Homewood Playground and Park, Neighborhood Park: 540 North Lang Avenue
Pittsburghers are not alone in their love for Heinz ketchup. Still, Pittsburgh is unique in that the region has long benefitted from the generosity and civic-mindedness of H.J. Heinz and his family, long after the family brand name was sold and the food production plants turned into luxury apartments.
I’m not a Heinz scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but what I’ve read about him, I really like. He was a person with a calling and strong drive, who experienced significant loss and failure before his great success. While Heinz was a man of his time, he also held beliefs that today might be called “progressive” about the nature of work, social welfare, and community. These beliefs and actions certainly ran counter to some of his neighbors along Millionaire’s Row in Point Breeze.
During the early years of the twentieth century, as the public playgrounds movement gained traction, Heinz supported these efforts. But more importantly, he supported these efforts near his home. In 1912, when advocates called for a playground and public bathhouse a mere two blocks away, he wrote a letter of support to the City Council for the creation of Homewood Park.
Homewood Park has been a focal point of the community ever since, and its most recent restoration project is nearly complete. A new football field was finished last year, and the playground and public pool (today’s version of the “bathhouse”) should open in the months ahead. It’s mind-boggling to think that at one time, these spaces were controversial and deemed unnecessary and disruptive by some, but they were. I wonder if Heinz’s letter and public support made for charged dinner-party conversations within the Point Breeze social set. A century before the term “YIMBY” would be coined, H.J. made a difference by saying “yes.”
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