South Side Market House Healthy Active Living Center, 49 S 12th Street
The South Side Market House is one of two surviving market houses in Pittsburgh; the other is in East Liberty (and is currently home to AAA and the DMV). Built in 1893, it was designed to sell produce, livestock, and items needed in a late nineteenth-century home. Kind of like a shopping mall but with many more aromas.
Fires were a very real threat during this time, and the South Side Market experienced five of them between its opening and 1914, when the most destructive blaze engulfed the roof and towers and shattered all the windows. Walls were all that survived (see the photo from Historic Pittsburgh), and the structure was rebuilt the following year. The market continued into the 1940s, when the building became a community center hosting everything from dances to boxing tournaments.
Fun fact: During renovations to the Market House in 2015, an original cornerstone time capsule was discovered! Inside were horseshoes, a newspaper from Sept. 1893, coins from the U.S. and Germany, tokens from area businesses, and a folding watchman’s key made of brass and iron.
Today, the Market House is the home of CitiPark’s South Side Healthy Active Living Center (HAL). Programs for individuals 60+ are free and include weekly piano lessons, a “meditation, dance, and laughter” class, tai chi, BINGO, and a walking group, to name a few. Doors are open 8am -4 pm Monday through Friday with a healthy lunch served at 12 noon (suggested donation, .50 cents). If the inflation index calculator is correct, that would be a smidge more than 1 cent in 1893 money. I hope the “sahside” old-timers agree that’s a good bargain.
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