Firstside Park, Downtown: 546 Second Avenue
Downtown Pittsburgh has a decent amount of public space, but not everything that looks like a city park is, in fact, city-owned. The Downtown Central Business District has several public spaces owned and managed by non-municipal entities. These include nonprofits like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, as well as businesses. Case in point: Firstside Park, between First and Second Avenues at Grant Street, a green space owned by PNC Bank.
This spot is only a short distance from where Pittsburgh’s very first public park, Second Avenue Park, was established in 1858. After the removal of an abandoned market house, the land was transformed into a small park with a fountain (that, for a time, contained a most unwelcome alligator). In the early 1910s, the park was removed for what would become the Boulevard of the Allies, and the never-ceasing cycles of change would ultimately bring us to today and Firstside Park.
It’s a lovely area with flat walking paths, pastoral landscaping, and a curious collection of outdoor sculptures. Despite the signs prohibiting skateboarding and loitering, people do what one expects in a park: sit and talk, sit and eat, sit and drink, and occasionally lie down and rest their eyes.
FYI: After conducting a thorough search, I determined there are no signs prohibiting alligators.
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