OT: The Blvd of the Allies
- Thread starter HOF Coach
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Thanks for posting this, keep em coming please. Love seeing pics of old Pittsburgh.
Thanks for all this useless info that I love.
Cool historical data.
Air quality a little suspect.
Cool historical data.
Air quality a little suspect.
1.6M / mile in 1922! yikes, that is high even by PennDot standards.
Still hate that you cant make a left onto Blvd. Of the Allies from Grant Street to go to the Liberty Bridge.
I think one thing that has always held Pittsburgh back (and we saw this with Amazon) is the topography and rivers, terrain prohibits alot of expansion, limits road sizes, and makes any construction project uber expensive. Compare this to many cities that exist on a flat plane with one main waterway nearby.....they just have all of this relatively cheap land to expand and grow and grow. So this will always limit Pittsburgh's ceiling as far as growth as much as anything else. Which honestly, is okay by me.
But it is a helluva problem to build an on campus stadium. LOL. Last week I was driving up Darragh Street (why I have no idea except driving around campus looking at hotties) and thought to myself, "who's the horse's ass that decided to build a University here?"
But it is a helluva problem to build an on campus stadium. LOL. Last week I was driving up Darragh Street (why I have no idea except driving around campus looking at hotties) and thought to myself, "who's the horse's ass that decided to build a University here?"
hmm, I always just assumed it was named after the Allies after WW2...Learn something new every day...
Since it was built in 1922 as the Monongahela Blvd. I am thinking they may have changed the name later to honor the Allies of WWII. Otherwise they probably would have named it that in the first place. Just a theory.
no need for theories just look it up...https://www.wesa.fm/post/boulevard-allies-isn-t-so-much-memorial-war-heroes-end-streetcar
and the OP tweet gives the details.
The guy that runs Odd Pgh has a podcast every week with some cool and interesting topics. If you like his twitter site and these useless facts (I love them), give the podcast a listen too. A lot of cool stuff.
Completely fail then and now.
I remember a person when I was in HS (90') who was trying to work on building a beltway for Pittsburgh. The 3 things I remember from that conversation.
1) Eisenhower gave the money to the top 50 cities to build roadways. 49 of them built beltways, 1 didn't.
2) The reason why Pittsburgh didn't is the politicians wanted people coming into the city, so they would spend money here.
3) If downtown was located in Oakland instead of the current location, it would be easy and cost efficient to retrofit a belt way.
#1 can't possibly be correct.
As for the golden triangle and Oakland, I am glad we have both. They rank as the 2nd and 3rd biggest "downtown districts" in the state after Center City, Philadelphia.
There is a good geographic argument to make Oakland instead of Downtown our main bus transfer hub though.
uh, gonna have to link something to that #1...never heard that and as far as I can tell from my limited travel experience, Detroit and Cleveland have no beltway system...as far as #2 goes it applies to every city..
sorry to here that...where did he touch you or was it just verbal?
While Detroit doesn't have a designated beltway 275, 696 and 94 kind of work like one. Also both Detroit and Cleveland sit against the water so it's tough to do a beltway system like DC.
that is not what the poster said or implied (top 50 citiies)...besides a loop on the water border would suffice...
I have nothing to link up. Like I stated, it was a conversation i had with someone back in the 90's. The internet was not what it was today and I never gave any thought to look it up 20+ years later. Just sharing what that person said. He may have been full of it, but it was not me being full of it I was just stating what he said.
I always assumed it was named after WWll Allies.
It's interesting to learn it was WWl.
http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/BlvdAllies.html
It's interesting to learn it was WWl.
http://www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/BlvdAllies.html
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Also on the Beltway stuff, let's not pretend all the Robert Moses era crap where historic neighborhoods were turned into highways were all great decisions either. Lawrenceville and Baltimore's Inner Harbor could have been eight lane highways instead of thriving city neighborhoods as well. We also lost a lot of great trolleys and regional rail in that era as well. I know hindsight is 20/20.
Detroit has no Eastern suburbs, and Cleveland has no Northern Suburbs either.
But Detroit also has 696 that goes across the northern part., 275 that goes across the western part. Cleveland has 480 that is essentially a belt way, and then also has major interstates 71, 77, 90 and the turnpike that criss cross the city.
Both cities have major interstates through and around the cities. Pittsburgh really doesn't.
if it does not have a dedicated number that circles it (495, 285 etc. ) , it is not a beltway (ie, the point made about Ike and Pittsburgh's so-called refusal to have one)...
What?? Is Oakland flat?? No rivers close by??
Beltways circle cities. The Autobahn (279N) isn't a beltway, 376 isn't either. 579 is now a parking lot. We have our belts....pick a color.
Spent last weekend in Columbus....I've watched that town grow since 1968. 270 has been the driver of much growth. Most of that is 3 lanes or more, traffic flows well. The highest point in that county is an elevated tee box on a golf course, the Olentangy River is no obstacle.
topography shaped Pgh, always will.
spend alot of time in both Indy and Columbus. When I stay on the northside of either city, sometimes, many times, I have to remind myself of which city I am in because they look and are designed so similar.
