HPRC Tribute Run

I got out of my neighborhood for this run, starting in Highland Park. Ironically, I had skipped over an HPRC run which started a little earlier, but was from downtown. Highland Park is both a city park, but also a neighborhood. The history of each are intertwined. The park dominates the neighborhood and the park is dominated by the Highland Park Reservoir. It rests about ten or fifteen feet above the rest of the park. Surrounding the irregularly shaped reservoir are conformal streets and paths, with sections descending to lower curves. This is a major portion of the water system run by the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. The history of the water system is fascinating. It takes vision, significant engineering and an ability to bring together fractious local politics to create and maintain public water systems. Clean water is also a bedrock of public health, relegating diseases like cholera and typhoid fever to the dim past in modern cities. The 125 million gallon Highland Park Reservoir #1 was put into service in 1879, 140 years ago, for those who are counting. In recent years, lead levels in the city water have become a major concern. PWSA has a number of projects ongoing to mitigate this problem, including installing pipes like those below.

While I was pretty quiet exiting the park on Stanton Avenue, I apparently scared the horses. I guess I was breathing harder than I thought! There are some nice tennis courts along Stanton Avenue, the street I would follow for much of the run.

Highland Park is a large area. While the housing stock varies from garden apartment complexes to single family homes, there are not many small houses. Usually they are large brick affairs with three floors and decent sized yards. Many have been converted into apartments. The streets are largely tree-lined. There are broad, relatively flat areas surrounded by some big hills. For the size of the area, businesses are rare, being concentrated along Bryant Street and Negley Avenue.

At any rate, I ran down Stanton until I caught Chislett Street and exited Highland Park. I turned onto Black Street until it became Mossfield. I caught a few small streets off of North Aiken Avenue, too. I veered onto Schenley Avenue (nowhere near the park of the same name) and then to North Mathilda Street. This area was much hillier than Highland Park and the houses were not as impressive. There was surprising new construction but also older houses and the too-often seen ragged Pittsburgh row house. This neighborhood is Garfield and this was my first time running though it. My initial impression was that it was very green, hilly and a little empty. North Mathilda dumped my down onto Friendship Avenue. From there, I cruised past Children’s Hospital, into the narrow houses and steep streets of Lawrenceville. I followed 45th Street to Butler, then caught 43rd Street to it’s terminus at the Allegheny River. Is has a cool view, but is also the entrance to 43rd Street Concrete (which has an impressive operation going).

Finally, I needed to turn back to the car. I made my way to the low end of Stanton and followed it (mostly) back to Highland Park. That’s quite a climb! This was a cool run, having covered many different areas of the city and taking me from one of the highest points in the area to river level.