Pittsburgh's Mellon Square Reopens this Week

Mellon Square will reopen to the public this week after a $10 million, three-year renovation. According to the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy website, the renovation was made possible with funding from the Richard King Mellon Foundation, The Colcom Foundation, The Eden Hall Foundation, and BNY Mellon, among others.

Diane Nelson Jones explains the need for the renovation of the park that opened in 1955 to acclaim and has already been renovated once. "After a late 1980s renovation, no funds were set aside for maintenance, and the next three decades saw the square little used by office workers and torn up by skateboarders and stunt cyclists. Drainage failures cracked the terrazzo surfaces and caused mineral deposits. The fountain mechanisms corroded. Many trees and shrubs died."

Now the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy has an agreement with the city "to operate and oversee the square" with $4 million set aside for that purpose.

Among Mellon Square's new features, is "a terrace overlooking Smithfield, [which] was part of the original design but not originally installed. It expands the usable area by 15 percent," according to Nelson Jones.