Many Northside Chronicle readers recognize my name and many even know me personally.  I have been living on Pittsburgh’s North Side for ten years and have thrown my heart and soul into helping to make this a very special place for our own and for future generations.  I grew up in the North Hills suburbs in a family that has North Side connections from both of my paternal grandparents. I was raised in a 1950s ranch house, graduated from a suburban school district, graduated from a private college in Mercer County and then struck it out in the Greater Pittsburgh area for work.

I made friends with folks from the Mexican War Streets neighborhood and moved here in 1998. This neighborhood—with all its ebb and flow and ups and downs—had captured my heart and has motivated me to become involved in all aspects of seeing success on the North Side. I did not come here as a historic preservationist, but I sure would consider myself one now.  When I came on the Board of Directors of the Mexican War Streets Society, I soon realized that this organization and this neighborhood that it serves is not “fly-by-night” or lacking necessary purpose in the day and age in which we now live. Through my involvement in the MWSS, in the Allegheny City Society and in the Central North Side Neighborhood Council, I have learned through bumps and scrapes the vital importance in keeping the architectural resources—the built environment as they say—secure for all future generations to enjoy.

Historic preservation offers to each and every one of us on the North Side four very significant rewards—for lack of a better terminology—comfort, safety, value and sense of place. 

Comfort.  As a child growing up in the suburbs, I knew everyone that lived on our street. We never locked our doors, we trusted everyone around us. Parents watched each other’s kids and pushed us on home when the dinner bell rang at 5:30 p.m. When I visit my parent’s neighborhood today, it is not the same. No one is out playing, no one seems to know their neighbors. The remote to the garage door and the television have replaced conversation at the mailbox and across the backyards. Here in the Mexican War Streets, as in all neighborhoods I visit here on the North Side, folks sit out on their sloop and chat after a day of work. Our homes and our streetscapes offer a place of sanctuary and succor from a long day out away from the neighborhood. We make lasting friendships here. Each of us and our children learn and understand diversity and inclusiveness here. Coming back into the neighborhood from being anywhere else is like easing into a well-used comfortable chair. This is home and it is largely because of the beauty of the Victorian homes that make it such.

Safety.  Some aspects that I have just discussed as contributing to the comfort are also appropriate here. We have housing density and activity in the streets that translates into “someone is always watching.” Someone sees what is happening—for good or for bad, too!  We watch each other’s children and we look after one another’s homes. We offer suggestions on the best route to take in restoring a historic façade. Anyone very quickly learns who belongs and who does not belong in our neighborhoods because they do not share our same regard for respect and care of person and property that we all share.  Historic preservation keeps that all-seeing eye as street activity is monitored and controlled by narrow streets, active sidewalks and, by night, all those porch lights.
Value.  Yes, older Victorian homes that are restored and maintained have more market value than those that are not preserved. But this is not the value to which I am referring. I speak of value with a capital V.  When asked where we live, and we reply [the Mexican War Streets], the listener says, “Oh, yes, what a lovely neighborhood.
Those homes are so beautiful and lovingly restored. Or, “Yes, I have been on a tour in that neighborhood. You must be so proud and delighted to live in such a place.”  I am very active in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

When I attend annual conferences of historic preservationists and city planners from neighborhoods and cities across the United States and the world, I hear how people have somewhere learned of our neighborhoods and have studied our development as a historic preservation area.
We are pioneers in historic preservation and a good test for the success of what happens in an urban setting when preservation is applied.
This is the true urban renewal! Not the urban re-moval that happened all around us in the 1960s.

Sense of Place.
When I walk along any North Side street, I am always struck by the notion that these homes have been here for over one hundred years. Think of all the history to which these neighborhoods have borne witness.

As I drive through the historic business corridors, Allegheny Commons, or walk along the intersection of Federal Street and Ohio Street (now a sidewalk), I cannot help but feel that something very significant happened here.

And as I observe the development and renewed interest in all our neighborhoods, something very significant is still happening here. Pittsburgh’s North Side—the former Allegheny City—still is a gem in architectural treasures, in well-thought-out public spaces, and in due diligence in keeping the connection between past, present and future very much alive.
There was a time when much of this was going to be taken away from us for good. 

City planners eliminated the “downtown” of Allegheny for the most part. East Street was virtually erased by the I-279 expressway through the valley to the North Hills. This sense of place gives us cause to reconsider demolition as the ONLY alternative!

Historic preservation keeps the past very much alive for each of us as a marker of who we are, where we have been, and helps shape our thinking in where we wish to go in the future in terms of development, growth and style of living.

In another edition we will take a look at historic preservation and gentrification. No, they are NOT synonymous.

Views expressed by David McMunn are not necessarily the views of the Mexican War Streets Society, nor the Northside Chronicle.
The Mexican War Streets Society is a 5019(c)(3) nonprofit corporation in the Mexican War Streets city- and national-designated historic district.
The mission of the MWSS is to preserve the historic character of the Mexican War Streets and to promote our neighborhood through personal and community involvement.
This year the MWSS celebrates its 40th anniversary in bringing historic preservation to this first historic designated neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
Visit www.mexicanwarstreets.org to learn more about this organization.