Neighborhood History
The Pittsburgh
neighborhood is located southwest of Downtown Atlanta within Neighborhood Planning Unit-V (NPU-V). The neighborhood is defined
at the north end by Wells Street, to the east by Norfolk Southern Railroad and Pryor Road, University Avenue to the south,
and Metropolitan Parkway to the west. Interstate-20 lies just north of the neighborhood and I-75/85 runs along the eastern
edge. The BeltLine runs parallel to University Avenue just to the south.
Pittsburgh is one of Atlanta’s
oldest neighborhoods and was established by African Americans in 1883 on 554 acres in the aftermath of the Civil War in a
segregated city. Atlanta’s economy during the late 1800s was dependent upon three major rail lines which merged near
Five Points. The railroad has always played a defining role in the development of Pittsburgh. The neighborhood got its name
because the land south of Pegran rail yards was so polluted it was nicknamed “Pittsburgh” after the steel mills
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The neighborhood’s earliest residents were laborers on the railroads and the conditions
provided by steady employment and forced by segregation encouraged the development of African American-owned businesses along
McDaniel Street, Pittsburgh’s “Main Street.”
Serviced by four streetcar lines running along
Washington Street, Pryor Street, Stewart Avenue (now Metropolitan Parkway) and Georgia Avenue (now Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard),
Pittsburgh experienced considerable growth during the early decades of the twentieth century. Neighborhood residential development
followed typical African American platting patterns with single family houses and duplexes on small lots. The neighborhood
is laid out in a fairly regular grid pattern.
The Atlanta Theological School (Salvation Army College) was constructed
on the western side of the neighborhood along Metropolitan Parkway and is still a major presence in the community. Crogman
Elementary School, named for the first African American President of Atlanta University, William Henry Crogman, opened in
1923 and was the first elementary school for African American children in the Atlanta Public School System. Crogman elementary
in recent years was rehabilitated into housing units. Gideons Elementary School, named after Charles L. Gideons, a long-time
employee of the Atlanta school system, was constructed in the 1950s. The elementary school, under the able leadership of Principal
Armstead Salters, serves as a strong community asset. The neighborhood is also serviced by Walter L. Parks Middle School,
in the southeast portion of the community and Carver High School just southeast of Pittsburgh in the South Atlanta neighborhood.
Starting in the 1950s, Pittsburgh began to experience several decades of decline. Many historically African American
neighborhoods began to loose their more affluent black families as they moved to the west side of the City into former white-owned
neighborhoods. Civil Rights, integration, and the departure of residents had a detrimental effect on black-owned businesses
in Pittsburgh decreasing their customer base and eventually causing them to close. Redlining of the neighborhood by financial
institutions crippled home sales, causing wide-spread abandonment of houses which soon fell into visible disrepair. The 1960s
dealt the neighborhood another blow when construction of I-75/I-85 cut off the southeastern tip of Pittsburgh. The primarily
industrial area is currently a no-man’s land claimed by both Pittsburgh and Peoplestown. The construction of Atlanta-Fulton
County Stadium brought game-day traffic congestion to the neighborhood which still persists. The Model Cities Program of the
1960s and 1970s started the trend of broken promises to the neighborhood. In twenty-year’s time, Pittsburgh experienced
a fifty percent decline in population from 7,276 in 1970 to 3,624 in 1990.
Historic
Resources
Because Pittsburgh is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Atlanta formed after the Civil War and
in times of racial segregation, the community has historic significance. The PCIA in coordination with the Atlanta Urban Design
Commission (AUDC) completed the steps necessary to apply for National Register Historic status. The Pittsburgh Community received
designation in June 2006. Pittsburgh can now decide if it would like to pursue Local Historic District status. A discussion
of the pros and cons of national versus local historic district designation can be found in the appendix of this report.
Demographics
Pittsburgh has continued to lose residents over the years and
according to the 2000 U.S. Census 3,286 people live in the neighborhood. The community continues to be predominantly African
American and low-income lagging behind the City of Atlanta and NPU-V in many ways that signal that the neighborhood has not
yet been touched significantly by revitalization and the increased interest in in-town living. In the six years since the
last Census, visible signs of change have taken place in the community most visible perhaps are the new, boarded up houses
that dot the neighborhood. Unfortunately, new census data are a few years away and as such it is difficult to quantify the
changes that are taking place in the community. The data presented below are therefore dated but do present a clear history
of Pittsburgh.
Population Loss
Over a twenty-year period, 1980 to 2000, Pittsburgh lost 24
percent of its population down from 4,324 residents to 3,286. In this time of inner-city flight, Pittsburgh suffered more
losses than did the City of Atlanta and NPU-V. In fact, both showed a recovery of residents in the 1990s while Pittsburgh
continued its loss.
At the same time it was losing residents, Pittsburgh was experiencing a significant decline
of households, 20 percent from 1990 to 2000, this loss occurred simultaneously with the City’s and NPU-V’s increase
in households. Vacancy rates also were on the rise in Pittsburgh unlike in the City and the rest of NPU-V where the decline
in vacancy rates was a sign of a return to in-town living combined with housing demolition particularly housing projects and
a trend toward gentrification. Pittsburgh’s high vacancy rate in 2000 indicated that the neighborhood was unable to
capitalize upon its in-town status.
In 2000, Pittsburgh had higher rents on average than NPU-V but substantially
lower home values, yet another indicator that Pittsburgh has been slower to diversify and gentrify; higher home values are
an indicator of gentrification. However, in 2000 Pittsburgh had a 39 percent homeownership rate, higher than NPU-V as a whole.
This is perhaps indicative of the larger number of elderly residents whose families have owned homes in the neighborhood for
generations.
People
Pittsburgh in 2000 was 96 percent black, a higher percentage African American than either NPU-V
or the City of Atlanta. Yet another indication that Pittsburgh has been slow to diversify.
Pittsburgh has a greater
percentage of its population under the age of 18 and has more children per family than does the City of Atlanta. Simultaneously,
Pittsburgh has the largest percentage of elderly residents over the age of 65 as compared to NPU-V and the City. With 36 percent
of the families being headed by single-females with multiple children and the high percentage of elderly residents, one begins
to see how stressed the economic condition is in the neighborhood.
Pittsburgh also suffers from low educational
achievement. Only 5 percent of the residents have an advanced degree while 86 percent have some high school and 55 percent
have a high school diploma.
Pittsburgh is more impoverished than the City of Atlanta with 70 percent of Pittsburgh
residents making less than $25,000 per year. Forty-one percent of residents live in poverty, of those 49 percent are children.
Twelve percent of families are on welfare which is five times higher than Fulton County and 88 percent of children at Gideons
Elementary School received free or reduced price lunches.
Employment
There are few employment opportunities for residents within
Pittsburgh and those available do not pay well. Approximately a third of Pittsburgh residents worked outside of Fulton County
in 2000, higher than the rate for the City of Atlanta. This is particularly interesting because only 51 percent of Pittsburgh
residents own a car compared to 76 percent in the City; and 34 percent took public transportation to get to work compared
to 15 percent in the City.
In 2000, the unemployment rate in Pittsburgh was nearly double that of Metropolitan
Atlanta. Non-participation, persons who are neither working nor looking for work, among working-aged men in Pittsburgh was
at 41 percent compared to 30 percent in the City. Similar non-participation results were found among women in Pittsburgh.
The above statistics indicate that those individuals who are willing and able to work tend to travel further and
are more reliant on public transportation than are their counterparts in the rest of the City. This becomes particularly compelling
in light of the community’s accounts of MARTA’s unreliability in servicing Pittsburgh.
