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Friday, February 25, 2000
Reinvention defines what it means to be an American. Where else in the world can the lumpen proletariat ascend to the gross heights of the nouveau riche in half a lifetime?
If upward mobility is good for individuals, can the same standard be applied to neighborhoods? Is what's good for the goose good for the goose's 'hood?
Recently, an intriguing advertisement began appearing on buses around town. "It's incredible!" the red underlined copy screams: "Spectacular apartments at Affordable Prices Downtown at Crawford Square!" It was followed by a proviso about income restrictions.
To the far right of the ad is a picture of classic homes on a tree-lined-street. The USX Tower looms in the background. One senses immediately that USX and the houses in the foreground are out of scale. In fact, the building looks as if might be growing out of the back yard of one of the homes.
The ad was pointed out to me by a colleague who wasn't offended by the aesthetics of the photo as much as the message he believes it sends: Because of massive gentrification, the emerging Crawford Square community is being marketed as a part of Downtown's "outer ring" rather than a new neighborhood in the Hill District.
The ad raises uncomfortable questions about the evolution of communities and breaking with the continuity that comes from older neighborhoods. But I didn't have a sense of what it meant, really.
So I visited Crawford Square yesterday to see what happens when history and pragmatism collide in places other than Fifth and Forbes. And, guess what? I liked what I saw.
The streets are spotless, the homes efficiently designed and attractive despite paper-thin walls. The neighborhood is thoroughly integrated and exudes a confidence that's been missing from this part of town for decades.
After the "urban removal" project of the '50s that led to the construction of the Civic Arena, much of the 12 acres Crawford Square now occupies was once wasteland and rundown rental property. The Hill needed Crawford Square to begin the process of opening itself to the future. To say otherwise is to be excessively nostalgic for a long dead "golden era."
Joseph Oxford, 30, Crawford Square's assistant property manager, puts in 80-hour weeks maintaining the integrity of the complex's 348 units. A Miami transplant by way of Atlanta, Oxford has no opinion about the "Downtown" orientation of the ad, but he is mystified by the reluctance of local businesses to make deliveries to his tenants.
"Only Milano [pizza] on Fifth Avenue makes deliveries up here," he said. "I've been calling various restaurants for nine months, but they all say they have to draw the line somewhere." Still, the occupancy rate at Crawford Square remains near 100 percent. Milano's has a built in monopoly.
Renee Aldrich, a writer who lives in another part of the Hill, has mixed feelings about the future Crawford Square represents. "What are we talking about when we say affordable housing?" she said. "Affordable for whom? The minimum salary required to live there excludes a lot of people."
Aldrich remembers a vibrant Hill District, now lost to gentrification. She compares herself to one of Robert Heinlein's characters, a "stranger in a strange land," and wonders if enough attention is being paid to the kind of community the Hill is becoming.
Clearly, you can't be too rich to live in parts of the Hill, but you can be too poor. Aldrich says that's the reality the bus ads are only beginning to hint at.
Tony Norman's email: tnorman@post-gazette.com