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Reconstruction of the intersection of
Brookline Boulevard and Pioneer Avenue in 1935.
The Brookline community, one of the
many residential neighborhoods that make up the City of Pittsburgh, was
developed in the early 1900s. Prior to that, the region known as West Liberty
Borough or Lower Saint Clair Township, was mainly a collection of family farms.
The advent of public transportation in 1904, and annexation into the City
of Pittsburgh in 1908, set the development boom in motion.
There were several distinct phases
of construction: the early development from 1900 to 1910, the housing
boom of the 1920s, the post-war boom of the 1940s and the Renaissance I
migration of the 1950s.
In the decades that followed, new home
construction was limited to a few houses here or there, civic infrastructure
improvements, the expansion of the public and parochial institutions, the
addition of two high-rise apartment complexes and the development of the 20-acre
tract of land known as the Anderson Farm into what we know today as Brookline
Memorial Park.
Early development was done by
the West Liberty Improvement Company and Freehold Real Estate Company,
the City of Pittsburgh, and the various parochial institutions. Later
infrastructure improvements were handled mainly by the city, the Port
Authority, and the various utility companies.
It's interesting to note
that back in the 1920s, a home buyer could purchase a lot, then select
the home of their choice through the Sears Catalog. All of the necessary
building materials would be shipped to the construction site and the home
built by local contractors. One example of these Catalog homes was The Fullerton. Sears homes were very popular and make up a large portion
of the housing stock erected during that era.
Below are links to some interesting
photos from the various stages of Brookline's development. They give a small
glimpse of how the community as seen today came into being. |
