The first permanent European settler in Highland Park was Alexander Negley, a German who in 1778 purchased a 278-acre farm along the Allegheny River that he called "Fertile Bottom" and which extended over much of what is now Highland Park north of Bryant Street. His son Jacob married Barbara Winebiddle, the daughter of other local landowners, in 1795, and purchased the 443-acre farm (called "Heth’s Delight") that adjoined his father’s farm to the south and west in 1799. They built a brick house at what is now the corner of Stanton and Negley Avenues in 1808, which became the seat of a substantial land holding when the two farms were combined upon the death of Alexander Negley in 1809. Jacob Negley was one of the most prominent citizens in the early nineteenth century of the East Liberty Valley, the ancient river bottom that lies north of Squirrel Hill in the eastern section of Pittsburgh and provides relief from the generally hilly topography of the city. The earliest highway from the east, the Greensburg & Pittsburgh Turnpike (now Penn Avenue), which followed the line (the Forbes Road) that the British cut during the French and Indian War, ran east-west through the East Liberty Valley. Jacob Negley won the contract to pave a five-mile section of the turnpike between 1813 and 1819. He played a substantial role in the founding of a village in East Liberty, building a steam-powered grist mill on the turnpike in 1816, establishing a bank, and helping to found the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in 1819. His daughter Sara Jane married the lawyer Thomas Mellon, patriarch of the banking family, in 1843. Upon the death of Jacob Negley in 1827, his widow was forced to sell some of his property to pay debts that he incurred during the Panic of 1819. Once the debts were resolved, in 1837, Barbara Winebiddle Negley divided the remainder of the estate among her children. This started the process of subdivision of land in East Liberty and Highland Park that led to the development of those neighborhoods in the later nineteenth century. With the subdivision of the estate, the County Surveyor, Robert Hilands, also laid out the first streets in the Highland Park area. He formally established Negley Avenue along the line of the country lane that connected Penn Avenue with the Negley homestead, laid out Hiland Avenue (named after himself until changed to “Highland” by the City in 1890) as the principal street running north out of the center of the village of East Liberty, and converted the Negleys’ principal east-west "Country Lane" into what is now called Stanton Avenue. In the first half of the nineteenth century, most of the development in the East End of Pittsburgh occurred in the East Liberty section. This growth was spurred on by the construction of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s main line to Pittsburgh through the East Liberty Valley in 1852. By 1868, there was a population of about 5000 in the general vicinity of East Liberty. In that year, the townships east of Pittsburgh (including Pitt Township, which included most of the East End) were annexed by the City of Pittsburgh as part of a campaign of expansion that tripled the size of the city and extended its boundaries south of the Monongahela River. Further transportation improvements followed the incorporation of East Liberty into the city. In 1870, the City Councils passed the Penn Avenue Act, which provided a mechanism for the paving of local streets, and in 1872 horse-drawn streetcar service was extended out of Pittsburgh to East Liberty. In addition, the city Water Commission purchased land and began construction in 1872 of a reservoir on the top of the hill at the head of Hiland Avenue that opened in 1879. The land purchases for the reservoir later provided the germ of the Highland Park landscape park that was founded in 1889. [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

The first phase of building in Highland Park began after the Civil War, in response to Pittsburgh’s growth during the war years and to the access provided by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Large country houses and clusters of small suburban dwellings began to appear in the neighborhood around this time. Maps from 1872 show that the Negley family properties between Hiland and Negley Avenues, north to Bryant Street, had been subdivided, and streets laid out there, by this time. Country houses, on substantial lots of ground, were scattered along Highland, Stanton, and Negley Avenues. They marked an escape by the wealthy from the crowding and pollution associated with the city center. The grandest of the few survivors from this period of development is the former King house (called Baywood) at 1251 N. Negley Avenue (photograph #3 and 4), which was originally built in 1869 by William Negley. The house was rebuilt in its current form in 1880 by its then-owner, the glass manufacturer Alexander King, after it was destroyed by fire. Another of the survivors from this period is the John Tim House at 1317 N. Sheridan Avenue (photograph #1), which was built around 1860 for an umbrella manufacturer, and which is probably the oldest extant building in the historic district. A few more-modest suburban houses were also built in the flat lands along the main streets. Most of these houses have been altered over time, but a few, such as 6058 Stanton Avenue (photograph #2), retain their original appearance. The fashionable architectural styles of the 1860s and 1870s were the Italianate and the Second Empire. The Italianate, characterized by arched windows and doors and deep roof overhangs supported by brackets, manifested itself in both elaborate examples (such as 6058 Stanton and 5636 Elgin [photograph #27]) and modest ones (including 5709 Bryant [photograph #28]). The high style of the period, however, was a version of the architecture then fashionable in Paris, the so-called Second Empire style. The Second Empire style in the United States shared many ornamental elements with the Italianate style, but was uniquely characterized by the use of the mansard roof. The King house is the best example in the district, while a less elaborate example, now much altered, can be found at 833 N. Euclid Avenue (photograph #29). [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

Later, in the two decades between 1880 and 1900, the infrastructure and amenities that would guide the future development of the neighborhood were put into place. During this period, Pittsburgh became the center of the newly-consolidated iron and steel, glass, and oil industries. The expansion of these industries drew masses on immigrants and other workers to Pittsburgh, more than doubling its population between 1880 and 1990. New industrial plants and the influx of workers put pressure on the older residential neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, at the same time that industrial consolidation and expansion created a class of white-collar administrators who were looking for greater amenities in their living arrangements. The most important event in the development of the city and of the Highland Park Historic District was the electrification of the streetcar system between 1890 and 1896, and the extension of the streetcar lines through the neighborhood to a car barn (no longer in existence) at the corner of Mellon and Bunker Hill Streets. Electric streetcar service cut travel time to the center of the city in half, and the accessibility of the East End of Pittsburgh increased dramatically. Consequently, since middle- and upper-class Pittsburghers could now live comfortably at a distance from their jobs in the center of town, the wholesale residential abandonment of downtown Pittsburgh ensued and residential growth in the East End exploded. Downtown Pittsburgh lost thirty-seven per cent (37%) of its residents in the 1890s, while the population in East End wards increased from 103,000 to 169,000 during the same decade. This explosive growth caused the abrupt development of the Shadyside and Friendship neighborhoods, which lie just to the west and south of Highland Park, as well as the Highland Park district itself. Another major improvement was the founding of Highland Park in 1889, by public works director Edward Bigelow, around the water reservoir that was completed in 1879. In 1898, the park was enhanced by the opening of the Pittsburgh Zoo, a gift of Christopher Magee, a former mayor who headed the streetcar company whose line ended at the park. The Board of Public Education, foreseeing increased growth in the area, built the Romanesque Revival-style Fulton School (photograph #18; already listed in the National Register of Historic Places) on what was then the edge of the developed area in 1893. These developments, along with the perception of the area as a fashionable place to live, laid the foundation for Highland Park’s spectacular growth after 1900. During these decades, a “millionaires’ row” of mansions was constructed along N. Highland Avenue. The building of the mansions shows that the neighborhood was becoming increasingly fashionable at that time. One of these large houses was the home of William Flinn, a contractor and state senator who was one of the bosses of the Republican Party machine in Pittsburgh, at the corner of Highland Avenue and Bunker Hill Street at the entrance to Highland Park. Another was built in 1901 by Alexander Peacock, one of Andrew Carnegie’s steel industry lieutenants, who became a millionaire when Carnegie sold out to U. S. Steel earlier that year. Peacock’s house was called “Rowanlea”; it was designed by the most famous architecture firm in Pittsburgh at the time, Alden & Harlow, and occupied the entire block on the east side of Highland between Jackson and Wellesley. Both of these houses were demolished in the 1920s, but some of the mansions survive, though usually on shrunken lots. The oldest of these survivors was the home of Edward Bigelow at 837 N. Highland, built in 1885 (photograph #6). Others include 931 N. Highland, from 1900 (photograph #7); machine politician Robert Elliott’s house at 935 N. Highland (photograph #8), and the home of Oswald Werner (owner of a laundry and dying business on Bryant Street) at 830 N. Highland (photograph #4), both built in 1891; and the house of foundry owner Newton Hemphill at 1305 N. Highland (photograph #30), constructed in 1899. At the same time, more modest houses were filling out the neighborhood between the main streets, mostly on the level ground between Negley and Highland Avenues. This development was part of the overall growth of East Liberty, which was spurred on by the presence of both the railroad and the streetcar lines that ran out from the center of Pittsburgh. Many of the houses were built on speculation, for rental or sale, often in short rows of identical buildings, such as in the 5600 block of Jackson (photograph #31) and the 800 block of N. St. Clair (photograph #32). The architecture of these last two decades of the 19th century was dominated by the Queen Anne and Richardsonian Romanesque styles. In general terms, the Queen Anne style emphasized the irregular and the picturesque. Typical elements included complex roofs, bays, and turrets; variations in surface materials, especially when shingles were used; and a high degree of ornamentation. The larger houses in the district provide the most elaborate examples of the style, including at 837, 931, and 1300 N. Highland Avenue (the last [photograph #33] displays classical ornaments often found on later Queen Anne buildings) and 5509 (photograph #34) and 5540 Hays Street (photograph #35). The smaller, speculative houses in the 5600 block of Jackson and the 800 block of N. St. Clair are also examples of the Queen Anne. At roughly the same time, the Richardsonian Romanesque style was enjoying a brief period of popularity. Boston architect H. H. Richardson himself introduced this style to Pittsburgh with his design for the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail (1884-1888). The style is characterized by rough stonework, large round arches, squat columns, and medieval ornament. Highland Park has two good examples, both by Pittsburgh architect Frederick Sauer, in large houses at 830 N. Highland Avenue (1891, photograph #4) and 5906 Callowhill Street (1893, photograph #5). Sauer was a prolific if not fashionable German-immigrant architect in Pittsburgh, best known for his designs of ethnic churches throughout the region (including the Polish St. Stanislaus Kostka Church and St. Nicholas Croatian Church). [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

The first decade of the 20th century was the time of Highland Park’s most intensive development. The present physical character of the district was established at that time, when about half of all the houses standing west of Highland Avenue were built. Construction was concentrated on the relatively flat streets in the central and western sections of the district, but there was some building in the hilly eastern part as well, particularly on Sheridan Avenue and Heberton Street (south of Bryant Street), the 1300 block of Sheridan, and along De Victor Place. Many of the houses of the 1900-1910 decade were detached single-family houses built by developers on a speculative basis for sale or rental to the families of middle-class office workers of the industrial boom and lesser merchants and store owners. They filled the empty lots between the older houses in the southern half of the neighborhood, and – spurred on by the opening of a new streetcar line on N. Euclid Avenue in 1904 – they were constructed in entire blocks in the flat areas west of N. Highland Avenue. The blocks bounded by Bryant, Portland, Wellesley, and N. Euclid are lined with houses that were built to just a few standard designs, both simple (as in the 5700 block of Wellesley, photograph #36) and more elaborately ornamented (as in the 1100 block of Portland, photograph #23). Baywood Street (photograph #76) and Chislett Street (photograph #77), south of Stanton Avenue and west of Negley Avenue, were also built up at the same time by the same process. One of the most prolific builders was Charles Miller and Co., which built thirty-four houses in the Hampton / Wellesley area, fourteen along Mellon and Portland, and another eight on Baywood Street. Other speculative developers included Daniel Pershing, who was responsible for the 1100 block of Portland, Edward West, and William Wright (a carpenter-turned-contractor who built the houses on Callery Street). These “spec” houses give much of Highland Park, especially the central and western sections, its present-day character. They are usually two-and-one-half stories in height, often four-square in massing, and constructed in a more modest version of the Colonial Revival style than their larger, custom-designed neighbors. They are closely spaced, in order to maximize the return on the developers’ investments, but they are nonetheless set back from the street, providing room for front yards and gardens that give their blocks a spacious and pleasant character. Built before the advent of widespread automobile ownership, they were constructed within an easy walk to the streetcar lines that connected the neighborhood and its residents with East Liberty and downtown Pittsburgh. The hilly eastern section of the district, east of N. Highland Avenue, was less accessible to streetcar and pedestrian traffic, and so experienced less development at this time. At the same time, Highland Park became the home of many of those who became rich in the industrial boom of the period: bankers, industrialists, merchants, developers, and politicians. They built or purchased large houses on the remaining lots along Stanton and Highland Avenues, on Negley Avenue south of Elgin Street, and in the 900 block of Sheridan Avenue. The most impressive of these houses include three at 935-943 N. Negley (1903, photograph #37 and 38), four at 1135-1157 N. Negley (photograph #39 and 40), 5635 Stanton (built in 1900 for steel executive James Scott, photograph #41), 820 N. Highland (from 1908, photograph #9), and 944 Sheridan (1901, photograph #10), all of which are Classical or Colonial Revival in design. The four houses at 1135 through 1157 N. Negley are representative of this group: they were built between 1905 and 1908, and their original owners were the president of an incline company, a tobacco merchant, and two real estate developers. As another sign of the district’s attraction for the wealthy, there was even, briefly (from 1893 to 1903), a golf club in Highland Park. The Highland Golf Club’s nine-hole course was located in the general vicinity of Heberton and Grafton Streets, with the club house located in the Farmhouse in the Park itself. The president of the club was Henry Clay Fownes, president of Midland Steel, who later was the founding president of the Oakmont Country Club. The Highland Park district developed as an almost entirely residential neighborhood, with a predominance of detached single-family houses. The few commercial buildings were concentrated along the streetcar line on Bryant Street (photograph #42), where storefront buildings with apartments above began to crowd out the earlier houses. A particularly fine example of a storefront building, designed with Classical Revival details, is located at 5719 Bryant Street (1911, photograph #17). There were only three churches in the district: the Highland Presbyterian Church, at N. Highland and Wellesley Avenues, built in 1899 and now demolished; the 1901 Second United Presbyterian Church, at Stanton and N. Negley Avenues (photograph #20), now a community center; and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, at Hampton Street and N. Euclid Avenue (photograph #19), constructed between 1906 and 1909 to the design of the architects Carpenter & Crocker and currently still in use for religious purposes. The fact that they were all Presbyterian or Episcopal in denomination is another indication of the high socio-economic status of Highland Park residents at the time. These church buildings were all designed in the Gothic Revival style, which was considered at the time the most appropriate style of architecture for religious properties. Despite the district’s low density at the turn of the century, a handful of three- and four-story apartment buildings – the precursors of an increasing density of development – were constructed during this period. The most visible are the Norfolk, Delaware, and Howard Apartment Buildings built at N. Highland Avenue and Bryant Street in 1901 (photograph #43), and the St. Clair Apartments located at N. St. Clair and Callowhill Streets (1902, photograph #44). Another is the first design in the district by Pittsburgh architect Frederick Scheibler, a three-story flat building in an abstract modern form at 936 Mellon Street (1907, photograph #45). The building boom continued into the beginning of the 20th century as architectural fashions were changing from the picturesque and irregular Queen Anne and Romanesque styles to more formal Classical revival styles. The Colonial Revival was based on American colonial models that were themselves ultimately derived, through England, from Greek and Roman architecture. At the same time, the Tudor Revival style became popular as a counterpoint to the Classical styles. It was loosely based on late medieval English prototypes, informal and picturesque in nature. Most of the buildings built in Highland Park between 1900 and 1910 follow one or the other of these traditions. The Colonial Revival style was the product of a reawakening of interest in early American architecture after the Centennial Exposition of 1876, and was strengthened by the general interest in classical architecture sparked by the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The details were usually classical in origin, as modified by the Georgian and Adam architecture of the colonies, including elaborate doorways and porches with classical pilasters and columns; wide overhangs with dentils and modillions; triangular and broken pediments; Palladian windows and window lintels with keystones. Typical examples of large Colonial Revival houses included the Edward Reineman house at 1145 N. Negley (photograph #39, right side) and the house at 1160 Portland (photograph #46), both constructed in 1906. The Elizabeth Mueller house at 944 Sheridan (1901, photograph #10) is a very elaborate design with exaggerated details. Other designs were high-style adaptations by noted architects, such as the house designed in 1906 by Alden & Harlow for A.E. Niemann of the German National Bank at 1212 N. Negley Avenue (photograph #11). The smaller Colonial Revival houses in the district are typified by the four-square, hipped-roofed buildings lining the 1100 block of Euclid (photograph #47), which were constructed speculatively by City Treasurer D. R. Torrence in 1901. Alden & Harlow was the largest and most fashionable architecture firm in Pittsburgh at the turn of the twentieth century. Its partners had worked for Henry H. Richardson in Boston, and after supervising the construction of his design for the Allegheny County Courthouse (1884-1888) had established themselves in Pittsburgh. Alden & Harlow quickly became the firm of choice for institutions (including the Duquesne Club, the Carnegie Institute, and the Carnegie Libraries), Downtown skyscrapers, and extravagant residences for the industrial and financial elite. Starting in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, Alden & Harlow soon adopted the Classical Revival as its style of choice. In Highland Park, besides the extant Niemann residence, the firm also designed the now-razed Peacock mansion on N. Highland Avenue. Several houses in Highland Park show other aspects of the classical revival. For example, the Anna Goeddel house, 1157 N. Negley Avenue (1906, photograph #40, right side), has the lavish classical ornament of the Beaux Arts style applied to a standard hipped-roof house form. Several buildings, including the Henry Stewart house at 820 N. Highland Avenue (constructed in 1908, photograph #9) and the Andrew Houston house at 5544 Beverly Place (1905, photograph #48), show the revival of interest in Italianate Renaissance models. The use of straightforward but vigorous classical elements can be seen in the 1899 Neo-Classical Newton Hemphill residence, at 1305 N. Highland Avenue (photograph #30). The Tudor Revival style was also a product of an interest in the past, the architecture of medieval England, from which the style was loosely and creatively drawn. Characteristic elements included steeply-pitched, front-facing roof gables, often with decorated vergeboards; decorative half-timbering; multiple wall materials; massive, elaborate chimneys; and tall, narrow windows, often set in groups and glazed with many small panes of glass. The style is generally informal and asymmetrical. It is, however, a peculiarity of early examples that they often have symmetrical facades. The Malcolm Hargrave house at 1151 N. Negley (1905, photograph #40, left side) and the Edward West residence at 1000 Sheridan (built in 1904, photograph #12 and 12A) are examples, each with balanced pairs of projecting bays on its façade. Other substantial Tudor Revival designs are the 1909 rectory at St. Andrew’s Church (photograph #13), at 5801 Hampton, and the Jonathan McDowell house at 923 Heberton (1908, photograph #49). [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

The pace of construction slowed in Highland Park after 1910, and nearly halted after the United States entered the Great War in 1917. Much of the easily-accessible land near the streetcar lines had already been filled, and the resulting scarcity of building lots, combined with continuing demand for houses in the district, began to drive the price of land beyond the means of small speculative builders. Most of the buildings constructed in this decade filled in the empty lots left over from the previous years. Small concentrations of these houses can be found in the 1300 block of Sheridan, the 6300 block of Jackson (photograph #50), and the 5600 block of Callowhill (photograph #51). In addition, the first houses were built along the easterly blocks of Jackson Street and Stanton Avenue. Increasing numbers of double houses and flats were constructed (though rowhouses remained rare), marking a shift from mostly single-family, detached houses. However, this is not to say that large single-family houses were no longer built; examples include the houses at 1035 (photograph #52) and 1232 N. Highland (1911, photograph #53). The Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles continued their design dominance, but there was also an infusion of new architectural influences and a willingness to experiment with combinations of stylistic elements. There was an increasing interest in the accurate use of historical precedents in design, which can be seen in the careful use of elements from the Adam (or Federal) style variant of early American architecture in the house at 1035 N. Highland Avenue. A large example of the Tudor Revival style, rendered in brick, was the Dilworth School, built in 1914 at Stanton Avenue and Heberton Street (already listed in the National Register of Historic Places). The primary new influence of the time was the Craftsman style, from California, which was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and by the work of the Greene brothers in Pasadena. This style did not rely on historical models or details, but instead emphasized simplicity, a sense of shelter, the exposure of the structure, and the use of “natural” materials such as shingles and stone. Characteristic details included low-pitched gabled roofs, extending over the front porch; wide, unenclosed eaves and roof overhangs, with the ends of the roof rafters exposed; knee braces; and tapering square porch columns. The best individual example of this style in the district is the Frank Hoffman house at 6320 Jackson Street (photograph #14). However, the Craftsman style usually manifested itself in the Highland Park district as an ornamental influence on buildings of other styles. For instance, 1232 N. Highland is a large Tudor Revival style building of the symmetrical type, built with a Craftsman porch featuring large tapering square columns, a stone base, and exposed rafter ends. [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

After the end of World War I and the recession that followed in 1919 and 1920, the Highland Park district experienced its second major building boom. By this time, the automobile had become a common sight on Pittsburgh’s streets, and had opened up for development areas of town that had previously been considered undesirable because of steep hillsides or distance from streetcar lines. Such areas in Highland Park – remote Cordova Road in the western section, the central section rising north of Bryant Street, and much of the hilly eastern part of the neighborhood – became the sites of the most intense construction activity. The 1400 block of N. Euclid (photograph #54), the eastern blocks of Jackson and Stanton (photograph #55), and all of Wellesley Road (photograph #22) and Winterton Street (photograph #56) were built up in the decade after 1920. In addition, the continuing growth of the city increased the pressure on the neighborhood for higher-density development. Double houses became more common, and some small apartment buildings were built, but the primary effect of this pressure was the demolition of large houses and the subdivision of their lots for new houses. Large houses at N. Highland and Stanton Avenues were replaced by closely-built double houses (photograph #57); Thomas Bigelow’s mansion on N. Highland Avenue (across Jackson Street from his brother Edward’s house) was razed to make way for Wayne Road and sixteen houses (photograph #58); forty-one building lots were platted on William Flinn’s property at the entrance to Highland Park (1924), including twenty-three on the new cul-de-sac Greystone Street (photograph #59); and the Morrison estate on N. Highland Avenue was subdivided for the construction of another twenty-three houses along Browning Road (photograph #60). The most spectacular mansion in the neighborhood (that of Alexander Peacock, the “Carnegie millionaire”) was demolished in 1924 and the block – between Jackson and Wellesley, Highland and Farragut – subdivided into building lots for twenty-two smaller houses (photograph #21). In addition, the empty lots on Bryant Court and around the corner of N. Negley Avenue and Callowhill Street (photograph #61) were built up in this period. In all of the increasing density, however, the new construction maintained the established quality and character of the neighborhood. The new housing plans respected the established patterns of the district. The development of cul-de-sac streets provided access into the hearts of large estates and permitted their subdivision into smaller lots for single-family houses. The construction of double houses that looked like large single-family houses allowed them to fit in visually with their older neighbors. Even the apartment buildings from this period shared the height and architectural detailing of the houses around them, so that they did not appear out of place (a number of apartment buildings on Stanton Avenue, in fact, were developed by adding on to and subsuming existing houses – including 5701 and 5721 Stanton [photograph #62]). At the beginning of the decade, the principal means of maintaining the character of a development was by the use of restrictions written into the property deed. Such deed restrictions might require that a building be set back a certain distance from the street, or be used only as a single-family residence, or cost a minimum amount to build. However, in 1923, the City of Pittsburgh adopted its first zoning ordinance, superseding deed restrictions and regulating the use of property and the density of construction. In subsequent years, the zoning regulations had the general effect of maintaining and reinforcing the existing patterns of development in the district. Nonetheless, as Highland Park filled up, and building lots in the district became scarce, the district’s share of the growth of the city’s population declined. Already, in the 1910’s, the growth rate in Highland Park (a 17% increase) was lower than that of the city as whole (23%). By the 1920s, other East End neighborhoods, such as Squirrel Hill, Greenfield, and Homewood, as well as Observatory Hill on the North Side and the South Hills communities south of Mt. Washington, became the foci of new construction and population growth in the region. The onset of the Great Depression after the Crash of 1929 slowed construction in the district, though it did not stop it. Many of the single and double houses built during the 1930s were constructed on the edges of the district (along Stanton Avenue as it curves to the north above Negley Run and approaches the lower entrance to Highland Park [photograph #63], in the blocks bordering Heth’s Avenue) and on cul-de-sacs carved out of large estates (such as much of Greystone Street [photograph #59]). These buildings were generally small and simple in form, often with minimal historical detailing (sometimes only a Colonial frontispiece on an otherwise plain brick façade). During the decade of the 1920s, a few Colonial Revival houses were built – an example being 1010 Heberton Street (photograph #64) – and the Craftsman style continued to influence the design of some buildings, such as the house at 5552 Elgin Street (1924, photograph #65). However, the Tudor Revival and English period architectural styles became dominant in the district. Generally smaller and less formal than the earlier versions of the Tudor style, these houses had brick-veneered exteriors and asymmetrical forms. The roofs were usually steep, and often one side swept down over a door or a porch. The exterior detailing was much sparser and simpler than before, in line with the general simplification of architectural detailing during the Twenties. Good examples are found lining Greystone Street and Wellesley Road (photograph #22), and include individual houses like 1134 N. Sheridan Avenue (photograph #66, with some French Norman influence as well). Another architectural influence became evident during this decade in Mediterranean-styles houses. The Mediterranean influence did not refer to specific historical styles, but made use of ornamental elements derived from Italian and Spanish architecture: red-tiled roofs and round-arched windows and doors, classical columns and cornices, and occasionally stucco walls. Buildings showing this influence appear on both sides of N. Highland Avenue at Hampton Street (photograph #25 and 67). The last major architectural type to be introduced in the 1920s was a very stripped-down vernacular builder house. While these houses, with their steep-gabled roofs modified by large shed dormers and relieved by little or no exterior ornament, are found in the greatest numbers in the easterly blocks of Jackson and Stanton (photograph #68), they can also be found scattered through the rest of the neighborhood. Frederick Scheibler is noteworthy as one of the first Pittsburgh architects to be affected by the progressive architectural movements of the early 20th century. Two of his designs in Highland Park in the 1920s are significant: the Clara Johnston House at 6349 Jackson (1921, photograph #16) and the Alan Klages House at 5525 Beverly Place (1922, photograph #15). These houses show Scheibler’s turn from abstract modern design to the romantic and picturesque, and give a strong sense of shelter through their broad, widely-overhanging roofs. [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

The coming of World War II brought an end to building construction in the Highland Park district. After the war, when construction began again, the paucity of building lots constrained the amount of building that could occur in the district. Occasionally an older house or two were demolished to provide room for new buildings, but construction usually took place on the few empty lots scattered across the district and on a small number of large estates that were sold and subdivided during this period. Examples of single-family houses built after the war can be found at 826 N. Highland Avenue (ca. 1950, photograph #69), 6715 Stanton Avenue (ca. 1960, photograph #70), and at the end of Elgin Street near the King Estate (ca. 1960, photograph #71). Much of the construction that took place in the second half of the twentieth century, though, was apartment buildings, which reflected the relatively high land values and continued demand for housing the neighborhood. Highland Park experienced some of the same problems that bedeviled many city neighborhoods after World War Two. The demand for housing for war workers during the war led to the conversion of many houses into apartments, which led to overuse and deterioration of the housing stock in the district. The migration and expansion of Pittsburgh’s poorer African-American population from the Hill District into East Liberty affected the southern section of the neighborhood, especially in the southwestern quadrant, as absentee landlords cut up houses into rental units and abandoned their maintenance. However, neighborhood residents actively resisted these developments through the Highland Park Community Club and the Highland Park Community Development Corporation, ensuring that the district would remain relatively stable and prosperous. Renovation activity returned many rental buildings to single-family use, and the renovation of houses and apartment buildings in the neighborhood had a substantial effect on its appearance in the past two decades. The Negley Park Apartments, on N. Negley Avenue between Hampton and Wellesley, were built around 1948-1949 on the site of the Barnsdale estate (photograph #72). Their style, strangely enough for this late date, is the modernistic Art Deco that had its peak of popularity in the late Twenties and the Thirties (but which apparently was never employed in Highland Park in those decades). The horizontal masses of the brick apartment buildings are interrupted by emphatically vertical ornament at their entrances. Post-war houses can be found on cul-de-sacs such as High Park Place and Sheridan Court (ca. 1950, photograph #73). In addition, new apartment buildings went up on corner lots along Stanton Avenue (such as 5800 Stanton, ca. 1960, photograph #74), and the twenty-two-story Park View Apartments high-rise came to loom over the district after 1961 from the site of the demolished streetcar barn at the corner of Bunker Hill and Mellon Streets (photograph #75). Most of the post-war buildings, whether they are houses or apartment buildings, are simple brick buildings that have little or no stylistic character. However, a few of these newer buildings are representative examples of 20th century modern architectural styles. The house at 826 N. Highland Avenue, for example, was designed in the International style promoted in the 1920s and 1930s by the early Modernist architects, with simple cubic massing, simple square detailing, and aluminum railings. The Park View Apartments high-rise, on the other hand, is a Miesian design, designed by Pittsburgh architect Tasso Katselas. It has a base raised on plain columns (“pilotis”) and gridded glass-and-steel curtain-wall facades that are based on the designs of the mid-twentieth century Modernist master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Whether non-stylistic or Modernist in style, post-war buildings in the Highland Park district contrast with the traditional and historically-derived architectural styles that characterized construction in the district prior to 1940. [Text adapted from Mike Eversmeyer's final nomination documents for the Highland Park Residential Historic Distict. Mike has given explicit permission for its inclusion on the Highland Park web site.]

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