Emerald View Park, which overlooks the city of Pittsburgh from the summit of Mt. Washington, is a city park that covers 280 meandering acres of urban forestland. The Mt. Washington neighborhood is truly one of the city's most beautiful places. It's an old inner city neighborhood mostly made up of working class whites and an ever-increasing population of moneyed hipsters and professionals. But for all the casual neglect and easy seediness of old Pittsburgh, it's got fantastic views out over the rivers and the city skyline. There are expensive condos going in all the time, but the great majority of the place is still made up of aging storefronts, corner stores, and tall, narrow houses, closely spaced, on narrow streets that wind crookedly uphill--or downhill. The neighborhood is connected to the South Side and downtown by two steep cable car tracks, called "inclines.
The Emerald View Trail is tucked away in the viny woods and scrublands that were too steep to build on. It follows a circuitous route that offers panoramic vistas out over all three of the city's rivers, its skyscrapers, and another lesser known neighborhood called the West End Village. Its course is nearly three miles long, and surprisingly uncrowded on a Veterans' Day in pleasant weather.
The trail starts at a place along Grandview Avenue known as "Points of View Park," which is really just a statue of George Washington and the Seneca Indian Guyasuta, staring intimately into each other's eyes. It looks like they're about to lean in for a kiss.
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