Trip #118 Bigelow Boulevard to Kirkpatrick Street, Bedford Dwellings, Pittsburgh took place on March 31, 2018, and was published on April 9, 2018.
You can tell a great deal about a community by the skyline. What’s happening in the area where the land meets the sky? Are there church steeples reaching up to the heavens? Towering skyscrapers asserting their dominance? Snaking tracks of roads and highways? Maybe homes are clustered tightly together or spread so far apart it’s hard for the eye to distinguish them at all. I know how the skyline presents itself from Frank Curto Park and these long-forgotten Hill District stairs, but the morning is full of mist, and the view obscured. It allows me to re-imagine the scene and re-arrange the meandering paths of history that brought us to where we are today.
Field Notes: This one was a real adventure! Parked in Frank Curto Park around 8:15 am on a Saturday so I could RUN across Bigelow Blvd. and not risk being killed by speeding cars. 🙂 I was able to get up the stairs for the first two sections and then MASSIVE vine growth. Jumped off, scrambled up the hillside and around. Got back on the stairs and continued up another section until there were MASSIVE fallen tree trunks blocking the way. Jumped off, scrambled up the rest of the way to see that the very end of the flight is sealed off with a chain-link fence. At one time the grading of the land at the terminus must have been very different from what it is now. Another Hill District historical mystery.
Want to visit these stairs? You can locate them on the Pittsburgh City Steps Plan website!
See the Risograph print of this photo and story in the Mis.Steps Shop.
Be a good neighbor! Have you visited these stairs and found them in poor condition or that illegal dumping (large items like tires, old furniture, and construction debris) and trash were abundant in the area? There are two things you can do to take action and make our city steps cleaner and safer for everyone! First, grab a photo if you can, and submit a report to Pittsburgh 311. All problems, both broken stairs, and railings, as well as trash and dumping, should be reported to the city. You can easily do this online or by calling. If the location has an abundance of illegal dumping and trash, also contact Allegheny Cleanways, letting them know the location and the nature of the garbage. Thank you!!
