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Squirrel Hill is a large residential neighborhood in the east end of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The city officialy divides it into two neighborhoods, Squirrel Hill North and Squirrel Hill South, but it is almost universally treated as a single neighborhood. As of the census of 2000, there were 24,915 people, 10,499 households, and 5,198 families residing there.^[1]

Squirrel Hill has zip code 15217 and is bordered on the west by Oakland and Schenley Park, on the north by Shadyside and Point Breeze, on the east by Frick Park, and on the south by Greenfield and the Monongahela River.

Squirrel Hill was the home of Fred Rogers and therefore is known as the "real-life" Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

History

The growth and development of Squirrel Hill was initially focused on the riverfront along the Monongahela River. The first recorded house was built by a soldier at nearby Fort Pitt, Colonel James Burd, at a place called Summerset on the Monongahela River in 1760. Its first "business district" was the intersection of Brown's Hill Road and Beechwood Boulevard. In 1778, John Turner built his estate of Federal Hill nearby (along what is now Beechwood Boulevard). Squirrel Hill's next house was built by Ambrose Newton in the 1760s. This house is still standing and is located in Schenley Park along Overlook Drive (near the ice skating rink).

The third house was built by Robert Neill around 1787 in what is now Schenley Park. This house still exists and is occasionally open to the public. The Neills owned 262 acres of land in the northern section of Schenley Park. In 1795, the Neills moved from this house to a location in what is now Market Square in downtown Pittsburgh, before they died. After they died, the house was handed down to two different people before it was sold to General James O'Hara. O'Hara's granddaughter, Mary Schenley, gave the property to the city of Pittsburgh in 1889. For a time, in the house was rented out by the city to vacationers. However, by 1969, the house was in such poor condition that it was dismantled and rebuilt by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation. It still exists and is only open for tours during the Vintage Grand Prix in August.

Around 1820, William "Killymoon" Steward built one of the first tavern/inns in the area. His tavern, located near the intersection of Beechwood and Brown's Hill Road, survived for over 100 years. Slowly, Squirrel Hill became a prosperous and affluent suburb. By the 1860s, the area along Fifth Avenue near Woodland Road had several mansions, including Willow Cottage. The cottage was built by the industrialist and civic leader Thomas M. Howe, a bank president and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1851 to 1855. Though neglected for many years and almost torn down, Willow Cottage has recently undergone a $2.2 million restoration and renovation into a Chatham University gatehouse and guesthouse.

Following the Civil War several of Pittsburgh's richest families built multiple houses in the Woodland Road area between Fifth and Wilkins Avenues. Prior to 1868, the Squirrel Hill area was a part of Peebles Township. This changed in 1868 when the city of Pittsburgh annexed the land. In 1869, a woman's college, the predecessor to Chatham University, was established nearby. Today, Chatham University owns several of these large houses. In 1869, the clubhouse of the Pittsburgh Golf Club was built at the new Schenley Park Golf Course.

Over the course of the 19th century, the focus of Squirrel Hill shifted from its riverfront at the Monongahela River to the area closest to Oakland and Shadyside. Former farm land such as the area known as the Murdoch Farms slowly developed as new development appeared in the area.

File:SquirrelHillHistory-manor.jpg

Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill (1937)

The growth of Squirrel Hill accelerated when an electric trolley was installed in 1893. The trolley line ran via Forbes Avenue and Murray Avenue to its final destination in Homestead. The trolley line facilitated the building of hundreds of houses for the middle management of local factories, especially on Shady and Denniston Avenues near Aylesboro. Despite its trolley line, Murray Avenue remained a dirt road until 1920.

Squirrel Hill grew even more with the opening of the Boulevard of the Allies in 1927, providing a direct link to downtown Pittsburgh.

Author Willa Cather briefly made Squirrel Hill her home from 1901 to 1906. Residing on Woodland Road, Cather was the telegraph (wire desk) editor and drama critic for the newspaper, Pittsburgh Leader. She taught at Central Catholic High School in nearby Oakland and later became the head of the English Department at Allegheny High School. Cather used Pittsburgh as the setting for several short stories that she wrote during her time here.

When Henry Clay Frick died in 1919, he bequethed 150 acres of undeveloped land to the City of Pittsburgh for use as a public park. He provided a $2 million trust fund to assist with the maintenance of the park. Frick Park on the eastern border of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood opened in 1927. Between 1919 and 1942, money from the trust fund was used to enlarge the park, increasing its size to almost 600 acres.

In February 2004, Frick Park grew with the addition of the Nine Mile Run stream restoration area which flows to the Monongahela River. The United States Army Corps of Engineers is managing the restoration funded with $5 million in federal money and $2.7 million raised by the city.[1]

Many of the new residents were Eastern European Jews from Oakland and the Hill District. Not as wealthy as their predecessors, they moved into rows of brick houses on the cross streets of Murray Avenue south of Forbes, such as Darlington Street, Bartlett Street, and Beacon Street. Squirrel Hill became the center of Jewish culture in the city, with kosher butcher shops, delicatessens, Jewish restaurants, bookstores, and designer boutiques.

By the 1930s, most of the available land in Squirrel Hill had been filled.

Religion

Squirrel Hill has had a large Jewish population since the 1920s, when Jewish people began to move to the neighborhood in large numbers from Oakland and the Hill District. According to a 2002 study by the United Jewish Federation, 33% of the Jewish population of greater Pittsburgh lives in Squirrel Hill and another 14% lives in the surrounding neighborhoods[2]. The report states that "The stability of Squirrel Hill, a geographic hub of the Jewish community located within the city limits, is unique in North America." Squirrel Hill contains three Jewish day schools, catering to the Lubavitch, Orthodox, and Conservative movements respectively.^[2]^[3]^[4] There are over twenty synagogues, many with their own websites. The Jewish community also offers three restaurants (Milky Way, Pinati, and Aaron & Ari's Grill)[3], a bakery (Simple Treat), a Jewish Community Center, and an annual festival. Approximately half of Squirrel Hill residents are Jewish[4].

Education

Squirrel Hill is located in the Pittsburgh School District. The public high school for the neighborhood is Taylor Allderdice High School. Squirrel Hill is also home to Chatham University (bordering Shadyside) and parts of the Carnegie Mellon University (most is in Oakland).

Points of interest

External links

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Historic Pittsburgh Map Collections

References

^ "Census: Pittsburgh" (PDF). Pittsburgh Department of City Planning. January 2006. Retrieved 2007-07-19. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
^ http://www.yeshivaschool.com/
^ http://hillelpgh.org/
^ http://www.comday.org/

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 **[http://www.templesinaipgh.org/ Temple Sinai]
 **[http://www.tolpgh.org/ Tree of Life]
+**[http://www.shaaretorah.net/ Shaare Torah]
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