Emerald View Park: Creating a Gem
When members of the Mount Washington Community Development Corporation birthed the idea to create
Pittsburgh’s newest Regional Park in the forgotten green space that embraces the three Pittsburgh neighborhoods of Mt. Washington, Duquesne Heights, and Allentown, it seemed farfetched to say the least.
The project took on the seemingly insurmountable task of joining three existing parks with steep slopes that had been heavily mined, denuded and dumped upon for more than a century, creating a border of no-man’s land that, save for a few creative souls, was far outside of the collective imagination as parkland. In an era when new parks are increasingly being developed in unexpected places, this article describes how, with the
City of Pittsburgh’s blessing and support, Emerald View Park is beginning to shine as a prime example of what can happen when community development, environmental restoration, and outdoor recreation meet.
An aerial view of Mount Washington today shows some pre-existing parkland and what appears to be lush, forested landscape wrapping all the way around the Mount
Washington land mass. From this bird’s eye view it is easy to see what the people of
Mount Washington imagined – a 280 acre park that connects existing parkland with extensive natural areas. In combination with the over 1 million visitors that already come to Mount Washington every year to enjoy that spectacular view of downtown, the implications for economic development, environmental conservation, outdoor recreation and health are significant.
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A Brief History of Land Use
However, the park’s steep topography, coupled with the history of land use in Mount Washington creates extensive challenges. Once a lushly forested mountain, Mount Washington gave birth to the country’s bituminous coal industry in 1754. Local history includes stories of George Washington’s men digging coal directly from the hillsides, and much later depression era “thieving” of coal from neighbors’ yards. By 1830, the City of Pittsburgh was consuming up to 400 tons of coal per day, and through mining operations, timber removal, and early settlement, Mount Washington’s hillsides became scarred and almost completely denuded.
Estimates suggest that undermining in what is now the Park ranges from 50% to 90% and that approximately
75% of parkland is at 25% grade or greater. The park’s topography coupled with its mining history means that the Park suffers from slide prone slopes and problems like acid mine drainage.
New modes of transportation to the
Mount combined with periods of boom and bust have meant significant changes for the way the hillsides have been used. Early settlers to Mount
Washington had to walk up the slopes along social trails, including the “Indian Trail” that crossed the face of the Mount, in order to reach the crest of
Mount Washington, 367 feet above the Monongahela River. But as the land mass became increasingly popular as a place to live in the mid-1800s and later, a mile-long set of wooden stairs were constructed along this ancient Native American trail. Eventually, as more people settled, alternate forms of transportation up
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Mount Washington were created, including funiculars, trolleys and roadways. With this large variety of transportation choices, people slowly, but steadily, stopped walking across the hillsides. While Pittsburgh thrived, population numbers remained high, exceeding 40,000 in Mount Washington in the 1960s. But following the massive mill closings and layoffs of the 1980s, people began leaving Pittsburgh in large numbers, and today, there are less than 14,000 people living in the neighborhoods surrounding the Park. This drastic drop in population means the woods around Mount Washington contain numerous abandoned roads and house foundations that dip into the forests. In addition, because the slopes were now rarely used in any way, save for the occasional hunter, and, because these slopes had been so degraded by previous land use,
Pittsburghers began seeing these hillsides as wasteland. And as the slopes’ usefulness for transportation was forgotten, they found another use for them – as unofficial garbage dumps. Now, where once there was nothing but trees, shrubs and wildlife, there are acres of discarded tires, cars, refrigerators, bowling balls, carpets, and shopping carts.
For generations some people in Mount Washington fought this overriding trend, trying to repair the damage of all of this early land use. The Carnegie Library owns a photo from 1915 of a group of women in their hoop skirts planting a barren hillside in Mount Washington. Subsequent reforestation attempts, from the 1950s and later, included the planting of Norway Maple and Tree of Heaven because they were known to grow in
Pittsburgh’s then-polluted soil and air. So, over time, forests re-grew on the slopes of Mount Washington.
However, these woodlands, like many urban woodlands, are of low ecological value – packed with invasive plants, and species poor. While this is troubling for forest management, these forests are also a testament to the human ability to make a difference and re- green areas that have been significantly degraded by people, and a reminder that one generation’s best practice often causes the next generation to scratch their heads in puzzlement.
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Building a Park on “Wasteland”
Ironically, it is this density of trees that further complicates the process of restoring this degraded land and turning it into a regional park – by physically obscuring the problems, impeding access to the sites, and by creating a sense of alienation and separation between the community and the space that will become park.
As a result, in order to create Emerald View Park, the Mount Washington Community Development
Corporation, working as co-stewards with the City of Pittsburgh, has had to contend with both how to physically turn this degraded land into a Park and the social question of how to enable the community to see the value in this land. The conundrum, by necessity, requires a multi-pronged approach – a three legged stool that supports Park development through community engagement, trail construction, and habitat restoration.
Community Engagement
Woven into our engagement plan is a somewhat scrappy, “do-it-yourself ethos” that we have intentionally developed. It is more than just an economic need that is driving this ethos – although it doesn’t hurt to be
“scrappy” when budgets are tight. But because the land is difficult to access and people have become alienated from the space, and because the vision for the park is constantly being clarified in an ongoing community conversation, this self-help ethos is an essential part of building this park – both in creating park space and in the way we build a passion for the Park. Engagement underlies everything that we do, including how we are getting the work done. We have an advisory board made up of Pittsburgh residents that informs management decisions and events, we train and hire community members to construct trails and manage the woodlands, and like everyone here, we rely significantly on volunteer labor. This is intentional because it enables the people of Pittsburgh, through their own sweat equity, to once again assume ownership over and passion for the space.
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While we have enabled in excess of 6,000 hours of volunteer time towards the Park over the last three years, one novel example of the way we have been able to engage a broader constituency is through our Knit and Crochet
Trail Markers. Pittsburgh City Ordinances exclude painting trail blazes on park trees; so without adequate funding for trail wayfinding signs, we struggled for ways to demarcate Emerald View Park trails. That is, until we developed an innovative volunteer engagement project that encouraged people, from the comfort of their own homes or at publicly advertised events, to knit us “tree scarves” to adorn trees along the Park’s trails. Each tree scarf is knit from biodegradable material to dimensions of 10”x12”to 14”. Since kicking off this opportunity in 2010, we have received roughly 100 knit trail markers from people throughout Southwest Pennsylvania. The Knit and
Crochet Trail Markers project has provided us with some great publicity, while simultaneously encouraging people from all backgrounds to engage in Emerald View Park’s development.
Master Trail Plan
Another one of our main initiatives is the Park’s Master Trail Plan which will enable us to construct 20 miles of primary and secondary trails.
Mostly woodland trails of 3 to 4
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feet wide with some necessary sidewalk connections, the 10-mile primary loop will bring hikers and mountain bikers throughout the entire Park loop and the 10 miles of secondary trails will connect users to different park neighborhoods and to many of Pittsburgh’s regional trails. The trails bring health, social and economic benefits for the community and the region. Importantly, and returning to the concept of engagement, they enable people to experience these forgotten lands as valuable and beautiful parkland, experiencing the transition from wasteland into park. Apropos of this discussion, they also are crucial for our restoration efforts, enabling us, our crews, and our volunteers to overcome the challenge of turning a degraded urban forest into a park by giving us the ability to reach, and then restore, most of the Park’s previously inaccessible woodlands.
Even within the story of trail construction, we are building the park through engagement, training and hiring at-risk adults who would otherwise have no jobs or job prospects. Through a collaborative with other non-profits, we train them in green job skills, with specific attention to trail construction, dumpsite removal, and plant restoration. The Emerald Trail
Corps is not only building miles of structurally sound and beautiful trails on some of the most challenging terrain in
Pennsylvania, but they love what they are doing. As one of the Emerald Trail Corps told us recently, “I love this job. I never expected to. I’ve liked other jobs before because they’re easy. This one I love because it’s hard, I’m good at it, and it’s creating something worthwhile.”
Because we hire from all over the City, the Emerald Trail Corps is bringing a message of renewal and restoration to neighborhoods across the City.
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Ecological Restoration Plan
The final leg of our three-legged stool is our
Restoration Plan, which includes work to eliminate and remediate existing dumpsites, understand and improve the Park’s hydrological system, and assist in the recovery of biodiversity for the Park’s vegetation and wildlife. Over the past five years, working with staff, consultants and volunteers, we have removed 200,000 pounds of garbage, planted 4,500 trees, and restored nearly six acres of prime view shed with an innovative sustainable management method. In addition, we have begun the preparation for a water restoration plan and a comprehensive habitat restoration plan for the remaining natural areas.
When we started working in Emerald View Park, it seemed that every time we went into the Park, we discovered a new dumpsite. We would lead tours and have to urge people to ignore the garbage and use their imaginations to understand what Emerald View Park could be. Following these tours, the feedback surveys were dripping with sympathy for, and a good deal of skepticism about, the amount of work that needed to be done. And admittedly, we often felt overwhelmed by the prospect – how could we possibly create a beautiful, viable park out of the garbage heaps and vine-beleaguered trees that plagued us? But the thing about dumpsites, trails, and habitat restoration is that they can be tackled in small bites – one site, or even one piece of a site, at a time. And with every clean up, every tree planting, every shovelful of soil, the environment is in a better place than it was before, and the “waste land” is one step closer to being a park. And over time, each small piece adds up. Today, between the trails that have been built, the trees that have been planted, and the
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garbage removed, we can go back and walk through with groups of people, and no longer have to push them to imagine when. Instead, we have to struggle to remember what it used to look like scattered with tires, bottles, bowling balls and refrigerators. And we rarely get those sympathetic and skeptical looks anymore.
Rather, our visitors return, owning a piece of the vision, and bringing their friends; all the while talking about how it really is possible to turn steep, degraded Pittsburgh hillside into a Park, and sometimes even how they could do this in their own neighborhoods.
Lessons Learned
Translating this into a broad lesson learned brings the spotlight back to the social aspect of building a park in an unexpected place. The physical piece of building a park requires the diligence and hard work of any development project – there needs to be an actionable plan and it must be implemented well to build a safe, usable, healthy, and beautiful space. But along with this is what happens in the social space – a space where people meet and share ideas and values, where hillsides are declared wasteland or valuable, where forests are treasured or forgotten. It is the space where collective dreams can be built, and where the shared yearning and vision for any public space is negotiated. This space is often neglected as we plan and fret about what a park will look like. But forgetting the cultural meaning of a public place is done only at the peril of the longevity of that place since over the long term, this shared yearning is what will guarantee the Park’s success, health and protection for many years to come. And while
Emerald View Park is not there yet, there are indications that, step by step, we are getting close.
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Ilyssa Manspeizer, Ph.D.
Director, Park Development & Conservation
Mount Washington Community Development Corporation
301 Shiloh Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
412 481 3220 x204 imanspeizer@mwcdc.org
Ilyssa is an environmental anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in natural resource management and community-based conservation and development. She has managed programs and conducted research on conservation and community development in the United Kingdom, East and Southern Africa, and the United
States, including Ethiopian elephant conservation, rural Zambian development, and urban park development.
Ilyssa currently lives in Pittsburgh where she is helping to make the dream of Emerald View Park a reality.
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