Allegheny City: A History of Pittsburgh’s North Side by Dan Rooney and Carol Peterson (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 94 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Allegheny City A History of Pittsburgh’s North Side Dan Rooney and Carol Peterson In Allegheny City: A History of Pittsburgh’s North Side, Dan Rooney and Carol Peterson describe how a number of personalities and events were related to the growth, decline, and revitalization of Allegheny City, which became the North Side neighborhood of Pittsburgh in 1907. The book opens with a quick overview of the colonial era through the mid-nineteenth century. The authors discuss the process of settlement and city building, the political battle with Pittsburgh to become the county seat, and waves of immigrants (mostly ScotchIrish , English, Irish and German) who built community institutions (churches, cemeteries, social clubs and stores), and the role of local elites and speculators who built infrastructure (bridges, streets, canals and railroads) and factories . These developments spurred the city’s growth into the post- Civil War decades. After this historical backdrop, the bulk of the book shifts focus to the built environment from the late 1880s to the 1920s. During this period, the city underwent several transformations. Initially it became an area coveted by millionaires and the middle classes, who built luxurious mansions in some cases alongside the homes of skilled workers and other residents. This is one of the major strengths of the book: the use of architecture as a window to describe the social and institutional lives of homeowners and the civic buildings they sponsored. Yet, while this emphasis on architecture provides a new way to examine the lives of elites, the middle class, and better off members of the working class—in addition to contemporary ideas about design—it obscures the lives and living conditions of those who did not own homes and lived in more modest conditions . Although workers occasionally appear throughout the book, highlighting their role in building the industrial and commercial machinery of the region would have added explanatory depth to examine the emergence of what the authors dub “the City of Millionaires.” The city’s transformation during the first two decades of the twentieth century holds a central place in the authors’ discussion. In 1907, Pittsburgh, Allegheny City’s larger industrial neighbor, annexed the city and absorbed its political infrastructure. At the same time, elites Dan Rooney and Carol Peterson. Allegheny City: A History of Pittsburgh’s North Side. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013. 264 pp. ISBN: 9780822944225 (cloth), $24.95. BOOK REVIEWS WINTER 2014 95 left and settled in more fashionable neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s East End such as Oakland and Squirrel Hill. Their exodus created space for immigrants from eastern and southern Europe who settled in the neighborhood during the 1910s and early 1920s, adding to the neighborhood ’s ethnic and institutional diversity and forming a number of community institutions. From the Great Depression to the 1990s, the authors chronicle the decline of the neighborhood . Hints at change were already afoot by the 1920s when mansions were divided into smaller apartments and the Great Depression exacerbated the deterioration of an already aging housing stock. Although World War II revitalized manufacturing and attracted workers to the metropolitan area, white flight from and commercial decline in the North Side during the 1950s led the Pittsburgh Planning Commission to designate the area as blighted and call for its demolition as part of a larger urban renewal project already underway in other sections of the city. While neighborhood activists limited the destruction of the neighborhood, community organizations in the coming decades struggled to preserve housing and calm simmering racial tensions. But by the 1980s, deindustrialization took its toll on the region and publicprivate initiatives emerged with uneven results. A handful of these efforts however sowed the seeds of redevelopment. The preservation movement , several commercial investments (sporting stadiums, entertainment and cultural venues, and educational facilities), and the emergence of ancillary businesses have given new life to the area in recent years. Given that Dan Rooney, chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, has deep interests in the area’s revitalization, the authors close the book on this optimistic and celebratory note. In fact, alongside the North Side becoming an entertainment destination, it is also part of larger regional changes shifting it from one...