Meg Cheever and the Restoration of Our Fabulous City Parks

It was a dark time for parks nationwide. Once, a century ago, they were the  jewels of every city, blessed green spaces amidst bricks and mortar and concrete. Then, after World War II, as people bustled into cars and out to the suburbs, the grand urban parks were allowed to go to seed. Underfunded and underutilized, they suffered from what Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in another context, termed “benign neglect.”

Now, however, everything old is new again. With more people moving into central cities, and enjoying outdoor public spaces, parks are once again being viewed as a grand civic resource, for exercise, relaxation, spiritual renewal. The more green space, the merrier.

But how to fund them? How to restore them to their once-pristine beauty? With political priorities elsewhere, and civic budgets stretched to the max, a dozen years ago a new group stepped up, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. We will team with you, they told the City, to make the parks whole again.

“That was very much a sea change,” offers Meg Cheever, the Conservancy’s co-founder, first employee, President and CEO. “In Pittsburgh, we are blessed with a wonderful legacy of parks and open spaces from the 19th and 20th Centuries. But for decades our parks had been neglected. The Conservancy was catalytic in renewing public interest in our parks.”

Cheever, a Boston native, Wellesley and BU Law graduate who came here in ’75 to take a job in a legal firm, opened her parks shop in ’97. “It was not a novel idea,” she says of non-profit help for publicly owned parks. Cities as diverse as Atlanta and St. Louis, New York and Boston, had employed similar stratagems. “This was a proven concept,” Cheever says.

Within a year the Conservancy had teamed with the city to build consensus, evaluate needs, and create a Master Plan for improvements. Drumming up support and engendering enthusiasm, “we began by viewing parks as a cultural asset,” Cheever says. “Parks are a vital part of daily lives. Parks provide a great healthful venue for recreation, social interaction, and spiritual rejuvenation. They are true democratic spaces. We need them now, more than ever.

“In addition,” she adds, “our parks have changed the impression of a lot of people about Pittsburgh. Parks are a key element in the value proposition of the Pittsburgh region. They’re great for attracting conferences and for recruiting.  ‘Look at how beautiful and green and sparkling our city is.’ Very often, they’re the tipping point in deciding to go here or there.”

Faced with a whopping 171 parks – 1,700 acres all told, everything from 600-acre behemoth Frick to tot lots dotting the cityscape – the City and PPC had to set priorities. Studying and surveying while holding some 30 public meetings for two years starting in 1998, they wrote the Regional Parks Master Plan. Targeting the city’s four largest parks – Frick, Highland, Riverview, and Schenley – they called for a $118 million capital improvement campaign, a 20-year blue-print for parks restoration. “There’s a lot to be done,” Cheever says.

From Highland’s 140-year-old Farm House to the Reservoir Walkway; Riverview’s Valley Stable; Frick’s Gatehouses, Environmental Center, Bowling Green, and Blue Slide; to Schenley’s Visitor Center, Panther Hollow Lake and Boathouse, Oval and Ice Skating Rink, these irreplaceable civic treasures need to be conserved or recreated. Improvements planned or completed include:

Schenley Plaza. A five-acre site in the heart of Oakland, part of Schenley Park for more than 100 years. Originally intended to serve as a grand entrance to the park, Schenley Plaza became a parking lot. The Schenley Plaza restoration project reclaimed this central piece of Oakland as a vibrant, public open space, including a lawn and gardens, carousel, lighting, food kiosks, and moveable tables and chairs.

Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain. Restoration of the sculpture and fountain, A Song to Nature, took place in summer 2008. Cracks, staining, plumbing problems, and missing sculptural elements were preventing the fountain from being appreciated as a priceless piece of public art. Enlarged green space around the fountain and illumination set off the burnished bronze and granite basin.

Riverview Park Chapel Shelter. Completed in June 2008, the building, which had been closed to the public and slated for demolition, was completely refurbished to make it safe for users to enjoy. Improvements included new flooring, an updated kitchen, and the recreation of the historic steeple and dormers. The landscape was also restored, with a new trail connection and the creation of new garden beds.

Highland Park Entry Garden. At the turn of the 20th Century, a grand entrance to Highland Park welcomed visitors with bronze sculptures, clustered Ionic columns, a fountain, and elaborate formal gardens. In the 1970s, the pond was filled in, fountain removed, and walkways redone in asphalt. Restoration work began in 2003, including tree and soil removal and replacement, reconstruction of the stone pool border, fountain replacement, renewal of plantings and flower beds, installation of new lighting and benches, and walkway restoration.


Schenley Park Visitor Center. More than a hundred years old, the Visitor Center is one of the park’s few remaining original buildings. Used as a tool shed, the home of the Pittsburgh Civic Garden Center, and a nature museum, the building fell into disrepair in the 1980s and was boarded up until 2001. Now restored, it was redesigned to house a café and gift shop.

Frick Gatehouse. The 70-year old gatehouse at Reynolds Street was restored using plans from the original architects. The stonework was cleaned, sidewalls rebuilt, and a new clay tile roof and historic lighting were added. The windows were unbricked and fitted with steel and black iron bars to match the originals. New cypress doors, matching the originals, were installed as well.

There’s more, of course, amounting to more than the $40 million PPC has raised.  They need a mere $80 million more – and that’s just for the Big Four. Above and beyond? From Mellon Square, Downtown, to Mellon Park, in Shadyside, and all around the town, there is much that needs to be done.

For now shall we call it a victory? Cheever is pressed.

She may be a cheerleader for greenery, but Meg Cheever is an attorney, after all, and attorneys are nothing if not cautious. “What we’re trying to do is important for people’s lives,” she allows. “We’re paying attention again.”

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Captions: Meg Cheever; Schenley skating rink; Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain; Highland Park

Photographs copyright Brian Cohen