Lived-in: Aluminum City Terrace today
Our story begins with a breakfast dish that goes by the auspicious name Never Again. Two eggs scrambled, bacon, home fries, and “S.O.S.” (Shit On Shingle). This is then topped with cheese and gravy, all in a fabulous pile-up that makes lunch at Primanti’s look like high tea. Needless to say, David’s Diner in Springdale is Orbit-approved.
We’d booked our resident architecture consultants Charles & Susan for a gorgeous bright Sunday morning poke-see at a site just across the river in New Kensington and David’s friendly staff made sure all aboard were well provisioned for the hard journalism work ahead.
The crew was on its way to Aluminum City Terrace, a historically-significant housing complex that touched the interconnected spheres of World War II, big industry, and mid-century rock star architects. We wanted to see what the place looks like today, who lives there, and how it’s fared in the seventy-some years since it was hastily built back in the day.
[image: Library of Congress]
In what was reportedly a lightning development process, ex-Bauhaus founder/instructors/architects and design world big-wigs Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer drew up a 250-unit campus of cheap, simple, efficient worker apartments specifically geared to Alcoa (and New Kensington’s) immediate need to house the ramped-up workforce. The location was a beautifully hilly section just outside of town. It was a mere two miles as the crow flies from Alcoa’s plants along the Allegheny River, but must have felt like another world compared to the belching industry and urban grid of the New Ken/Arnold flats.
Have you seen the back? The very utilitarian rear of the two-story units
Seeing the apartment buildings in person, the immediate effect is, frankly, underwhelming. Aluminum City Terrace may have a great history and rich architectural pedigree, but the two-story units basically look somewhere between the kind of no-frills “garden” apartments that sit at the perimeter of many American towns and the independent no-tell motels just a little further out. This is especially true of the buildings’ featureless back sides.
The road that snakes through the complex and swells into various parking areas dominates its midsection with a regrettable amount of pavement. There are many opportunities to include a shade tree, flower bed, or line of shrubs, but the groundskeepers of the Terrace have chosen to keep its midway decidedly foliage-free.
It’s not a great first impression–especially because you’re likely only going to arrive here by car, and that will land you on pavement. Look a little deeper, though, and the Terrace tells a really interesting story, both past and present.
I’ll add that Aluminum City Terrace is no Dwell set piece, either. People live here, and the sense of life is apparent everywhere. In the drying beach towels hanging off the back porches, the kids trampoline and sports equipment strewn about the yard, the incongruous white plastic picket fence added to a single unit. Architects must flip a gripper when they see what real people do to “their” spaces, but this neutral observer found the collision to be most enjoyable.
Good on paper: Aluminum City Terrace plan and elevation, 1942 [image: Library of Congress]
One-bedroom units, each with an integrated back porch and shed
Aluminum City Terrace Activities Center
Walking through the complex, I was repeatedly struck by the cattywumpus arrangement of buildings. Each individual set of apartments is one of two designs (single floor one-bedrooms and two-story combined two-/three-bedrooms). The only real exception being the unique yard spaces and controlled additions the current co-op owners have created. But with none of the units lining up in any form of metered placement, it gives the place the overall feeling of a child’s building blocks dropped indiscriminately on a (very well-groomed) lawn, or train cars gently derailed, but untoppled.
I’m sure the primary reason for this was to follow the natural contours of the land. This part of New Kensington is quite hilly, surrounded by trees, and the plan takes advantage of the location in many ways. But even with that in mind, the site plan suggests there was a conscious effort to break evenly lining up any two buildings–either in parallel or perpendicular–on the grounds.
Cattywumpus layout: site plan, 1942 [image: Library of Congress]
Residents must apply, pass a background check, and pay a one-time expense to get into the co-op. They then pay monthly upkeep fees for the maintenance of the exteriors of the buildings and grounds. Compared to more strict co-ops (ex: Pittsburgh’s Chatham Village), the residents seem to have a good amount of leniency in the treatment of their yard spaces, adding trees, fences, all manner of shrubs, flowers, vegetable gardens, etc. According to our hosts, all 250 units are occupied and there’s a waiting list to get in.
And it’s easy to see why. The buildings, sidewalks, its one road, and the grounds are in immaculate condition. This is in stark contrast to seen-better-days New Kensington proper. Our hosts told us their daughter is living in a one-bedroom nearby with other relatives also in the complex and there seems to be a strong community throughout. The Terrace is surrounded by trees and was built in maybe the last age before developers routinely flattened the landscape prior to development, leaving it with terrific rolling ups and downs.
There’s a lot going on here: one of the busier/more heavily-maintained front yards
So…what’s the takeaway? Well, this is the first Bauhaus-related project this architecture-curious (but just a casual fan) blogger has experienced up close and personal. As such, it’s cool to find out it’s here, and it’s so loved, lived-in, and accessible in a very real world way. I don’t know much about Gropius and Breuer, but I hope they’d like most of what they’d see seventy years on. I do.
Oh, and that breakfast? On that, David is wrong: you can bet I’ll be having it again.
Pittsburgh Orbit 
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It sucks the highest living soo fucking close that you drunk ass neighbor plays his t.v. soo loud that you can clearly understand what is being said on the program as if you were in his apartment , the time was after the time of ten o’clock PM when for at least the past FIFTY YEARS it was a rule for residents to turn down their t.v.s not the asshole in 215
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😅
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Nice pictures and article, but the plain brick side of the building is actually the “front” and the small grassy area with the large windows is the back side. I’ve lived here on and off since 1942.
Great place to grow up as a child and just as good to retire in as a senior
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Hi Ms. Burford,
I’m taking this occasion to give you and the author a “shout out” from Montreal. A group of us are, like you, the product of such a planned company town (pop. of a couple of thousand), in the northern woods in the province of Quebec.
My boyhood town was called ARVIDA, for ARthur VIning DAvis, president at that time of Aluminium Company of Canada (ALCAN), split off by orders of the US government I think, from the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). “Great place to grow up as a child!”
Our fathers had to travel often to the Pittsburgh area for business.
This is the first time I’ve heard of the Terrace, and it’s encouraging to see how the owners have taken care of such a unique place and demonstrate pride of ownership.
In Arvida’s case, a group is trying to have a part of the town (the part we lived in) certified as a UNESCO heritage site.
Wishing you and your neighbors all the best,
Marc Peters
Montreal Qc
Canada
PS I still see A.V.D’s name/foundation as a sponsor on various public television programs.
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The Aluminum City Terrace is a great place to live. Every apartment is kept up on the outside. So have beautiful gardens. And it is also lot cheaper than other places to live at. And I like my Neighbors next to me. My neighbor on the right of me always have a wonderful garden. Hope the Aluminum City Terrace is around for another 100 years or more. Love living here, and I hope all the other tenants feel the same way.
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I had a relative that lived there, back in the late 80’s the moved out. Nice area and quiet. Very nice places. Back then, they mowed their own lawns and etc. I saw the article said ground fees. Very nice area too. Memories of there
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It was an amazing place to grow up. We lived near the Adminstrative office and I attended kindergarten in that building. Nearby was the playground where we would do organized crafts all summer and splash in the spray pool. And the glorious woods full of berries and small creeks would have us exploring for long summer days. Best of all, there was always someone to play with. I wouldn’t trade that childhood experience for anything.
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The Terrace Community Center had dances every Friday night. Every year for the past 11years (except In 2020 due to Covid) we have a Terrace Dance Reunion for anyone who grew up in the Terrace, anyone who lived in the Terrace and attended Terrace Elementary School. Bill Vestrand now living in Tennessee came up with the idea to reunite with classmates. Mates have traveled from Kansas, Ohio, Virginia, Florida etc. We have a DJ and covered dish. Usually in September. Their is a lower Terrace and I believe it is part of the Terrace commonly know as ACT. Back then we even had a group of boys that had a gang called The Terrace Boys but nothing like today’s gangs. We grew up in the best of times. New Ken was a thriving metropolis. There is a Terrace Elementary School FB page and some others.
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My brother and I always said we grew up in Paradise. I wouldn’t trade a single second of growing up in the Terrace. I pray that when I have passed God will give me one day back in time to re-experience the joy of riding our bikes, playing jacks at the playground, walking to school, or to Margie’s Market, going down to the playground to swing on “the big swings” or splash in the spray pool or sledding down Jackson’s Hill which they have heartbreakingly paved over. 😢. Of exploring Eagle
Rock and picking pots full of berries in the woods. Pure
Paradise. We were truly blessed to have spent our childhood at that golden slice of America.
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