Walking to the ballpark.
Tickets acquired. The kid’s got his glove in case there’s a foul ball nearby, jabbering excitedly about some kind of baseball statistic that caught his attention. Who’s pitching? Is there an advantage in the lineup? Who wants to be the hero tonight
Losing is a possibility, sure. (With the Buccos, it’s more like an inevitability.) But so is winning. Who thinks about losing while walking to the ballpark?
At age 16, I dreamed about living in a place where I could walk to a record store and movie theater. At age 12, I wanted to live near the ballpark. But Three Rivers Stadium was a giant concrete urinal ensconced in a vast acreage of asphalt at the time, and was a pretty unpleasant place in the hours after Bucs and Stillers crowds fell silent.
Now, Pittsburgh has the best ballpark in America on the banks of the Allegheny, and suddenly there are a bunch of nice new condos overlooking its walls. No, they’re not affordable! But this North Shore is way better than the windswept asphalt hellscape that preceded it.
If you yearn for the crack of the bat or live for Steelers Sundays, where would be a good place to live? Here are some ideas:
NORTH SIDE
For sale: 2129 Straubs Ln., Troy Hill, $239,900
OK, this tiny 4-bedroom,1900-vintage house is pretty nice, even though it looks like they forgot to add a floor in the middle. It’s also far enough from the North Shore to keep the sights and smells of gameday at bay, and yet, close enough to exploit Dollar Dog night when the cupboard is bare at home. This property on tight-knit Troy Hill set up and pitched to investors as a 2-unit AirBnB, and you can probably guess how I feel about that (hate it). But you could just buy it and live there and who would stop you?
Back before zoning laws made it excruciating, it was no big deal to construct a beautiful commercial building in a bustling business district and put places to live above it. This was usually pretty inexpensive, but incredibly convenient (especially if the shop below was yours). This particular example is lovely, painted a light green with an ornate original façade, Art Nouveu-ish mural on the side, and the smell of fresh-cut flowers from a florist wafting in from below if you open your windows. Yes, it’s small and probably gets more street noise than average, but the attraction seems irresistible and obvious.
What is going on with that weird window there? Because it looks amazing, but someone clearly didn’t agree, because it’s walled up for reasons unknown. And why is one outside wall painted bright red? There’s got to be some kind of strange backstory here (my money’s on poltergeists), but the rest of this house has been brutally updated and refurbished within an inch of its life. You can still find historic homes with character galore in Pittsburgh, but they’re in places like Perry South that only appear on certain maps. You could easily walk to a game from here, but walking home is a bit of a trek upstream. Still, if you want to luxuriate in a win or shake off a loss, a brisk walk home could be just the ticket.
Unlike beautiful 19th-century rowhouses out of brownstone Brooklyn Heights or Back Bay Boston, Pittsburgh’s rowhouses are usually a bit shorter and humbler, so we have to appreciate a street like W. North Ave. They aren’t making any more like this; unfortunately. Still, rents are surprisingly low — this street is almost completely restored, but a few abandoned houses and buildings remain, and the centerpiece redevelopment of the old Garden Theater took about a decade longer than planned. Oh, and helicopters also take off and land nearby at Allegheny General, so invest in earplugs for bedtime.
For sale: 34 Foster Sq., North Shore, $299,000
The ‘70s weren’t kind to Pittsburgh, though we were too busy dancing on the graves of the Cowboys, Oilers, Orioles, etc. to pay it much mind. Hardly anything got built around here, but this of-its-time development, Foster Square, was one such anomaly. It’s essentially a gated community in the middle of the North Side where the scars of demolished Allegheny City were probably still fresh in many neighbors’ minds. Water under the bridge(s) now, so we can savor the tacky design choices, weird wallpaper, and psychedelic floral carpet in this condo for an old-school price.
Like a time machine that got stuck between stations, this house is 19th-century glory on the outside, 1980s nadir on the inside. But for under $1,000 (barely!), it’s got character and personality to spare. Manchester is about tapped out when it comes to cheap homes for purchase, but there are plenty of reasonable rentals still around.
