Bluff & Uptown Neighborhood Photo Tour, Pittsburgh, PA

For more photo tours, visit: http://historicpittsburgh.blogspot.com

The atmosphere of the Bluff, also known as Uptown, is eerie, gothic, and haunted. I thought it fitting to photograph the neighborhood on a suitably gloomy late fall day. One would assume that the Bluff's prime location on a main corridor between Downtown and Oakland would have ensured its gentrification long ago. This has not been the case, for reasons that are mystifying at best. The Bluff has seen it all -- failed urban renewal, mass bulldozing, blight, crime, suburban flight -- but it's still here (for the time being). The neighborhood hangs in a delicate balance. It is whispered that many of these historic buildings will not survive to see the neighborhood's next chapter. One needs only to examine the fragile and deteriorating condition of most of the (breathtaking) Victorian architecture to understand that it is not appreciated by the waves of modernism. To those who cite Pittsburgh as an example of urban progress in the rust belt, the Bluff is a step back down to earth. There is endless work to be done, especially for preservationists.

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• Bluff
• Uptown
• Pittsburgh
• downtown
• neighborhood
• photo
• tour
• Victorian
• historic
• city
• urban
• row
• Fifth
• Forbes
• Paramount
• Film
• Exchange
• preservation
• architecture
• SoHo
• Oakland
• Duquesne
• University

[PittsDick77]

Good old Soho.

Good old rotten, crime ridden, historic Soho.

I really hope that something or someone will save these buildings! So much character and history.... just rotting away!!!

I never understood why this neighborhood is so largely ignored. It's right in between Pittsburgh's two most busiest and thriving neighborhoods: Downtown and Oakland! Not to mention it's adjacent to Duquesne University and across the river from the South Side. The city should put forth more effort into fixing it up.