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15 results for “pittsburgh mayor”
storyDavid L. Lawrence: The Mayor Who Understood the MachineDavid L. Lawrence modernized Pittsburgh machine politics as Democratic leader and mayor — organization that reached from ward captains to Renaissance-era power.HistoryDavid L. LawrencePittsburgh mayor
storyPittsburgh Cleaned Up City Hall—Then Power Learned the New RulesIn 1911 Pittsburgh replaced its sprawling ward-based councils with nine at-large seats; decades later, representation problems forced the city to reform the reform.Historycity council1911 reform
storyThe Day Pittsburgh Swallowed an Entire CityAllegheny City voted against consolidation, but Pennsylvania counted Pittsburgh and Allegheny together; Pittsburgh’s larger majority prevailed and the fight ended at the U.S. Supreme Court.HistoryAllegheny CityNorth Side
storyThe Night the Three Rivers Took PittsburghThe Great St. Patrick’s Day Flood of 1936 drove the rivers to roughly 46 feet at the Point and temporarily broke the machinery of Downtown Pittsburgh.History1936 floodSt Patricks Day flood
storyThe Price of a Pittsburgh CouncilmanPittsburgh’s early-twentieth-century graft investigations showed how council votes, bank interests and public business could acquire a private price—and helped destroy the old council structure.Historycity hallgraft
storyThe Week Pittsburgh’s Grief Became FireAfter Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, grief, anger, unrest and a later peace march transformed Pittsburgh’s Hill District in different ways across the same week.History1968Martin Luther King Jr
storyThe Year Pittsburgh Became America’s Deadliest CityThe 1918 influenza pandemic killed nearly 4,600 Pittsburgh residents and exposed how war production, crowded transit, smoke and delayed closures amplified biological vulnerability.History1918 influenzapandemic
storyThe Day Private Gunmen Invaded a Pittsburgh Steel TownAt Homestead in 1892, a labor dispute became an armed battle after Pinkerton agents arrived by barge to retake the Carnegie Steel works.HistoryHomestead Strike1892
storyThe Mall That Pittsburgh Built to Save East Liberty—and Nearly Killed ItEast Liberty’s Penn Circle and pedestrian-mall experiment tried to compete with suburban shopping but disrupted the street network and commercial ecosystem it was meant to save.HistoryEast LibertyPenn Circle
storyThe Neighborhood Pittsburgh Almost Erased—and the People Who Fought BackManchester and Chateau show two sides of urban renewal: clearance and industrial conversion on one side, preservation and resident organizing on the other.HistoryManchesterChateau
storyThe Neighborhood Pittsburgh Erased for ProgressLower Hill urban renewal cleared a dense Black neighborhood for a redevelopment vision whose promised replacement city took decades to materialize.HistoryLower Hillurban renewal
storyThe Day Donora’s Air Killed the TownIn October 1948, a temperature inversion trapped industrial pollution over Donora, killing 20 people immediately and sickening thousands in one of America’s defining air-pollution disasters.HistoryDonora1948 smog
storyThe Decade Homewood Was Left to Fight for ItselfHomewood’s late-twentieth-century crisis was not a one-cause story: disinvestment, housing change, job loss, drugs, violence and community resilience collided across the same streets.HistoryHomewoodBlack Pittsburgh
storyThe Strike That Turned McKees Rocks Into a BattlefieldIn 1909, immigrant workers at Pressed Steel Car challenged opaque pay practices and factory discipline in a strike that exploded into deadly violence.HistoryMcKees RocksPressed Steel Car
storyWhen the Steel City Lost the SteelThe collapse of western Pennsylvania steel in the late twentieth century erased jobs faster than communities could replace the wages, tax base and identity built around the mills.Historysteel collapsedeindustrialization