We began our tour of Bon Air having recently walked its geographic and alphabetical neighbor, Beltzhoover. This tour was a study in contrasts. The neighborhood of Bon Air is a pocket of land in the south end, with few entrances or exits by road, and consequently, there is a very apparent distinction at the threshhold of the neighborhood, rather than the usual gradual change that we’ve seen at the borders of other neighborhoods.
Bon Air is a small neighborhood of just under 900 people in Pittsburgh’s South End. It borders Beltzhoover on the North, Knoxville on the East, Carrick on the East and South, and Brookline on the West.
Between McKinley Park and the other green space that outlines the neighborhood, Bon Air is a little bit insulated, which contributes to the feel of “Country living in the City.” The neighborhood is just about entirely residential.
We began walking Bluff (a.k.a. Uptown) at the Birmingham Bridge, which overlooks the tight, narrow neighborhood that stretches from Oakland to Downtown.
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The Bluff neighborhood (more often called Uptown or sometimes Soho) of the City of Pittsburgh sits along the North Bank of the Monongahela River to Fifth Avenue and runs between the Birmingham Bridge and the Liberty Bridge. It borders Downtown on the West, Crawford-Roberts and West Oakland on the North, and South Oakland on the East. The South Side Flats are just across the River on the South.
We began our tour of Bloomfield on a cold, but clear day at the corner of Liberty Ave. and Main St., which would later turn into a blustery, snowy day, thus initiating our first official walk in the winter snow.
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Bloomfield’s name is thought to refer to the blooming fields of wildflowers that filled the area long before any development sprung up. A journal entry written by George Washington referred to “the high ground through a field of many blooms”.
With storm clouds having chased us clear out of Beltzhoover for the past two weekends, we swore that on this day, we would do the walk, rain or shine. It was rain. We started at the corner of East Warrington and Beltzhoover Avenue, ready for the soggy feet that lay ahead.
Pittsburgh is ranked #9 most walkable city, according to a Brookings Institution study that surveyed the top 30 U.S. metro areas.
Beltzhoover is a Hilltop neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s South End. It is bordered by Mt. Washington on the North and West, Bon Air on the South, and Knoxville and Allentown on the East.
We started our walk at the Beechview Community War Memorial parklet, which sits between Broadway and Bensonia, at Shiras Ave.
