwood Boulevard Re-alignment. -- Beechwood Boulevard at Monitor Street makes two uncomfortably sharp bends to skirt a ravine. The ravine should be filled out two or three hundred feet from the upper end, and the Boulevard should be carried across on an easy curve at the eastern edge of the fill.

32. Second Avenue Extension. -- From the Glenwood bridge to the mouth of Nine Mile Run, the old location of Second Avenue, between the Baltimore & Ohio tracks and the river, presents a first-rate opportunity for a riverside street or boulevard. There are practically no buildings or industries requiring river frontage for commercial purposes, and yet there is sufficient room for a riverside thoroughfare of ample width without encroaching too much upon the flood section of the river. In a city where rivers play so vital a part in the commercial development, and form a most telling and characteristic element in the landscape, every opportunity should be seized to enjoy as well as utilize them.

To be well above a maximum flood line, a boulevard along the water's edge would have to be nearly as high as the railroad grade; but to avoid the large cost for river walls and filling, which such a construction would imply, the road could be built at a level only rarely flooded without sacrificing an appreciable amount of its essential value for recreative purposes. At its southern end it would rise over the Baltimore & Ohio tracks, a short distance east of the Glenwood bridge, to connect with the proposed hillside thoroughfare (Section 14); and at its northern end it would rise to connect with Brown's bridge, and from there could extend into the Nine Mile Run valley. A parallel location for this street, on the hillside above the railroad, has been suggested and carefully considered; but it is believed that, owing to the large amount of retaining wall required, the cost of construction


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Last modified on 22-Dec 1999
Design format: copyright 1997-1999 Bruce S. Cridlebaugh
Original document: Frederick Law Olmsted, 1910