Highland Park The Highland Park Neighborhood of Pittsburgh

"Your decision to live in Highland Park was influenced by many factors--affordable housing, convenient transportation, the variety of shopping areas close by and the choice of a number of excellent school systems--to name a few. I would like to point out that community involvement will reinforce that decision. Come to one of our meetings ... become involved in your neighorhood-- prove to yourself that you made the right choice."

-- Maureen D. Cato, president in 1980 and 1985.

That exhortation to Highland Park residents in a 1985 Club newsletter by the Club's president that year encapsulates many of the elements that have made and kept the Highland Park community vibrant from its early years--as already described by Michael Staresinic--and up to the present.

But even from the socializing characteristics of its early days. the Highland Park Community Club had two continuing emphases. One was on programs for families and children, with the summer Day Camp as detailed by Staresinic an especial example. The other was on keeping careful watch for attempted infractions of the zoning code, with lawyers and laypersons in the Club putting in countless hours at City Zoning Board of Adjustment hearings to help maintain the residential quality of Highland Park.

The focus of the latter has been on halting property-owners from changing single- and two-family residences to apartments. But it also has been on making sure that Highland Park is not saturated with group homes beyond its fair share. Some group homes, such as the Horizon Home and the Vintage House, overcame initial resistance and now have fitted into the community well. Still remembered, however, are such battles as those to block the settling of a Hare Krishna group in the neighborhood.

Recently, the Club received an award from The Observer, a Lawrenceville-based citywide newspaper covering neighborhood news, for its study showing that neither the city nor the county had any plans for dispersing group homes away from currently heavily impacted neighborhoods.

The Club has achieved a name in Pennsylvania legal history with the case of Highland Park Community Club vs. Holzapfel. The matter arose in 1982 when two lawyers, the late Blair Crawford and Dell Ziegler, were representing the Club on a pro bono basis identify and pursue absent-landlord zoning violators. Crawford identified one owner who had six units in an old house on Wellesley Ave., zoned R-2. Unfortunately, the City had erroneously given an Occupancy Permit for six units in 1979.

Crawford filed a petition to revoke the Occupancy Permit, which led to a Zoning Board hearing. One of the landlord's options was to claim a "vested right" to his Occupancy Permit, even though it had been issued in error. The Club contended that the landlord failed to meet at least four of the five parts of a rigorous, legally prescribed test.

The Club lost repeatedly--at the Zoning Board and in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, where the judge was Nicholas Papadakos. By this time, Ziegler had taken over. He filed an appeal to the state Commonwealth Court, which came down with a strong decision sustaining the Club's position.

The landlord was not done; he appealed to the state Supreme Court. There were some touchy aspects at that point, including the fact that Papadakos in the meantime had been elected to the high court. But the court in a 5-2 decision in March, 1986 held that the landlord had no "vested right" to the six units and had to reduce occupancy to two units.

This landmark decision has been highly useful to neighborhood groups across the state who can cite the Highland Park Community Club case in battling landlord zoning violators.

Club leaders say that their efforts are respected in city government because they do their homework, whether it be on zoning or public safety or park and street repairs. "We aren't ranters and ravers; we come in with specific proposals and alternatives," one past president explained.

Considering the proactive endeavors of the Club in recent years, many will be surprised to realize that in its early years it centered on the social, something deemed essential at the time as the way to foster a community spirit. That has changed in recent decades as younger families have moved into the neighborhood and sought a larger role for the organization.

At one time, the Club was run by white professional males, with women delegated to roles outside those of governance. Some people hesitated to seek to join, believing that people without college degrees weren't welcome. Dinner dances were the centerpiece of Club activities, along with bridge parties and family dinners to provide funding for such activities as the Day Camp.

That model began to change in the mid-1960s when by a close vote of the board of directors an African-American family was allowed to join. The family's children wanted to join with their neighbor pals in attending the Day Camp--something restricted to members of the Club--hence the bid for entrance. (The Club has always had members from many parts of the city who join in order for their children to attend the Day Camp.)

By the mid-1970s, women were allowed on the board for the first time--Margo Reynolds and Jeanne Mischler being the trailblazers. Then in 1980 Maureen Cato became the first woman president with Sue Terpack the second. The third woman to be elected president, Bernadine Harrity, is now in her second term.

As the 1980s came along, there was a realization that the Club needed to widen its scope to work more closely with public safety officials, with zoning officials and with East Liberty Development Inc. Time was when Highland Park was glad to be identified with East Liberty. But after that shopping was ringed off by Penn Circle with a concurrent decline as a mercantile center, Highland Park sought to separate itself. But there were too many interrelated concerns that could not go unattended.

Younger families moving into the neighborhood thought the emphasis on such things as dinner dances was "frivolous," casting aside the arguments that for many of the longtime residents these affairs were a place to recognize hard work by volunteers. At the time, there even were occasional debates on changing the name of the organization to move away from the connotations of the word "club."

Out of this mix came a plethora of activities, which over the years since increased membership to 480 families from 200. One was the inauguration of house tours, a major tool for fundraising and for publicizing citywide the attributes of Highland Park. Another was the Highland Fling, a one-day arts, entertainment, food festival at the entrance to the Highland Park upper reservoir, the first such neighborhood fair to feature a hot-air balloon.

Still another endeavor was a Block Watch organization. And when a drug problem occurred in one particular area, the Club formed a patrol under U-CAN, the citywide United Citizens Against Narcotics, to replace a negative impact with a positive presence until that situation abated. The patrol continues as a random operation. Long before the citywide Bag-a-Thon program developed, Highland Park citizens held days to clean up the park. A major endeavor along that line was planting flowers and shrubs not only in the park but on vacant lots and near appropriate buildings throughout the neighborhood.

Highland Park now has an annual Halloween Parade for children. And numerous streets hold annual block parties, Sheridan north of Grafton and Callery being but two examples.

Not every effort has succeeded. About 1980, the Club spent over a year in meetings with the City Parks and Recreation Department seeking to create a vehicle-free area in the Park for roller-skaters, bikers, and walkers and to eliminate the "LeMans" circular drive around the Upper Reservoir so attractive to teenage speeders and "cruisers." The City finally agreed to separate a small 300-yard stretch of the Upper Reservoir Drive from vehicles, with two-way traffic on the remaining road.

It proved to be a good idea whose idea had not come. Opposition from motorists quickly arose, with no punches pulled. "Elitist act" was about the kindest phrase thrown at the Club. Eventually, the City relented and restored the vehicle traffic patterns to their former status.

More successful were moves to have the city install two permanent paths needed for Highland Park facilities. One was a sidewalk around the horseshoe bend near the Pittsburgh Zoo to avoid "an accident waiting to happen" for families forced to walk on the street to reach the Zoo. That eventually was accomplished by formally putting the City on notice that it would be liable for an accident there, something that might cost more in lawsuit damages than building a sidewalk.

The other pathway move was an ultimately successful effort to have the city in 1985 install a walking-jogging path of crushed slag around the Upper Reservoir, replacing a dirt path that was an ugly rut in dry weather and mud in wet. Although a city maintenance official predicted that no one would use it, the path was an immediate success.

The community has continued to interact with its public schools -- Fulton Elementary and Peabody High. Example: The Club recently donated $500 for books for Fulton, which now is the Fulton Academy of Geographic and Life Sciences. Another example: The Club has particularly supported the award-winning writing program at Peabody, which has a Public Safety magnet and a Scholars program. The Club has an arrangement with Peabody for an adult swimming night there.

In 1996, the Club has become caught up in the controversy over the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education's plan to return to neighborhood schools. The Club's board backed the plan, but with the important caveat that the entire neighborhood be included for elementary school purposes, rather than split as in the distant past between Fulton and Dilworth schools. Disagreement has arisen from those who fear a return of the Pittsburgh system to greater segregation, as well as from those whose children are bused to magnet schools and are afraid of losing that alternative.

A landmark Club project that caught the fancy of the entire city was the construction of the Superplayground in the park. Accomplished, after elaborate planning, in just a few days with labor from a host of volunteers from Highland Park and even from elsewhere, it has become a major source of pride for the community.

The neighborhood also has been involved in trying to save the open-pool aspect of the Upper Reservoir in Highland Park. To meet new clean-water requirements, city officials contend they need to cover the reservoir pool. The Community Club hopes to find solutions other than obliterating the esthetic qualities of a popular site for health-conscious walkers as well as for casual strollers.

Concerned about word from newcomers that some real estate firms were painting a negative picture about Highland Park, the Club held a reception for agents to present a different picture. One telling argument was the number of civic-minded, energetic families who had moved into Highland Park despite discouraging words. Certain real estate salespersons are now the strongest proponents of all for the neighborhood with its gracious homes exhibiting the interior craftsmanship of a bygone era.

There is a general consensus that the annual house tours have been valuable in overcoming incorrect images, with examples of persons coming on tours who later bought a.home in the community. (Incidentally, some oldtimers smile at the way that the house-tour volunteer groups have taken on an aspect of the "socializing" that was scorned a dozen years ago. There's nothing like a party when people have worked hard on a project together!)

Highland Park's attractiveness has been enhanced recently by the opening of two topflight restaurants on Bryant Street. Nina's, located in the building that once housed the Chariot Restaurant, has received a rave review in Pittsburgh Magazine. Flora's also has made a successful start with soldout evenings on weekends.

A recent Highland Park asset has been the development of a Community Development Corporation (CDC), incorporated in 1993. While not yet among the dozen or so well-endowed, professionally staffed CDCs in Pittsburgh, it has purchased properties on Mellon and on Stanton for residential occupancy. Tom Dickson is current president of the CDC.

A comment by ex-president Maureen D. Cato exemplifies the Highland Park Community club spirit of yesterday, today and tomorrow: "We may disagree on lots of things, people may not like me or somebody else involved. But when something needs to be done for the community, we all pull together, we all work together to make it happen. That's what has made and kept Highland Park what it is."