Highland Park The Highland Park Neighborhood of Pittsburgh

In the next week or so, the Highland Park web site is going to be rebuilt to fix some of its current ailments (calendar and images not working). Old site content is unfortunately not going to be carried over. More details as they are available.

Dick Friday, seventh President of the Highland Park Community Club, was an active, innovative, extremely inquisitive man who lived in Highland Park for over four decades. Dick and his brother John "J.R." Friday, younger by a year, were born on Avondale Place. When when Dick was three, their mother died and their father took J.R. and Dick over to the 200 block of South Aiken Avenue where they were raised by extended family, four doors down from David L. Lawrence.

Franklin H. Allison Jr., sixth President of the Highland Park Community Club, was a brilliant metallurgist known worldwide for his innovations in cold rolling mills. He served as president of the Carnegie Tech Alumni Association, had a sharp sense of humor and knew five-hundred limericks by heart. He listened to his favorite opera music with the doors of his house flung wide for everybody on Winterton street to hear. Allison was born in 1902 in Oakland, went to Schenley High and received a degree in metallurgy from Carnegie Tech.

Fred Parkin, fifth President of the Highland Park Community Club, was an extroverted man who loved microphones, podiums, and parties. At the club's annual picnics, Parkin arranged for the bullhorn rental from the Glo Radio company. Announcing electic mixer and travel iron raffle winners at the annual family picnic at North Park was simply another chance to get behind the bullhorn.

Harry K. Voelp, Jr., fourth President of the Highland Park Community Club, owned an advertising firm, lived on Greystone Drive before moving to a large house on Heberton Street at top of Hampton Avenue. Harry and Bertie Voelp raised five children in the neighborhood.

James P. Ifft Jr., third President of the Highland Park Community Club, is remembered as a wonderful man, a tremendous fellow with an open mind and a life filled with accomplishment. Before he was president of the club, he coached the pony and little league baseball teams. Ifft was born in the Hill District and graduated from Schenley High, the University of Pittsburgh, and Pitt Law School. He was an attorney and solicitorfor Columbia Savings Bank, one of the few banks reaching out to minorities inthe '30s and '40s.

Between the families of William McKenna, second President of the Highland Park Community Club, and his brother, Frank McKenna, were sixteen children in club activities. William McKenna had twelve children and was President of Hanlon Gregory Galvanizing Company.

Murray Johnston, first president of the Highland Park Community Club, is remembered as a caring, unselfish man. He was interested in everybody, and would rather hear about other people than talk about himself. You could tell Johnston a fact about yourself, not see him for years, and he would remember everything you told him. He cultivated an attitude of being open to criticism and feedback that helped the community club grow by tenfold in its first year.