Source:Serpent
"Like a serpent: Winding driveway through the Squirrel Hill district: Will cost many thousands: The ordinance for the boulevard goes to councils Monday: Capitalists getting options: They gobble up the land their drive will pass through—the road starts at Forbes street and Shady Lane and runs along the hills of Nine Mile run, entering Schenley park over the Forward avenue bridge." Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette, Oct. 25, 1894, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85579038.
An ordinance providing for the building of the Beechwood avenue and Schenley Park boulevard will be presented in councils Monday. The bill has been prepared and everything is ready for work on the driveway as soon as councils give their sanction and that is a sure thing. The road will be about four miles long and will cost $350,000 or $400,000.
This is another link in the fourteen-mile driveway which Director Bigelow wants to throw around the city. It completes the route of the serpentine road to the point where it enters the park over the bridge at Forward avenue. The road will run through the Twenty-second and Twenty-third wards and for the greater way will pass along the hills above Nine Mile run. The scenery is grand and the boulevard will open up some property which will spring into value with greater rapidity than the mushroom is born. In hopes that this boulevard would at some day be built, capitalists have caught up the options on the land, and when carriages roll over the smooth, broad driveway, ground will bring as lovely a price as the scenery is at View Land, one of the prettiest spots on the new road. The windings of the boulevard will never permit of rapid transit and the whirr and buzz of the electric car will not disturb the quiet.
The new boulevard begins at Shady Lane and Forbes street and runs southward through the Twenty-second and Twenty-third wards toward Greenfield and Forward avenue. The windings of the road are so great that they cannot be described accurately. There are few places where the drive will be straight. The idea was not to have it so. The person who goes for a pleasure ride naturally seeks the winding ways. In this boulevard they will be found. The country the road passes through is new to most Pittsburghers.
Many people have walked along the hills over Nine Mile run and looked down into the valley where the little stream hurries along to the river. They have all wished for a drive over this route, and at last the time has come when something definite is to be done. The beauties of that territory are to be opened.
The boulevard is to be four miles long and the average grade will not be over three feet in 100. There are a couple of places where the grade is a little heavier, but it is there the best views are to be had. The road will be eighty feet wide for about half of the way and then it will be narrowed down to sixty feet. The broader part will be on the first end. The drive will be either macadamized or paved with asphalt.
There are two places on the drive where wonderful views of that picturesque country can be had. One will be on the property of John Steele. It is the highest point on the boulevard. From this spot a sweeping view of the Monongahela river, Homestead and the country up that way can be seen and over the other way East Liberty and Wilkinsburg stretch out in full view.
Some distance down the boulevard toward the entrance to Schenley park is the property of Elizabeth Burchfield. The knob there is called View Land. From this point a fine stretch of scenery will lay below the driver. The Monongahela river can be seen as it winds its way up between the banks lined with industries. Across the stream are the high hills which in the summer time look like great walls of green. From this same knob a good view of the river is obtained as it flows toward the birthplace of the Ohio. Higher hills, though, shut out the older city from the eye.
The building of this boulevard will be paid for by the people who own the property abutting on it. They are many and some of the best known names in the city are among them. A few of these are: John Steele, Elizabeth Burchfield, Thomas Phelps, Thomas Welfer, Charles Neinhauser, Elizabeth Stewart, Maria Cannon, Bridget Douglass, Ernest Succop and Bidell. The latter interests are the largest.
The engineers have completed their work on this end of the boulevard and the city assessors have also gone over the route. They have made the assessments and everything is now in readiness for pushing the work.
The surveys on the older end of the boulevard are not completed yet and will not be for several months. Engineers are working on the part from Fountain street to Bellefield. It will likely be completed by Saturday and an ordinance locating it may be introduced Monday. The surveyors find that the construction of this end will not be so expensive as first expected.
Just how the boulevard is to run into the city from where it now enters Schenley park has not been decided. Several routes have been spoken of. One that was considered for a time, but now, according to Director Bigelow, has been abandoned, is the road which would run along the Monongahela bluff. This would be very expensive to build after Forbes street was reached. The hill is in such a condition there that it would be impossible to erect a drive without incurring great expense.
Some people have talked of running a boulevard out Colwell street, as that thoroughfare is to be opened up for quite a distance east of Dinwiddie street. Some one else has a scheme of cutting a street through to Center avenue at Fulton street and making a grand driveway of that avenue. Director Bigelow has not yet settled on any way yet and says he is not figuring on any more boulevards just at present.
