Demographics and History
About 40 percent of the Hill District's residents live below poverty level, and the vast majority of residents are black or African American; about 6 percent of the population is white.
Many residents view a major turning point in the neighborhood's history as the 1960s, when the city of Pittsburgh displaced about 8000 residents and 400 businesses in the Lower Hill to build the Civic Arena. The displaced people moved into the East Liberty and Homewood-Brushton neighborhoods, causing (white & black) middle-class families to flee these areas.
Recent initiatives have aimed to revitalize the area, which has struggled for decades with varying levels of dilapidation and crime.
A project to open a new grocery store—the neighborhood has lacked one for 30 years—is expected to come to fruition in the next few years. The YMCA is building a $9 million branch in the neighborhood, complete with a rooftop garden. A group of investors have gathered to restore the New Granada Theater, a historic jazz club where Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington once performed. And Duquesne University, a nearby college, plans to open a new pharmacy for residents in the neighborhood by the end of 2010.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)