Highland Park The Highland Park Neighborhood of Pittsburgh

Capitalizing on the success of the midget baseball team and what Mayor David L. Lawrence called President Johnson's "remarkable steamroller tactics," the club's first annual meeting attracted over three hundred people to East Liberty Presbyterian Church in January, 1947.

The annual family dinner at the church was a mainstay well into the 1960s. Actor and Pittsburgh celebrity Rege Cordic was master of ceremonies one year. Children enrolled in the club's classes and four Cub Scout dens enjoyed the chance to put on dance costumes and entertain the filled church hall. Hired performers such as "The Incomparable Master of Sleight of Hand -- Dick Staub!" received reviews ranging from marvelous to miserable; all have faded into obscurity.

An annual semi-formal dinner dance was held at places like the Churchhill Country Club, the Long Vue, Oakmont, and the Field Club. The Stanton Heights Golf Club was used until it closed in 1956. Over the years, couples jitterbugged and fox trotted to the music of the The Homer Oschenhirt Orchestra, D. Bartini, Harry Baker Orchestra, Benny Benack, and Johnny Fitz and his four-piece orchestra. This event lasted until the late 1960s when the genre of ballroom dancing faded.

Winter was busy in the club. In the early 1950s, Fred Parkin came up with the idea to burn Christmas trees on Twelfth Night. Over two thousand people came to the first burning. Several annual burnings attracted crowds of ten thousand to the open space, now called Pool Grove, across from Lake Carnegie in Highland Park.

It was like a fun Fourth of July in January, with hot chocolate. It grew so big that a crane was needed to build the pile of trees. One year, vandals struck a match a few days before the official burning.

A hue and cry went up for more trees. Parkin scoured the neighborhood for remaining trees and loaded them up in the family car. His son Pete got rope burns trying to hang on to the overloaded vehicle.

The mayor asked Parkin to conduct a Twelfth Night tree burning for the entire city, on the then-bulldozed area of the lower hill that was to become the Civic Arena. It was a huge success, but there was so much smoke, city council outlawed tree burning in Pittsburgh.

Fred Parkin was so extroverted in his activities, his motto might have been, "Have so much fun that they have to legislate against it."

Lake Carnegie was a busy place for ice skaters. Horses stabled at the Caddy Grounds barn pulled a plow across the ice to clear it of snow. If the ice was thick enough for horses, nobody worried about skating. From time to time, the fire department flooded the surface with a little water to make the ice smooth. Hockey games were played in the afternoon, and the lake was the place to meet in the evenings.

Some winter fun needs no planning. Before the concrete wall was installed below the farmhouse, it was a straight shot for sledders from the top of the hill above the farmhouse, all the way down to the lake. Starting at the top of Heberton Street, sledders had a great ride all the way to Stanton Avenue, where they scattered coal furnace ashes to keep them from going into traffic.

The club had a strong connection with East Liberty. Girls walked from school at Sacred Heart to the Fairgrieves studio for dancing. It was on the second floor of a building next to Bolan Candies' previous location. There is now a Giant Eagle parking lot on the site.

Students walked from Peabody to the East Liberty Presbyterian Church for the club's bowling leagues. Adults bowled at Crookston's alleys on Broad Street. Many members worked in East Liberty.

Doctors had practices there and lived in Highland Park. There were five movie theatres and a skating rink. East Liberty and downtown were Pittsburgh's main shopping and entertainment areas. Teens coming home from school in October 1960 jumped off the trolley to watch Bill Mazeroski's series-winning home run in the window of May Stern department store on the corner of Penn and Highland.

Perhaps the East Liberty renewal project in the 1960s is the biggest thing to happen in Highland Park since the club started.

In the 1960s, the Highland Park Community Club adjusted to changes in Pittsburgh and the country. Simultaneously, the number of children in the neighborhood declined sharply. Added to the club's purpose were "civic, cultural, and social activities for community improvement." The club changed with the times, and its focus on recreation evolved to include to overall quality of life.