PHLF Advocacy Updates

Historic Review Commission, Local Designations, and Other City Issues 

April HRC Meeting.  The next meeting of the HRC will be held on April 4, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. in the First Floor Hearing Room of 200 Ross Street.

Items of note on the Agenda include the proposed demolition of several non-contributing buildings in the Market Square Historic District for the construction of a mixed-use high rise by Millcraft Industries. In PHLF’s “Fifth and Forbes Development Plan” (1999), the non-contributing buildings on the south side of Forbes Avenue were identified as a prime site for new development.

National Register Nominations

On March 2, 2012, the National Parks Service designated the Braddock Carnegie Library as a National Historic Landmark.  According to Walter Kidney in Pittsburgh’s Landmark Architecture (PHLF 1997), “[t]his was the first of the American Carnegie libraries to be dedicated, a few hundred yards from the Edgar Thomson Works, Andrew Carnegie’s first major venture in steelmaking.”  The building was designed by William Halsey Wood (Newark, NJ) in 1888; Carnegie Hall was added in 1893 by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow (Pittsburgh, PA).

The National Historic Landmarks Program is a federal designation for nationally significant places that possess “exceptional value or quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States.”  There are less than 2,500 National Historic Landmarks in the nation.  Allegheny County has 11 National Historic Landmarks––Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail (1888), Bost Building (1892), Braddock Carnegie Library (1888), Carrie Blast Furnaces Number 6 and 7 (1884), Chatham Village (1930s), Emmanuel Episcopal Church (1886), Forks of the Ohio, Kennywood Park (1898), Oakmont Country Club (1903), Smithfield Street Bridge (1883), and Woodville Plantation (c.1780).