CHARLES MULFORD ROBINSON
AUTHOR OF MODERN CIVIC ART, ETC.
In studying the civic improvement possibilities of Pittsburgh, one is
impressed by a curious mingling of antagonistic conditions. A wonderful
natural picturesqueness is contrasted with the utmost industrial
defilement, smoke and grime and refuse pervading one of the finest city
sites in the world. Similarly great wealth and great squalor are side
by side. Nation-wide business is done on very narrow streets. A royal
munificence in public benefaction goes with a niggardliness that as yet
denies to many children a decent playspace. Immense private houses,
with the amplest grounds to be found perhaps in any great city, abut
on meanly proportioned streets. One is impressed first by the hugeness
of the city and then by its lack of coherence. It has been built up as
an aggregation of integers, mighty, resourceful, pushing; but lacking
as yet in unity. That power, which is the keynote of the city, is not
civic. It is not communal power but a dynamic individualism.
But still steep hillsides close with magnificent self-assertion the
vistas of business streets, still the mighty rivers, polluted with
refuse though they be, flow in great streams to meet at the "Point";
still from heights there are views of surpassing interest; and in
the rolling country that encompasses the city with ravine and wooded
slope, there still remain gentle loveliness and restfulness in
impressive contrast with the throbbing industry of the town. Thus, in
spite of itself, picturesqueness such as even Edinburgh, the "queen
city of Europe," might envy is thrust upon Pittsburgh, and there is a
surrounding beauty that Florence might covet.
[Illustration: NATURAL BEAUTY vs. INDUSTRIAL ODDS.]
In the midst of this strange mingling of opposites, of great
opportunities and fearful handicaps, of vast needs and vast
resources there appears the gradual stirring of a new ideal. A
civic consciousness is awaking and that social conscience which has
heretofore operated in individuals merely is becoming popularly active.
At this wonderfully interesting juncture, the serious study of civic
improvement in Pittsburgh is to be made. What Pittsburgh wants, what
she has done and dreamed, what she must do, as a community, for her
improvement,--these are the questions for the citizens of Greater
Pittsburgh if "greater" is to have all its true significance.
In discussing them let us follow these most obvious divisions of the
subject:
First, the congested business district of Pittsburgh proper, that
is, the peninsula: its needs and its possibilities. Second, the slum
district,--a band of varying width that, regardless of intervening
rivers, surrounds the business section. Third, the manufacturing area,
very widely extended and therefore affecting the whole city. Fourth,
the homes of wealth, typified by the East End, and the educational and
cultural center that is building there. Fifth, the suburban district.
Sixth, the park requirements of the Greater City. Seventh, the
community as a whole.
[Illustration: WHERE THE CARS LOOP.]