POP CITY
September 2, 2008
Scratch the surface of the one square mile riverfront area called W. Homestead and you'll find what you find in every true Pittsburgh neighborhood: pride, history, sweat, tradition and, if you’re lucky, Eastern European delicacies.
In Mayor John Dindak and many others, you’ll also find a good story.
Dindak grew up just across the border in Homestead and like many here, spent decades working at U.S. Steel Homestead Works, a city in itself that once spanned more than 400 acres in West Homestead, Homestead, and Munhall and, in its heyday, employed more than 10,000. According to Dindak, most everyone worked at U.S. Steel or at Mesta Machine Co. which, at its peak, employed more than 4,000.
While those days are long gone, some fascinating historical sites remain, such as the Pump House and the Bost Building , home of the infamous and deadly steel strike. Your best bet: take a Rivers of Steel tour to deepen your appreciation of the once mighty steel industry.
While much has since been lost, much has been gained.
Now there is only one hotel in the area, the Courtyard Marriott, which is part of the Waterfront, a riverside development built on the site of the Homestead Works that provided a much need boost to the coffers of Homestead, Munhall and West Homestead. The Waterfront is now held up as an example nationwide of a brownfield site that underwent dramatic and successful transformation. (In June of 2004 Continental Real Estate valued the property at $300 million.)
It began in the 1980s when Ray Park, a salvager and liquidator of industrial sites, purchased the former U.S. Steel Homestead Works and Mesta Machine Co. properties. He started to develop the property and within a few years, Continental Real Estate came in bringing with it the retail and restaurants. The Waterfront is marked by the iconic stacks, a dozen towering and impressive brick structures that grace the entrance. They are the only thing left of the steelworks.
Striking a Balance
“The waterfront, as far as I am concerned, is a blessing. It brought the whole valley back alive,” says Dindak. With its dozens of stores and restaurants, including big box stores such as Costco and the Disneyesque Loew’s Theater, the Waterfront draws impressive crowds, especially on weekends. And in the summer? With Sandcastle, the popular water park down the street, with its Lazy River for rafting and steep water slides, Homestead/W. Homestead is quite the happening place.
Now West Homestead’s biggest conundrum is finding a balance between the old and the new, between the commercial success of the Waterfront and a community struggling to maintain its identity in its shadow.
And the Other Gold
Doyle Avenue alone is worth the drive just to view the last of the the turn-of-the- century mansions when industrialists and tycoons called the area home. First and perhaps most noticeable is Mesta Mansion, a sprawling structure built by the Mesta family, including George Mesta, who founded the Mesta Machine Co., now known as WHEMCO. The residence is now owned by Manoy and Stacy Chandran, who are restoring it.
The Bulgarian Macedonian National Educational and Cultural Center on West Eighth Avenue stands as a reminder to the Eastern Europeans who once flocked to this region in search of jobs.
“In the ‘40s, there were 33 Bulgarian bakeries in Allegheny County,” says Penka “Patricia” French, who grew up in West Homestead in the ‘30s.
French, now president of the board of directors of the BMNECC, says her father emigrated to Pittsburgh from Bulgaria in 1913 and worked in the coal mines and railroad.
At the time, the BMNECC served as a beneficial association for Bulgarian and Macedonian families. French took Bulgarian lessons there. and later went on to work four decades as a translator in the state Department. These days the center, with its murals and museum and smooth, wooden dance floor, serves as tourist attraction and is the site of weekly dances like Cajun and Salsa. (To see the Pop City story, click here.)
The BMNECC also is the site of Soup Sega, a weekly gathering of local chefs skilled in Bulgarian cuisine. Every Saturday morning, they gather to make traditional recipes for soups such as Potato Leek and Beef Barley and also stews like Gyuvech, a rich and tasty concoction of beef, carrots, cabbage, green beens and tomatoes. The good news is these soups are then sold to the public.
Plans for the Future
While many residents can tell stories of West Homestead and what it once was, many other residents just as easily talk of their plans for its future.
And while the Waterfront has thrived, the streets behind, which were once lined with independent stores that defined the communities, have struggled to maintain their identity.
Last year, leaders from the Western Pennsylvania Brownfields Center at Carnegie Mellon University approached Homestead and West Homestead boroughs about developing the area behind the Waterfront—the businesses and shops along Eighth Avenue.
“In Homestead and West Homestead, one of their biggest issues is the tie between the old community and the Waterfront,” explains Deborah Lange, executive director of the Brownfields Center, adding that hardly any of the consumers who come to the Waterfront, cross over into Sixth, Seventh and Eighth avenues.
And while the Waterfront and Sandcastle, which opened in 1989 on the site of the former railroad beds of U.S. Steel Homestead Works, bring residents into the borough, the majority of that pedestrian traffic and their money never make it beyond the boundaries of the Waterfront into the municipalities that lie beyond.
Brownfields initially began as an initiative of the Environmental Protection Agency. Led by Pennsylvania, the initiative began examining former industrial and manufacturing sites for possible contamination that might prevent it from being reintroduced into the local economy. Their task now includes examining economic and social issues as well as environmental ones.
Lange's staff organized a workshop that included experts in industrial revitalization throughout the region. Although a list of recommendations is still being finalized, it includes a suggested partnership that would allow Homestead, Munhall and West Homestead to secure and share a grant writer from the Environmental Protection Agency who would help secure funding for projects.
That equation will no doubt involve David Lewis, an architect, professor, philosopher, and redeveloper. , and opiner. Lewis, a West Homestead resident who lives in one of the sprawling mansions along Doyle Avenue, took time out of a Sunday morning to talk about his vision and hopes for the borough.
Part of it will inevitably involve helping the communities identify a sense of themselves, he says. For example, West Homestead should recognize its two distinct personalities, the historic district along the shore and the post-World War II suburbia, including Calhoun Village, in a hill above the borough.
Another change in the future of West Homestead is the Southside Trail that ends just short of the community along the Mon. Eventually, once a connection through the area is figured out, the in-the-works Steel Valley trail will connect the Southside Trail into McKeesport. And that will bring even more people into the area. With all this traffic, W. Homestead and the surrounding communities of Homestead and Munhall will be more determined than ever to figure out how to strike a balance: between old and new, Waterfront and Eighth Avenue, legacies of the past and legacies of the future.
