Rising Main City Steps, Pittsburgh

This is Rising Main Avenue...

In an age before motor vehicles, and in a city where high ground was reserved for the working classes--people who didn't have horses or carriages--it was common for a city street to become a staircase.  Pittsburgh has more "city steps" than any other municipality in the country.  I believe San Francisco comes in second.  Do you see the railings near the middle of this photo?  That's where Rising Main Avenue, on Pittsburgh's Northside, becomes a staircase and takes a sharp descent.

Many of Pittsburgh's city steps make good shortcuts for pedestrians, and they're grudgingly maintained...though never shoveled for snow (unless by private citizens).  Other city steps are more or less derelict and unused.  The city has put up gates or caution tape blocking access to the most dangerous steps.  But I'd been hearing about the Rising Main Steps for a few years, and people apparently still use them.  So I thought I'd go check them out.  I approached from the top of the steps in the Fineview neighborhood.

It's 371 steps from top to bottom, and I began the long descent with few misgivings.  The steps seemed fine, a little steep in places, according to the contours of the hillside beneath them.  As I descended, I noticed ruined old foundations on the right side of the staircase!  There used to be houses built along this "street."  I don't know when those houses disappeared, but in the age of the automobile, this street gives "on-street parking" a whole new meaning.  Can you imagine coming home from work in one of those hot and hazardous factories, only to climb 200 - 300 steps to your house?  Furniture, groceries, Christmas gifts...everything would have to be brought in on these steps.  The railing has given out in places. 

I was doing great, descending the Rising Main Steps, but at about the middle I noticed that they were uneven and leaning pretty hard to the left.  The banister had even come apart as erosion or collapse tugged at its joints.  Click on this photo to enlarge it.  Even though these steps are still officially open, I felt nervous to walk on the slanted surface.  I mean, this is no small drop.  And so, I cannot say that I walked all 371 steps to the bottom.  I turned around and went back up.

A little research revealed that "Rising Main Avenue" is so named because an old water main used to run along it, carrying the public water supply uphill...or maybe downhill, since city water towers tend to be located in high places.  No one wants to live in such steep places nowadays.  There are many abandoned homes.

Otherwise, the Fineview neighborhood feels semi-rural in places.  This little homestead (behind the ugly utility box) sits on the edge of an urban forest with a large, steep lawn and deer feeding in the grass...right here in the "inner city."