Resurrecting Allegheny City: The Land, Structures & People of Pittsburgh's North Side

Summary

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HERE'S WHY I THINK the troops will be in Iraq for awhile: Allegheny City was forcibly annexed by Pittsburgh a century ago, and people are still pissed off. In a preface to Resurrecting Allegheny City, state archivist Jerry Ellis quotes a longtime resident saying, "When we secede, I'll carry the flag across the bridge."

There can, after all, be a kind of nostalgic music - like a carousel in the distance - in something as mundane as a list of 1890s amusement licenses. Who wouldn't want to see the "Ford Paw Circus," or the "Theatrical Mechanic's Association"? Whose heart wouldn't be moved by an official report that conditions at the local poor house where dwell the "indigent and unfortunate whose lot may be cast among us" - have been improved, and that inmates "enjoy that artificial warmth necessary to their comfort during the winter"?

The thesis is provocative, especially when today's leaders call for municipal consolidation, and modern nonprofits call the tune. But [Lisa A. Miles] offers only spotty evidence for such a campaign (or for its necessity, given Pittsburgh's political might). Exhibit A, for example, is a celebratory toast Miles says became popular amongst the local elite: "To the Greater City and Greater University!"

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Resurrecting Allegheny City: The Land, Structures & People of Pittsburgh's North Side

Resurrecting Allegheny City: The Land, Structures & People of Pittsburgh's North Side By Lisa A. Miles Self-published, $12, 275 pages

HERE'S WHY I THINK the troops will be in Iraq for awhile: Allegheny City was forcibly annexed by Pitt...

See the full content of this document

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