ALLEGHENY COMMONS PARK ACTION PLAN

Northside Leadership Conference & Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy

2013-2018

Clio Consulting returned to Allegheny Commons to help shape the Action Plan for implementation of the 2002 Allegheny Commons Park Master Plan in 2018, five years after preparing the nomination to list the park in the National Register of Historic Places. Clio principal Angelique Bamberg worked with LaQuatra Bonci, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, and other consultants and stakeholders to update the plan and draw priorities for implementation. She articulated the role of history in the park’s past and future development and helped facilitate the public process.

BEAVER HARB TRAINING

Borough of Beaver and PA SHPO, Beaver, PA

2012, 2016

Clio Consulting was engaged by the Borough of Beaver to train the members of its newly-appointed Historic Architecture Review Board (HARB) in administering its Historic Preservation Ordinance and in best preservation practices. The Borough’s ordinance established a local historic district, co-terminus with an extant National Register Historic District, comprising the entire 1792 plat of the community and most of the present-day area of the Borough.

BOROUGH OF SEWICKLEY CULTURAL RESOURCE SURVEY REPORT

Borough of Sewickley

2024

Laying the groundwork for future preservation planning, the Borough of Sewickley commissioned a borough-wide inventory of its historic resources, as well as a public engagement survey to help define community-supported preservation goals. Clio Consulting interpreted and analyzed the data from these efforts, supplemented it with additional research, and formulated conclusions and recommendations in a thorough report to the Borough. This will inform upcoming initiatives to update Sewickley’s preservation ordinance and shape the community’s preservation policies and practices for the future.

ENRIGHT PARK

Historic American Landscapes Survey

2017

Clio Consulting’s Angelique Bamberg documented Enright Park, a small neighborhood park in East Liberty, for the Historic American Landscapes Survey prior to its removal, redesign, and reconstruction. Her work won Third Place in a national competition for the documentation of city parks. The 1960s urban renewal of East Liberty had numerous unintended consequences from which the neighborhood is still recovering today. However, one laudable goal of urban renewal was to provide public open space to neighborhoods, such as East Liberty, which historically had little to none. Enright Park was designed by the landscape architecture firm of Ralph E. Griswold to meet this goal. In a small amount of space, the park contained a mix of active and passive recreational amenities and was well-used and loved by the community.

GREEN VALLEY SCHOOL

Wallick Communities

2021

The search for a new use for this former primary school, closed by the East Allegheny School District, led to Clio Consulting’s research and documentation that it is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Green Valley School brought modern education to North Versailles and, in fact, to the entire area that would become East Allegheny. The school’s modernism extended beyond its design by Walter E. Schardt, who specialized in schools and provided an innovative solution to a terraced hillside site. Green Valley introduced the district’s first kindergarten and other spaces to suit a modern, post-war educational program, including music and art classrooms, a library, multi-purpose room, health unit, guidance office, and faculty room.

NEU KIRCHE HISTORIC STRUCTURE REPORT

Neu Kirche, Pittsburgh, PA

2016

Clio Consulting prepared a Historic Structure Report for an 1889 former German Evangelical church and associated house in the East Deutschtown neighborhood as the foundation for their adaptive reuse as a contemporary art center. The buildings are designated as City Historic Structures, and Clio Consulting’s contract included application and representation of work items before the Historic Review Commission of Pittsburgh.

413 SCHOOL STREET

Bradenville, PA

Clio Consulting conducted a historical study of this vernacular stone house to help guide its rehabilitation. It was probably built by or for Henry Burkholder, a farmer, and his daughter Mary Burkholder, between 1820-1840. Its massing, siting, and methods of construction are typical of the early nineteenth century. The exterior walls are of fieldstone rubble on three sides, but for the house’s facade, its builder went to some effort to dress the stones into rectangular blocks and to lay them in regular courses. This suggests that the builder utilized available fieldstone, hand labor, and folk methods to construct the house, but desired to make an impression with its facade, imitating the dressed ashlar used in larger, more expensive homes.

6321 JACKSON STREET

Pittsburgh

Clio Consulting researched and wrote a house history of 6321 Jackson Street, a Craftsman Style house built ca. 1917 in the Highland Park Residential Historic District, for its current owners. Part of the third wave of development of Highland Park during the early 20th century, 6321 Jackson Street is part of the Booth Place Plan of Lots (1899). James J. Booth was the partner of William Flinn in the firm Booth and Flinn, a large general contracting firm responsible for building many city streets, trolley lines, bridges, and tunnels. The house’s first owner, an East Liberty hardware dealer, likely was able to supply many of the materials for the construction of his house.

575 CELERON STREET

Pittsburgh

575 Celeron Street’s fourth owners commissioned a history of their house from Clio Consulting. This bungalow with Tudor Revival details was designed by the Pittsburgh architectural firm of Kiehnel & Elliott. It stands on property formerly part of the real estate holdings of Henry Clay Frick that he leased to an athletic club, the Pittsburgh Field Club. The house was built in 1916 for Anna Mary McDonough, her husband and two children. The McDonoughs lived in the newly-fashionable neighborhood known as Park Place among neighbors who worked as a baker, stenographer, salesman, and buyer for the Joseph Horne department store.