Quebec Street

Quebec Street
Neighborhood	Perry South
Origin of name	Probably the province of Quebec
Fate	Eliminated in 1970s or early 1980s for Parkway North construction
➤ Q Street (1880s–1900s)
Origin of name	Sister street of P Street to the south
➤ Quarry Street (until 1896)

Quebec Street formerly ran from Hazelton Street to East Street, below and slightly north of the current East Street Bridge (Swindell Bridge).

In the early history of this street there is much confusion about its name. The street appears, unlabeled, in the 1876 and 1882 Hopkins atlases.

The earliest name of this street seems to have been Q Street. The Allegheny street guide in J. F. Diffenbacher's 1882 directory lists "Q, from East to Harriett, 10th ward," which seems to be this street. The same directory also lists "P, from East to Anna, 10th wd.," which the 1890 Hopkins atlas shows as a very short street farther south, about in line with modern Burgess Street. So it appears that these were sister streets in a way.

By the early 1890s, the street was also called Quarry Street. The 1890 Hopkins atlas shows it as Quarry Avenue. From 1891 to 1895, the Diffenbacher directory listed both "Q, East to Harriet, 10th ward" and "Quarry, from East westward, 10th ward," which are descriptions of the same street under two different names.

In 1896, this Quarry Street ("from East st. to Ellwood ave.") was renamed Quebec Street because there was another Quarry Street in Allegheny (today Queen Street along the side of Spring Hill).

Unfortunately mapmakers and street-directory compilers misunderstood which street was being renamed.

The 1896 Diffenbacher directory lists the other Quarry Street (the one on Spring Hill, "from Madison ave. northeast to Property line, 12th ward") as having been renamed Quebec. From 1898 to 1904, the R. L. Polk directory (Diffenbacher's successor) listed "Q, from East to Elwood ave, 10th ward," and "QUEBEC, from Madison ave northeast to Property line, 12th ward." The directory fixed its error in 1905, listing "QUARRY, from Madison av to Venango, 12th wd," and "QUEBEC, from East to Elwood av, 10th wd." From 1906 to 1908 they also included "Q from East to Elwood av, 10th ward," apparently not realizing that this was the same street as Quebec despite having exactly the same description. Finally, in 1909, when the street directory was overhauled after the 1907 annexation of Allegheny into the city of Pittsburgh, the entry for Q Street was dropped for good.

The 1902 Hopkins atlas correctly labels this street (the one in Perry South) as "Quebec (Quarry) St.," but the 1901 and 1907 atlases give the same label to the Spring Hill street too. Similarly, the 1910 atlas labels both streets "Quebec St." In 1910, the Spring Hill street was renamed Queen Street to fix the duplication with Quarry Street in the South Side Slopes, which mostly fixed the problem: the 1925 atlas labels the street "Queen (Quebec) St."

Quebec Street (the one in Perry South) was eliminated in the 1970s or early 1980s when the Parkway North was constructed.

Bob Regan includes "Quebec" in a list of streets named for cities, but he gives no further details. In the absence of any evidence one way or the other, it seems more likely that the street was named for the province rather than Quebec City specifically.

See also

• Q Way
• Quarry Street (disambiguation), for other streets that have had that name