Negley Run Was Here! A History of 1790 1778: Revolutionary War veteran Living Waters of Larimer Negley Run It is often said that to find your way What happens when no one remembers The incoming waves of residents considered 1800 Alexander Negley is among the first is a community development permanent settlers of the East End. around Pittsburgh, you need to be a major ecological landmark, like say, a the water as a resource or a nuisance that His family eventually acquired over able to navigate by landmarks stream? Negley Run, like most of the had to be controlled and, beginning in the project that will demonstrate a 1,500 acres and utilized Negley’s Run, that are no longer there. To streams in the City of Pittsburgh, is early 1800’s, the stream was systematically how green infrastructure can 1810 which took its name from his family get to your destination, you invisible to us today. The stream rerouted, straightened, channeled, and be artfully integrated into the may have to “turn right once connected Squirrel Hill to covered. urban spaces, cultural life, 1820 1816: Alexander’s son Jacob, who laid at the old bakery” or Negley Run, the Allegheny River, but today and economic infrastructure out East Liberty, establishes a steam other extinct landmark. there is no collective memory Negley Run Was Here is an effort to discover flour mill, first of its kind west of the like most of of a community. Alleghenies, along the stream Though maddening of the stream and very few the traces of Negley Run and to understand 1830 to newcomers, these the streams clues in our urban fabric. how it shaped our community in the past phantom places may in the City of Change was unavoidable and to speculate on what it could mean Living Waters of Larimer 1850s: Pennsylvania Railroad today. Negley Run Was Here is a project of is a project of 1860s: Union stockyards developed along 1840 construction includes earliest culvert remain in the collective Pittsburgh, is in Negley Run –located on The Kingsley Association, railroad (map from 1872); post-civil of the stream under the railroad memory for years and a relatively flat area east of Living Waters of Larimer. Larimer Green Team, war settlement and migration from the can be meaningful invisible to us the city, the East End was and Larimer Consensus Group, south drive neighborhood development 1850 connections to a farmed and later urbanized. supported by The Heinz Endowments 1870s – 1880s: Negley Run encroached today. d upon by rapid settlement, begins to smell community’s past. from unregulated waste disposal practices 1860 b Larimer’s Development 1870

Allegheny River 1880 1907: Construction of Negley Run sewer, upstream from Meadow Street Bridge 1890 1882. The area known as Larimer is beginning to be developed with small e 1902: Brilliant Cutoff Viaduct built by Pennsylvania Railroad Co. lots and houses on the hill sides. Heth’s Run 1900 Highland Park still has few houses Watershed and the larger parcels may have been c farmed as the owners decided how to 1910 subdivide and develop them.

1920 1910. As neighborhoods in the city are filling up with new residents, 1 Saints Peter and Paul Church, Built 8 Larimer and Highland Park are 1890, rebuilt after fire in 1909 8 d 1930 2 also being urbanized. Pink g f boxes show brick houses and eg 1905: Carnegie Library East Liberty yellow boxes show wood Negley Run Branch built (demolished c. 1969) framed houses. Negley Watershed 1940 Run is becoming more of a hazard to the rapidly e f e c b developing East End. Larimer h 1950 Two Mile Run Watershed 1960 Today’s landscape shows a 1910: Construction of Meadow St. Bridge little trace of the earliest connecting Highland Park and Larimer 1 1970 9 houses as they were Negley Run – 10 torn down to make What is a Watershed? eh 1910: Construction of Larimer Avenue way for new Larimer Branch The drainage area of a river or 1980 Bridge, longest concrete span in the infrastructure. stream is called a watershed. world at the time You can still For example, the topography see a tree- around Negley Run causes 1990 1950s: East Liberty and Negley Run lined path rainwater to flow down slopes Boulevards paved over what is left of around the old and into the stream. Negley Run. Negley Run; Chianti and Princeton Buildings can 2000 streets filled in and removed; major, be temporary sometimes fatal flooding reported on but changing 1939: Silver Lake last shown on maps; Washington Blvd. in 1951, ‘52, ‘54 the landform and pavement now covers the site next to 2010 T Nine Mile Run present day Silver Lake Drive O water flow is more Watershed enduring. 2011: Flash flood on Washington D Four Mile Run Boulevard kills four A Watershed Y Negley Run Was Here! Larimer Branch Walking Tour

The tour is approximately 1.5 miles total walking distance with planners and City officials to argue that their row concrete. Despite steel’s dominance in the region, reinforced performed, and will promote the return of a healthy and resilient community houses integrate in design with the renewal plans and do concrete was seen as a reliable technique that would save diverse riparian, or river and stream, habitat. that is poised for 1 START: Zeke’s Coffee Drive Thru not need to be demolished. The City eventually agreed. money through reduced maintenance over time. equitable and The hillsides and the valley floor were once sparsely sustainable growth. 6314 Broad Street Now the Omega Place houses are coming down to 6 make way for the Liberty Larimer Phase I residential developed with small homes. The residents, mostly Carver Street Housing The community Standing in the parking gardens have had @LivingWatersPgh development made possible with recently approved Italians, cleared the hillsides to plant grape vines, leading Corner of Carver and Lenora Streets lot of Zeke’s Coffee, you federal and local funding. Development projects like this to the renaming of River Street to Chianti Street. City steps many successful The Larimer neighborhood juts like a peninsula above the can read the history present an opportunity to gather rain from roofs and leading down from Larimer kept the communities socially harvests and the Negley Run valley. Early street names like Spring, River www.LivingWatersPgh.org of development in our paving and celebrate it in the Negley Run Channel. connected. In the 1950s, all structures were removed from Village Green has and Meadow present a bucolic scene of rich orchards and region and get your first the hillsides and the valley floor was regraded to make room hosted a number of projects, including a soda-bottle fields. As immigrants arrived and built a community on clues as to why Negley for Negley Run Boulevard, connecting suburban commuters structure and will soon be the site of a shipping container Contact John Stephen: 4 these fields, the streamlets and springs were replaced with Run is invisible today. East Liberty Boulevard Bridge with East Liberty and other East End neighborhoods. The classroom. The neighborhood is currently working to 412.606.7149 or [email protected] rich cultural traditions and customs. When you visit Pittsburgh’s East End, you are standing in city steps have been allowed to degrade. acquire site control to keep community-driven open space 150 ft south of 6226 East The corner of Meadow and Larimer was at its heart, and as the neighborhood grows. a giant, slow moving river. Luckily for you, the river hasn’t The stretch of Washington Boulevard downstream of Liberty Blvd, under the for many decades the site of the Meadow Street Grill, often existed for thousands of years! here has for decades been prone to flash flooding. In 1951 bridge cited in its time as the best Italian restaurant in Pittsburgh. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the flat land attracted a woman was trapped 8 FINISH: EECO Center If you imagine yourself as Among the delis, butchers, and groceries of Larimer Avenue farmers who cleared the forests and established roads. in her car and killed, a drop of water moving were also the Larimer Grammar School with its landmark Later this flat area was ideal for industrial sites, commercial and repeated floods in 200 Larimer Avenue downhill from the clock tower, the Bryn Mawr Auditorium, site of numerous districts, and residential areas. Small waterways could be subsequent years led Omega Place, you would festivals, and the First Italian Presbyterian Church (Trinity). The grounds outside of the EECO Center are one of the inconvenient to these developments and were often filled. Public Works and City most robust green infrastructure demonstration sites in need to cross under The Larimer Vision Plan maps greenspace surrounding In the early decades of industrialization, this area had Council to consider a the East End. The Center houses Pittsburgh Community East Liberty Boulevard. Historically the Run followed these blocks and reaching along Larimer. KBK one major drawback—it was not close to the river for plan. The storm sewer Services, Inc., and is home to education events and efforts the path of East Liberty Boulevard and took a sharp turn Development is building homes to add to the new civic transportation. The area did not really grow until railroads system proposed to to bring sustainability to communities of need in the East near the top of Negley Run Boulevard. Today there is a energy of the community. Using a scattered site in-fill came up the valley to supply materials and take goods mitigate the problem was seen to be too expensive so, in End. The EECO Center was the site for the kickoff of the small tunnel and a walking path to bring you into a lush, development strategy, these blocks will be filled with to other markets. Water was a nusiance to a railroad and 1954, Public Works installed a set of lights and automated Project 15206 (www.project15206.org), a collaborative vegetated valley. where you can picture the experience of tradition again. The water can be collected and channeled there is no evidence of Negley Run in the railroad right- barricades in an effort to prevent traffic from reaching the effort between community, government, corporate, the first inhabitants of the plateau. toward the green spaces, including the abandoned Lenora of-way today. lower areas during heavy storms. academic, and philanthropic leaders to combat stormwater Living Waters of Larimer is a project of Way steps down to Negley Run (Chianti Street). 5 Today, Project 15206 and the office of Senator Jim Ferlo problems. The project’s The Kingsley Association, 2 Enright Court + Saints Peter and Meadow Street Bridge have begun construction on a chain of improvements goals are to improve water Larimer Green Team, and Paul Church that will channel roadway and hillside runoff through a 7 Village Green quantity and to reduce Larimer Consensus Group, Downhill from southern edge of Negley Run Blvd series of detention basins, ending in a rain garden at the stormwater flows in the supported by The Heinz Endowments Parking lot behind 6300 East Liberty Blvd The Meadow Street Bridge was part of a Progressive Era intersection with Washington Boulevard. An active spring Corner of Carver Street and Larimer Avenue region’s combined sewer Before urban renewal, East Liberty effort to connect communities and eliminate barriers to will help feed the channel and keep the planted areas and Today Larimer is home to over 1,200 residents, down from system and is focused on transportation. Finished in 1911, the bridge is an early basins wet between storms. Once complete, the system high impact projects in the Blvd was called Everett Street, a peak of over 13,000 residents in 1940. The remaining powered by evolveEA and it actually ran here over the example of a new trend to construct with reinforced will restore some of the functions that Negley Run once residents of Larimer have been tireless in creating a 15206 zipcode. buried stream. Negley Run is still the boundary between the City’s Wards 11 and 12 (and formerly between Wards 19 and 21). In the 1960s, the north end of the street was closed off and thru Mellon traffic was moved east to line Park up with the tunnel under the Former site of railroad. These streets, Enright Silver Lake Place and Enright Court, were named for Thomas Francis Lincoln Enright (1887—1917), born in Bloomfield, who fought in the boxer rebellion in China, against Pancho Villa in e a Mexico, and was one of the first three American soldiers s Bakery t Negley killed in action during World War I. A Police Station was b Square u on the corner; the East Liberty Branch of the Carnegie s w d Library was down the street to the west, and one of the lv a b Larimer y Run Was n largest stockyards in the world operated just east of here to ng until 1903 on land owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad – shi wa just where the Port Authority garages are today. larimer t e Here! e enright Saints Peter and Paul was a German Catholic parish first r court ave t 1 established in 1857. The existing landmark building was s completed in 1891 and remained active until 1992. The w 2 o 7 b larimer branch diocese sold the church, school and rectory in 1997 to d 8 r Shadyside a d o the Everlasting Covenant Church which has allowed the e v a walking l m d b buildings to sit vacant. East Liberty Development Inc. is n s tour currently trying to acquire the properties. eg 6 y treet ley t Approximate r r un e flow of b b lv i 3 d l

Princeton Place historic stream s t 5 3 t s

a

a Opposite 363 Princeton Place t Target e 4 i Highland Park place o Separated from most of Larimer by the channel of Negley princeton n

Run, this edge of the neighborhood linked to the major s t penn transportation routes of Penn Avenue, Frankstown r e Road, Pennsylvania Railroad’s East Liberty Station, and e t dangerous climb: a street car lines throughout the City. The East Liberty venue commercial district also reached Larimer Ave. with the do not attempt without provisions Lexington Roller Rink and then the Treasure Island (walking back to fourth Department Store (opened in 1958)…and now Target. stop is recommended) East Liberty When the Penn Circle Urban Renewal plan reached this edge of Larimer, the residents of Omega Place were able to organize and fight back. The residents attended meetings