As a child in the 1950s, Mike Dawida remembers his father loading five children in the car and driving from their home in Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood to Penn Hills for a picnic at an overlook along the Allegheny River.
Today, as head of a group known as Scenic Pittsburgh, the former state senator and Allegheny County commissioner is working with a group of local residents known as the Allegheny River Boulevard Preservation Association. The group is taking on the monumental task of revitalizing a highway built during the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s as part of the City Beautiful program that is now largely overgrown with limited views of the river and three observation decks closed from the public in varying states of disrepair.
The boulevard, one of the first City Beautiful projects in the country, extends about 6 miles from Washington Boulevard in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood through Penn Hills and Verona to Hulton Road in Oakmont. That 6 miles has changed since the original construction, but different areas have aged differently.
The first section is largely undeveloped except for 17 billboards and the three observation decks — one in the city and two in Penn Hills — lining the two-lane highway beside the one-track Allegheny Valley Railroad and dropping down to the river.
At Sandy Creek Road (Route 130) in Penn Hills, that changes. A shopping center and industrial area on the river side leads to Verona’s business district, then a small viaduct leads to the red-brick street that highlights the business district in Oakmont.
For now, the preservation group that consists of five officers and a few random volunteers is largely concentrating on the first section. Chairman Rick Duncan of Penn Hills and others have spent the past two years learning the boulevard’s history, clearing some vegetation around the observation decks, and later this month members will plant 15 trees to help restore the natural beauty of the area.
The group also has been working with a consultant to develop a management plan for the area and will present the draft of the plan Thursday for public input with a goal to complete it by the end of the year. Scenic Pittsburgh is helping the group get the road designated a “scenic byway,” which could make it eligible for state and federal funding.
“It’s a slow process,” said Duncan. “This is a very, very long-term project. We’re just going to take on the things we can do.
“It’s had 90 years of people not taking care of it.”
Detective work
Duncan, an archaeologist by trade, became interested in the boulevard through his involvement in the Penn Hills Shade Tree Commission, where he serves as vice president. A couple of years ago, he and other commission members saw a utility company contractor taking the tops off trees — including well-developed London plane trees, a special variety of sycamore — along the river side of the boulevard near Verona.
Alarmed by what they saw, Duncan and others began investigating the history of the trees. They found they were planted in the 1930s as part of the construction of Allegheny River Boulevard under the Works Progress Administration’s special program to create jobs during the Great Depression and beautify areas outside of cities to draw residents to the suburbs.
Before the boulevard and the growth of the automobile, Penn Hills was connected to the Highland Park area by a dirt path that ended near present-day Nadine Road. To get farther up the river, travelers had to climb the hill into the Mount Carmel area of Penn Hills, then go east for several miles before they could head back down to the riverbank around where Verona Road is today.
Allegheny County played a major role in the 1930-32 construction of the boulevard, which was cut into the rock hillside that previously ran to the river. The fancy design included deep granite curbs, the three turnouts for picnics and pristine views of the river, and special trees such as the London plane planted throughout.
A pair of lighted granite markers, with one face identifying the roadway and another with a historic relief, originally were placed at the Highland Park end and near Wildwood Avenue in Verona. Redesign of the intersection at Washington Boulevard eliminated the markers there, but they remain in Verona.
Over the years, the county turned ownership of the highway over to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for road maintenance, but ownership of the turnouts and responsibility for the trees and scenic view became a mixed bag with no one seemingly taking full responsibility.
Duncan’s research found that county property records show PennDOT, the county and the railroad as property owners of the turnouts, but technically the county claims them all. Penn Hills cuts grass for two of them, but no one has maintained the flat-stone turnouts themselves.
By the late ’70s, the turnouts became a dumping ground, so access to them was closed off. Today, the turnouts themselves are in various states of disrepair with separated walls, trees growing through the stones and feet of runoff dirt rendering them unusable.
“Sometime soon, the walls are going to fall down,” Duncan said.
The lack of attention also allowed Mother Nature to hide the view of the river during warm weather with other trees, wild bushes and weeds lining the strip of roadside and the slope leading to the railroad track.
“That would be key to the future — to bring the river back into view,” he said.
Planning the past
Duncan’s group also found positive elements about the boulevard that have spurred the members to take on the challenge of refurbishing the roadway.
In the 1990s, archaeological firm Christine Davis Consultants developed a document known as a historic resource form about the boulevard for the state Historical and Museum Commission. The commission determined the boulevard is eligible to be a National Historic District, which gives the area special protections against changes and makes it eligible for federal funds.
The Museum Commission and Scenic Pittsburgh have become helpful partners.
The commission encouraged the local group to develop a management plan and helped arrange a $20,000 grant to pay half the cost. Contributions from local businesses, other civic groups and individual donors provided the rest.
On Thursday, consultant Landmarks SGA will present preliminary recommendations and guidance for establishing a preservation strategy. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. at Steel City Rowing, 101 Arch St., Verona.
With resolutions of support from the four communities served by the boulevard — Pittsburgh, Penn Hills, Oakmont and Verona — and help from Scenic Pittsburgh, the group has asked the state Legislature to designate the roadway a scenic byway. The House has approved the bill, but it is awaiting action in the Senate.
With Dawida also the chairman of the board of Scenic America, that designation could give the preservation project a strong advantage moving forward.
The long-term goal is reopening the observation decks on a limited basis by installing gates that might be open during daylight hours on a Sunday, but that’s years and probably millions of dollars away.
Duncan’s immediate goals are more practical.
He wants to get the management plan finished by the end of the year. On Nov. 16, his group and the Shade Tree Commission will plant 15 smaller trees at three sites to replace the London planes and others.
He wants a consultant to develop a formal vegetation plan that would guide the group on what growth to attack first and identify good replacements. And stabilizing the walls and surfaces of the observations decks before they collapse is a must. The group also is formally applying to PennDOT to “adopt and beautify” as many sections of the highway as it can handle.
Duncan is continuing to build support with local government leaders and spending his free time hacking away at the roadside overgrowth even if the group doesn’t have formal approval.
“I don’t think anybody will get angry if you’re cleaning something up,” he said.
The irony of working on an area he used to visit as a child is not lost on Dawida.
“I remember my father took us all the way from Carrick to Penn Hills for a picnic,” he said. “It was a special place. You could literally pull off along the side and look at the river.
“Allegheny River Boulevard is just a nice place. We think we’ll be able to get some money. It’s not going to be cheap, but we think we can do it.”
Ed covers transportation at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at eblazina@unionprogress.com.