aerodynamik

The most interesting part of Reynolds street is in Point Breeze and is home to a small commercial district. There is a good restaurant here that serves Belgian food (frites!) called Point Brugge Café. There is also a nice coffee house and a few galleries nearby. However, while it is charming, it does not contain enough of a mix of businesses to make it possible for you to live there conveniently without a bike or a car. The street is very quiet and is lined with beautiful houses. It is also along part of the city’s bike trail system and provides a great environment where kids and adults alike can enjoy riding bikes. It is near Frick Park and the Clayton Art and Historical complex as well, offering lots of opportunities for leisure. The center has recitals and traveling art exhibitions. Reynolds is a really charming street that I like to walk along, especially in the autumn when all of its trees change colors. It strikes me as a very safe place with a good mix of young families and long-time residents.

Wightman is one of the most beautiful streets in Pittsburgh. In its most picturesque section, it is an extremely wide street with only one lane traveling in each direction. It has wide sidewalks shaded by very old and tall trees. Most of the houses in this section are very large with huge yards. There are some townhouses here as well and they are generally well-maintained. At both ends of the street, there are more apartments and smaller houses, but the entire street appears to be well-maintained. I lived just off of this street and walked to school along it every morning. It was peaceful and residents are very friendly. It is conveniently located near the Squirrel Hill shopping district and is only a few blocks from Schenley Park, which is one of the largest parks in the city. It contains a visitor’s center with a café, nature trails, and ice rink, soccer fields, Phipps Conservatory (a recently expanded botanical garden), and many other amenities. It is also home to a large number of sculptures and monuments which make the park a grand space. Wightman gets some traffic, but because the street is so wide, it is rarely a real problem. In spite of its size, the street is easy to cross due to the clearly marked crosswalks that give pedestrians the right-of-way. It is truly a special street in a great location.

Liberty avenue may be one of the most famous streets in the city, because of the television show Queer as Folk, however, that was Toronto and this is Pittsburgh. Liberty starts downtown and is, as described in the tv show, one of the largest hubs of the city’s gay nightclub scene. However, the neighborhood is much grittier and “real” than it is on tv. There are some beautiful conversion lofts on this part of the street that are convenient to these bars, art galleries, a great arthouse cinema, Point State Park and all of the downtown commercial and business districts. This part, however, is also very urban, noisy and less safe than other parts of the city (although by no means unsafe). If you like city living, this is a real urban experience. Moving out of downtown, Liberty passes through the Strip District, which is an open-air market and nightclub district. Although the Strip is one of the most popular neighborhoods for locals and tourists alike, Liberty basically passes by it and becomes a major artery in this area. I am not aware of any residences along it, but it does conveniently connect those living and working downtown with the Lawrenceville and Bloomfield neighborhoods. In these two neighborhoods, Liberty really shines. Lawrenceville was a working-class area that was mainly Polish and Italian, however, it is becoming part of a gentrified design zone with beautiful row houses, fixer-uppers and a wide variety of restaurants, bars and design shops. Most of the action there is not on Liberty, but I would recommend the Church Brew Works, a microbrewery in a converted church. In Bloomfield, Pittsburgh’s little Italy, Liberty becomes a dense commercial district with lots to do and see. Throughout its length, it is busy, so it is better, in my opinion, to live off of it than directly on it. However, Liberty offers something for everyone.

Walnut street has a lot of the same stores that an upscale mall has including American Apparel, the Gap, Banana Republic, the Apple Store, and Coach. There are a few smaller and more exclusive boutiques that carry higher-end fashion, like Moda, but mainly the stores are chains. That is not necessarily a bad thing, because it means that you will rarely need to drive to the suburbs to shop. Walnut street has a lot of apartments and houses along its length and is near to the Oakland university district. It does get busy and although you can usually find a parking space, it is better to make sure that you get off-street parking if you are planning to move to this street. If you are planning to visit, there are convenient garages and parking lots, but not so many that it ruins the pleasant village-like feeling of the neighborhood. I like Walnut street, but it is more like a mall than other nearby commercial neighborhoods. That said, it is safe, relatively clean, contains a pretty complete collection of shops (food, clothing, housewares, etc.) and has nice landscaping and well-maintained sidewalks.

Don’t get me wrong. I really love visiting Ellsworth Avenue. In its commercial section, there are a number of good restaurants and shops, including CoCo’s Cupcake Café which is a personal favorite of mine. It is also a mini-hub of gay nightlife in the city and is home to a number of bars that are popular with art, music and drama students from nearby universities. It is also convenient to the Walnut Street shopping district of Shadyside and the new EastSide development in East Liberty. The residential part of the street is relatively quiet and contains a mix of houses and apartments. It is near playgrounds and public and private schools. That, plus its safe location make it a good place to raise kids, especially for a family that values an urban environment that retains standalone houses with small yards. Housing can be a little more expensive here, depending upon what you are looking for, but the location makes it worth the extra money. There are gyms, medical facilities, and cultural institutions nearby. Depending upon what side of Ellsworth you live on, much of this is within walking distance, which is good, because all of the attractions make it impossible to park. I would not advise buying or renting in this area if you own a car unless you have off-street parking. It can be a little loud in the commercial area on the weekends, but otherwise, it is a great residential street.

Darlington is right off of Murray Avenue and a short block from Forbes, two of the most significant residential retail streets in Pittsburgh and the heart of the Squirrel Hill shopping district. The houses on Darlington are older, but have a lot a charm. A number of them have been converted into apartments filled with graduate students from nearby Pitt and Carnegie Mellon. The street is safe, but is very busy for a “side street” because of its proximity to the commercial heart of Squirrel Hill. Everyone is driving up the street looking for parking. The number of people parking there also seems to create a fair amount of litter, which can add to a home owner’s maintenance burdens. That said, it is extremely close to a Barnes and Noble, a movie theater and a grocery store. It is also near great restaurants, a beautifully remodeled library and a short walk to the Jewish Community Center which serves as a gym for everyone in the community, regardless of their faith or ancestry. It is a friendly street and I have known many who lived there. Other than parking and the messy people who park there, it is a fine street in a great location.

Alderson street is not the most beautiful in Pittsburgh. It ends at the brick wall of a garage. There is something like an auto body shop at the end of it. Cars go in, but maybe they don’t come out! That said, the street was a great place to live as a college student. It was extremely affordable, and even though the apartment buildings were run-down, turn-of-the-century buildings, they had a lot of charm with hardwood floors and stained glass on the ceilings of the stairwells. The other section of the street contained modest homes with front yards and sidewalks. Both parts of the street were safe and conveniently located in Squirrel Hill, near a tremendous number of amenities, including: a bowling alley (you don’t hear any noise, though), two movie theaters, and two long streets full of shops, restaurants, and bars. I really loved living there, but on the down side, there is a rodent problem on the apartment side of the street. A friend owned one of the houses on the more permanently residential side of the street and did not notice the rodents. Although it wasn’t perfect, it was a very affordable entry point into one of the city’s best neighborhoods.

Beechwood is interesting, partly because it changes character so dramatically, partly because it passes by two beautiful but different parks and partly because it crosses itself at one point. In Greenfield, there are lots of great (and some not so great) apartments that are affordable and convenient to Oakland (the university distict). This part of the street is also a short drive (not really walkable) to the Waterfront shopping center, which can be useful. I lived in this section while in college and found it very convenient, safe and friendly. Next, the street winds into Squirrel Hill. Here, there houses are bigger and there are fewer apartments. It passes Frick Park in this neighborhood, which is a beautiful and extremely large park that has not only an off-leash area for dogs, and baseball, basketball and playground facilities, but also extensive hiking trails that provide a beautiful escape from the urban landscape and some stunning views of the river below. The street continues into Point Breeze where the houses start to become extremely large. This area is more exclusive and contains Mellon Park, which is a formal park as opposed to the wilderness of Frick Park. Mellon Park contains well-maintained gardens, a garden center and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. There is not much commerce along the street in any neighborhood, but at all points, it is close enough to businesses to be convenient, yet far away enough to be quiet. It is extremely safe and a runner or biker’s dream. There is a bike lane along the street and relatively well-kept sidewalks along its length. I used to run along it from beginning to end. Overall, it is a great place to be, but not if you like to be in the middle of the action.

East Carson Street is one of the most lively streets in Pittsburgh and for that reason it is one of the best streets to visit, but maybe not the best one to live on. It is the heart of the bar scene in Pittsburgh and is home to establishments that serve almost every scene in the city. There are sports bars, pool halls, hooka bars, gay-friendly drinking spots, coffeehouses, and even a tiki bar and a bar popular with the biker scene. All of this activity makes Carson a great place to spend a night, but also very loud and filled with traffic. I know that many residents complain about disturbances from drunk people and traffic noise. However, there is also a convenience to living near Carson. Not only is there a great bar scene, there are also nearby cultural attractions. The Silver Eye photography center is there and the City Theatre is nearby. There are also a fair number of music venues including the Rex, Club Café and Diesel. During the day, you can shop in the small and eclectic boutiques to the west of the Birmingham bridge including some great bookstores, an interesting shop for “green” products called the E-House Company and some really special restaurants (like Café du Jour and Nakama). For good cheap eats from a colorful local, visit Cambodican Kitchen. On the east side of the bridge, there is a large “lifestyle” center with a Sur Le Table and H&M. You can definitely get everything you need within walking distance if you live on Carson, but you may find it hard to sleep. That said, it is one of my favorite places in the city.

Murray Avenue is one of my favorite streets in Pittsburgh. It, along with Forbes Avenue form the heart of Squirrel Hill’s business district, and out of the two streets, I think it contains a more interesting a quintessentially local collection of shops and restaurants. I used to live on a street just off of Murray and found it possible to get almost everything that I needed without using a car. Murray has a decent movie theatre, a Barnes and Noble and a Giant Eagle grocery store. It also has a number of interesting small ethnic shops and restaurants, although there is a fair amount of turnover among these small businesses. During my seven years living there, I had access to Korean, Kosher, Greek, Turkish, Russian, and Italian grocery stores and a larger variety of restaurants. It is really a complete neighborhood in a single street in a way that I have not experienced in other parts of Pittsburgh and in other cities. It is very safe at all times of the day and night and aside from the fact that it is a rather large hill, it is very walkable. The neighbors are very friendly as well, although many of them are older and are non-English speakers from Eastern Europe as the street progresses toward the Greenfield neighborhood (but that is where the best Eastern European food can be found). The biggest drawbacks are the lack of nightlife options and relatively frequent power outages. Other than that, I think living on or near Murray is one of the best choices for a quiet, yet very urban place to live.