I grew up hearing about the Golden Triangle which I was told meant down town Pittsburgh where the “point” was. In early Pittsburgh history that’s all there was of Pittsburgh.
However, where I grew up we had our own golden triangle. There were three streets that formed an oddly shaped triangle: Shady Ave. Ext., Ludwick Street, and Landview Street. That was our world.
Halfway down Ludwick Street was a tiny walkway; this little path had no name and it connected Ludwick Street to Saline Street. Right there, where the nameless walkway ended at Saline Street, was the “black spooky church” and it’s ancient small cemetery.
Being a child of eternal questions, I asked my poor mother, over and over–why is that little path there? Why did people put it where it is? It was mysterious to me and it drove me crazy in a nice sort of way.
If you walked along the path you would see bleeding hearts growing on the edges. My mother first pointed them out and showed me the red, heart-shaped flowers. Oh boy…my curious nature and natural sense of wonder regarding the world around me went wild. I took Naomi, my best friend, there to see it but she didn’t flip out like I did. We did look at the headstones in the neglected cemetery and they were very old, most of them unreadable.
When I went through a phase of reading Pittsburgh history I learned that the church there was the oldest in Pittsburgh, as was the cemetery. And it all made sense because if you went straight from the church, down Brown’s Hill Road, there was the Monongahela River. So it was a place of transport.
Anyway, I got mad because fairly recently a sign was put up at the path’s entrance that read “Federal Hill Street” or something like that. I thought at the time that the mysterious quality of the place was gone. But it’s not; it’s easy to remember, go back in time, and still be that sensitive, questioning young girl. Our whole world was a source of amazement to me….but my poor mother would have been happy to have a daughter a little less curious! She told me, much, much later that at times I exhausted her.
lgmwriting 