Allegheny Commons - City of Pittsburgh

United States Department of the InteriorNational Park Service / National Register of Historic Places Registration FormNPS Form 10900 OMB No. 10240018 (Expires 5/31/2012)Allegheny CommonsName of PropertyAllegheny County, PACounty and StateThe park’s integrity of materials, design, and workmanship derive from the execution of its landscape planning,the continuity of its plantings, and the existence and quality of buildings, structures, sites and objects whichcommunicate the park’s historic functions as a place of outdoor recreation (both passive and active) andcultural remembering. In these respects, the park has good integrity to all eras of its history. The form of thepark – its basic boundaries, cross-cut by the railroad and Ohio Street, and its overall path system – date fromMitchell and Grant’s original plan, as does the park’s overall character: the symmetrical formality of linearNorth, East, and South Commons, linked to the pastoral expanse of West Common. Successive campaigns ofpark improvement in 1935 and in 1967 tinkered with, but did not substantially alter, the ways in which thepark’s four quadrants were designed to be experienced by pedestrian users. The swimming pool, pool house,and tennis courts are evidence of the City’s early- to mid-20 th century emphasis on active recreational facilities.The streamlined path layouts of North and lower East Commons, which date to the Civil Works Administrationfundedimprovements designed by Ralph Griswold in 1934, also have integrity to this period. While introducinga modern design vocabulary to West Common, Simonds and Simonds’ 1966 plan also resurrected LakeElizabeth, an original feature of the park whose function has evolved from ornamental to recreational toornamental again, after a 20-year period of nonexistence. West Common’s meandering, pastoral characterhas its origins in Mitchell and Grant’s original 1867 plan, while extant features such as the lake, its concretearched footbridges, the mounded earth, and the brick perimeter walls have integrity to the Simonds plan of1966.Plantings from all periods are present and are true to the original park designers’ intent, with formal alleesemphasizing linear features and more informal specimen plantings filling in lawns and meadows. Among thetrees and parklands, the park’s first 50 years saw an accumulation of monumental furnishings, such hasfountains and sculptures. The fountains were gradually removed as their maintenance became burdensome tothe City and the park’s emphasis on ornamentation shifted to one of recreation during the 20th century. Yetmany major monuments and sculptures from the Victorian period remain: the Hampton Battery Memorial, theSoldier’s Monument, the Thomas Armstrong Memorial, George Washington Memorial, Maine Memorial, andiron deer sculpture. These contribute not only to the park’s integrity of materials, design, and workmanship,but to its feeling and association as a repository of cultural memory and political commemoration. Likewise,bridges erected to facilitate the interaction of the park’s multimodal transportation systems – pedestrian paths,vehicular roads, and a railroad which predated the park itself – are still extant with integrity (although theircondition currently is poor). No buildings from the park’s first 50 years survive, but two from the park’s secondera as a recreational destination (the pool house and restroom building) do, also with integrity. Of the park’stwo non-contributing buildings, the maintenance building has little impact on the park’s overall integrity since itis tucked into an out-of-the way location. The Aviary, though a primary presence in the park, does not presenta major barrier to integrity because its location has always been the site of a city-owned institution, from thepenitentiary to the former conservatory. Its use is compatible with that of the park, and its siting does notrepresent a removal of park land.Together, the park’s unchanged location, its strong and consistent boundaries, its largely intact setting, and thepresence of its contributing buildings, structures, sites, and objects – including the park as a site, itself –contribute to its integrity of feeling and association. The park’s green lawns and extensive tree canopycontinue to represent a verdant oasis within a densely-built area of Pittsburgh. Its surrounding street wall of19th and early 20th century buildings, combined with its gentle topography, its lush and varied plantings, itsfocal nodes occupied by historic statuary, its reflective water feature, and the presence of recreationalresources, cumulatively communicate Allegheny Commons’ history as an ornamental Victorian park whichevolved to meet the wants and needs of the city it served over its first 100 years. Intact paths, roads, andbridges underscore the park’s essential identity as a public work, a City-built pleasure ground which mustnevertheless accommodate the urban region’s industrial and transit functions. Only two noncontributingsculptures, unobtrusively sited, intrude on the feeling of Victorian commemoration supplied by the park’scontributing monuments and memorials. Active recreational features such as ball courts and the swimming11