History and Famous Residents
In 1828, the borough of Allegheny, Pennsylvania, was incorporated where the North Side now stands. It had a population of 1,000. In 1880, Allegheny was incorporated as a city. The City of Allegheny was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907, and became known as the North Side.
Historians claim that the Felix Brunot mansion on Stockton Avenue (Allegheny Center) was once a station on the Underground Railroad, where fugitive slaves from the South stopped for food and shelter. The Allegheny regional branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, located at 5 Allegheny Square (Allegheny Center), was the first tax-supported library in the United States. It is now closed to the public following a lightning strike. A new library opened nearby at 1230 Federal Street. Charles Taze Russell organized what are now known as Jehovah's Witnesses at a house in the old city of Allegheny.
Mary Cassatt was born on Rebecca Street in 1844. Today, Rebecca Street has become Reedsdale Street (in the North Shore neighborhood). If the house had not been torn down for Highway Route 65, it would be facing Heinz Field, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. lived at 1318 Arch Street (Central Northside) when he invented the Ferris Wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition in an attempt to create something as impressive as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.
The first World Series was played at Exposition Park by the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans (now known as the Boston Red Sox) in 1903.
Gus & Yia-Yia's Iceball Stand, selling fresh popcorn, peanuts, and old-fashioned iceballs (similar to snow cones) hand-scraped from a block of ice, has been in West Park since 1934. The "orange concession stand with a brightly-colored umbrella" is something of an unofficial Pittsburgh landmark during the summer months.
Read more about this topic: North Side (Pittsburgh)
Famous quotes containing the words history and, history, famous and/or residents:
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Humankind has understood history as a series of battles because, to this day, it regards conflict as the central facet of life.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Our thoughts are always elsewhere; we are stayed and supported by the hope for a better life, or by the hope that our children will turn out well, or that our name will be famous in the future, or that we shall escape the evils of this life, or that vengeance threatens those who are the cause of our death.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Most of the folktales dealing with the Indians are lurid and romantic. The story of the Indian lovers who were refused permission to wed and committed suicide is common to many places. Local residents point out cliffs where Indian maidens leaped to their death until it would seem that the first duty of all Indian girls was to jump off cliffs.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)