The Story of a "Fine View"

The Story of a "Fine View". Fineview Overlook. , An Allegheny Ridge Becomes "Nunnery Hill", The land we now call "the North Side" was for centuries home to indigenous peoples. The local residents depicted [above] in Robert Griffing's "Unconquered" are likely Seneca, members of the Iroquois Confederacy., By the time of this 1851 map, springs had been tapped and coal pits and quarries dug, though the only settlement on this high, rough ground had been the St. Clare's Seminary - or, the "nunnery" on "Nunnery Hill" - open from 1828 until 1835 [below], The Nunnery Hill Incline Comes and Goes, The Nunnery Hill Incline [below], built in 1888, was a rare curved incline; the Pittsburgh area's only other curved incline was in Knoxville. The carriage was a repurposed Federal Street and Pleasant Valley Passenger Railway Co. streetcar. Fare was five cents. Safety concerns caused the incline to shutter only seven years after it opened., The mansion atop Nunnery Hill in the center of this photograph is Ingleside Place, then home to stonemason, civil engineer, and capitalist James Andrews. He also owned the landmark Heathside Cottage at 416 Catona Street., In 1915, the City of Pittsburgh officially changed the neighborhood name to Fineview at the request of the Fineview Board of Trade., From Overlooked to Overlook, For most if not all of the 20th century, the location of this overlook was little more than a fenced-in patch of hillside brush, as photographed [right] on April 30, 1966, the iconic 21-Fineview trolley's last day of service. It took years of tireless advocacy from the volunteer members of the Fineview Citizens Council, under the leadership of Bruce West, to push the city to build this parklet. Founded in 1979 to counteract disinvestment and abandonment, the FCC has developed new housing, organized the annual Fineview Step Challenge [far right], and fought for the neighborhood's needs amid so many changes on the North Side., The New Deal on the North Side, In 1940, the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh bought the vacant estate of the late James Andrews for its fifth New Deal-funded low-income housing project: Allegheny Dwellings. The Second World War intervened before construction on the project was complete, so defense workers and their families were prioritized over low-income families during the initial application process. Residents began moving in on December 15, 1942., Image Sources:, Image sources: Robert Griffing. "Unconquered." ...Schuchman and Haunlein (1851). "Plan of Lots in Benvilla." Thompson Bell Papers, Detre Library and Archives.... Samuel Diescher (1897). "American Inclined Plane Railways". Cassier's Magazine....Robert R. Hagy. Jr. (1941). "Pittsburgh Housing Project Scheduled Atop Fineview Hill." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette....Marks, Fisher, Simboli (1941). "Allegheny Dwellings." Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh Records, University of Pittsburgh Library System....Frank Fairbanks, Jr. (1966). "Pittsburgh Railways 1697 II." Frank B. Fairbanks Rail Transportation Archive, Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation....Unknown (2018). "Fineview Step Challenge." Fineview Citizens Council.