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thoroughfare, a clean, pleasant, tree-shaded promenade, and a convenient, up-to-date wharf with easy access to and from the streets. There is no serious difficulty in providing for such an improvement from the junction of the two bridges at The Point to Ninth Street, on the Allegheny, and to Smithfield Street, on the Monongahela.

East of Smithfield Street the passenger station of the Baltimore & Ohio now blocks the way. But it is not unreasonable to expect that the main Baltimore & Ohio station will, before long, be moved to some point in Junction Hollow in order to avoid the long delay, to all through trains, caused by the run down to Smithfield Street and back again. The suburban business of the Baltimore & Ohio could then be turned in, parallel with the Panhandle tracks, to a new joint suburban station in connection with the important future center of traffic near the junction of Forbes and Diamond Streets with Sixth Avenue and the proposed South Hill bridge.

When the Baltimore & Ohio passenger station is removed from Smithfield Street it would be possible to continue the new water-front street and promenade east of Smithfield on a viaduct just outside of the present Water Street; this viaduct would rise over the Baltimore & Ohio freight yard and the grade entrances thereto at Grant and Ross Streets, and so connect along the line of the Panhandle (Try Street) with the proposed Second Avenue bridge over the railroad, and thence with Forbes Street and Sixth Avenue.

Any better connection than now exists from Ninth Street and Duquesne Way to Liberty Avenue would be so costly as to seem hardly worth while, although it would be a much-desired link in the circuit thoroughfare.

It is probably impossible for Pittsburghers, who are familiar with the present neglected aspect of the water front and are not familiar with the finer European quays, to form any conception of how fine a situation will be created for public or private buildings, especially on the southern water front when thus improved If it were not so much to one side of the main streams of passenger travel, the river frontage between Smithfield and Ferry Streets would offer a most admirable site for public buildings in the down town district.

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Last modified on 22-Dec 1999
Design format: copyright 1997-1999 Bruce S. Cridlebaugh
Original document: Frederick Law Olmsted, 1910