South Side Slopes Neighborhood

The South Side Slopes neighborhood is a dense collection of worker housing surfing along the face of a northern slope providing grand views of the Monongahela River, South Side Flats, and Oakland. The main street (Arlington Ave) follows the crest of a ridge on the other side of which is the Arlington neighborhood.

Urban renewal was projected to impact this neighborhood for the development of parks and open space. In 1970, the northwestern handle of the neighborhood was a portion of the 166-acre Mount Washington Open Space project and the city planned to relocate 17 families from the middle of the neighborhood for South Side Park.

The sites of the 7 religious congregations listed in the 1926 city directory present a diverse array of change and continuity. One was demolished, and two remain the same congregations as in 1926. Another was converted to condos in the 1990s and became the model for adaptive reuse of religious buildings for the next few decades (sometimes a model of how to succeed and sometimes a model for how not to divide up the space).

Neighborhood Statistics (Out of the 70 in this Series)

• 21st largest by acreage
• 28th highest number of religious sites (multi-way tie)
• 38th most sites/acre

Locations

The map below shows the locations of the 7 congregations listed in the 1926 directory for South Side Slopes (the dotted line marks the neighborhood boundary).

What are they now?

The table below matches the 7 congregations listed in the 1926 directory with the current use of the site.

1926 Congregation Name	By 2026 the Congregation’s Building is:
Arlington Congregational Church	demolished
Arlington Heights Presbyterian Church	changed to a different religious institution
Cobden Street Baptist Church	still Cobden Street Baptist Church
Second Primitive Methodist Church	unclear, maybe still active
St. Josephat Catholic Church	converted to secular use
St. Michael’s (German) Catholic Church	converted to residential
St. Paul of the Cross Catholic Church	still St. Paul of the Cross Catholic Church

Photos

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For more on this series, visit our introductory post.

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Sources:

Pittsburgh Department of City Planning. A Development and Renewal Program for Pittsburgh, Summary Documentation, Pittsburgh Community Renewal Program. Pittsburgh, 1970. https://pittsburgharchives.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_d1f07da0-9303-4aee-a162-04c83a0eaaa0/

Polk’s Pittsburgh City Directory, 1926. Pittsburgh: R. L. Polk & Co. https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735056286846/viewer#page/4/mode/1up