South Side; East Carson and Twelfth

For the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Brian Shure painted three large-scale murals, each of which is installed in one of the building’s courtrooms behind the judge’s bench. Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge, Fourth and Market; PPG Center and South Side; East Carson and Twelfth all depict well-known Pittsburgh scenes and illustrate the ways in which the old and the new have been integrated into the urban landscape of the city.

South Side; East Carson and Twelfth serves as an interesting complement to Shure’s other two paintings. Whereas Gateway Center from Ninth Street Bridge and Fourth and Market; PPG Center depict Pittsburgh’s revitalized downtown business district, South Side; East Carson and Twelfth focuses on the more human subject of a typical Pittsburgh neighborhood.

The appearance of South Side has evolved over its long and rich history, adapting to the needs of its inhabitants, as well as to those of the city. By the 1850s, the neighborhood served as a commercial center for the region’s emerging glass industry. During this period there existed over sixty glass shops in the area, which accounted for more than half of the country’s glass production. In the 1880s, South Side witnessed an influx of European immigrants who came to Pittsburgh seeking work in the iron foundries and steel mills. The immigrants formed communities within the neighborhood and the area became densely populated with houses, churches, schools, and various businesses. The Pittsburgh industrial and economic boom lasted for about a century until the city’s steel industry rapidly declined in the 1970s. Now, in the twenty-first century, South Side is experiencing a neighborhood revitalization, which Brian Shure chose to capture in his mural. The painting juxtaposes the East Carson Street business district in the foreground with its supporting residential community, which spreads up into the distant hillside. To the right are East Carson Street’s Victorian buildings in various stages of renovation. In recent years, the neighborhood has been recognized as a local and national historic district and boasts the region’s largest and best collection of Victorian commercial architecture. Known among the city’s denizens as Pittsburgh’s “cultural district,” South Side is now home to a wide variety of businesses, restaurants, art galleries and retail shops and has been recognized as a model for historic preservation.