Pittsburgh Arts & Entertainment Winter 2013 | Page 18

Street views The Mexican WAR STREETS After returning from the Mexican-American War in 1848, Gen. William Robinson Jr. plotted an area of land in Pittsburgh, naming all of the streets after war battles and military leaders. Today, many of those historic Victorian-era houses still stand in the North Side, along with the street names such as Buena Visa, Monterey, Resca, Palo Alto, Taylor, Sherman and Jackson. The 25.6 acre neighborhood is filled with stately row houses, community gardens, tree-lined streets and alleyways. Some of the 335 buildings have been remolded in the 1880s, 1890s and 1920s. A resident takes a stroll down a sidewalk along the colorfully painted houses in the Mexican War Streets. 19 Originally known as the Buena Visa Tract, the area was used to stable horses and raise livestock. After the Civil War, construction began and in the late 1800s, the structure of the neighborhood looks much like it does today.