The Mon Wharf may be the most newsworthy parking spot in America. And not only because it appears in the news every time the Pittsburgh river goes on the rampage.
Has anyone counted how many cars have been fished out from the Mon after the flooding of the Wharf? Photos from the Post-Gazette archive capture Buicks, Chevrolets, Alpha Romeos and even U-Hauls being pulled out from the river.
In the early 1900s, before the Mon Wharf became what it is today, the sloping bank along the Monongahela, from the Point eastward to Smithfield Street, was in the news as a center of Pittsburgh’s river traffic and commerce.
Back then, the cobblestoned Wharf served as a parking spot, but of a different kind. Steamboats docked here to deliver passengers and supplies to Downtown. The riverfront was used also as a temporary docking place for coal barges whose final destinations were the steel mills upstream. Remember, in the beginning of the 20th century Pittsburgh was the largest inland port in the United States.
As motorized vehicles became more common in Pittsburgh and river traffic tanked, partially due to railroad development, the Wharf became a parking spot for automobiles. In the 1930s, the need to develop the area and accommodate the growing population of vehicle owners Downtown became more obvious.
As the 1930s drew to a close, the city government approved a plan to build an expressway above the Wharf and transform the Wharf itself into a parking lot. Warehouses were replaced by office buildings, the cobblestone surface was converted to a well-paved road.
The Pittsburgh Press reported on the construction of the Wharf in February 1939: “It’s been difficult for members of the Association of the Construction Watchers to figure out from their various vantage points along the Monongahela River side of the Golden Triangle — how Pittsburgh’s first elevated river boulevard will look when it is finished.”
The plan was close to being perfect, a reporter wrote. “There is just one drawback: the parking area and the sunken express highway, which will be connected with the higher level by means of three ramps, one at Ferry St. and two at Wood St., will be under water when the river goes on the rampage.”
“The sunken portion of the highway will be only five feet above normal river stage and will be closed when floods come. The same holds true of the parking area.”
The prognosis for the Mon Wharf from 1939 turned out to be true. And here we are today, loving to hate the Wharf when it’s flooded, loving it or not caring at all, when it’s not.
