Newsletter July 2025

A New Gardening Partnership

Friends of Mellon Park volunteers recently worked with Phipps volunteers to clean up, weed, edge, and mulch the garden area by the Terraced Garden. On a hot summer day in July, volunteers pulled up untold amounts of nasty weeds, ivy, and invasive grasses, then put down cardboard and a truckload of mulch. It was hard work, but absolutely worth it. The area is vastly improved and it looks so good. Great teamwork!

Earlier in the summer, FOMP volunteers also worked with Phipps volunteers to plant flowers at the main Fifth Avenue gate of the park. The flowers welcome visitors to the park, and folks walking along Fifth Avenue will enjoy them too. Thank you to Phipps for providing the plants, which have blossomed into colorful and friendly flowers.

We’re happy to be working with Phipps as a gardening partner to help keep Mellon Park beautiful. If you’d like to meet your neighbors and help keep the park beautiful, join us from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month through October. Hope to see you there!

East End Parks

Pittsburgh's East End is fortunate to have three large and beautiful greenspaces that are rich in the history of our neighborhoods: Mellon Park, Frick Park, and Westinghouse Park.

In 1889, when the East End was a center of Victorian opulence, residents on an afternoon stroll might run into Senator Philander Knox, Andrew Carnegie, George Westinghouse, H. J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, or a member of the Mellon family. A variety of industrialists, politicians, bankers, art collectors, and philanthropists called the East End home.

Two well-known East End residents were Richard B. and Jennie Mellon, whose estate became Mellon Park in 1943. The gardens of the estate were designed in 1912 by noted architects Alden & Harlow, with subsequent work done by the Olmstead Brothers. In 1929, Mr. Mellon chose landscape architects Vitale and Geiffert to develop the Walled Garden, which visitors still enjoy today, along with its original fountain. Mellon Park opened to the public in the spring of 1944.

Henry Clay Frick and his wife, Adelaide, also lived in the East End. Upon his death in 1919, Frick bequeathed 151 acres south of his home, Clayton, to the City to create Frick Park. That land opened as a park in 1927. Mainly through donations made by Helen Clay Frick, the park has grown to include 644 acres. Clayton has been restored, and today’s visitors are able to go back in time to the Gilded Age.

Westinghouse Park was the site of Solitude, the home of George and Marguerite Westinghouse. Their son sold the estate to the Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania, who had it demolished in 1919 as required by the deed. The park was created that same year.

Thanks to the generosity of the Mellon, Frick, and Westinghouse families, East End residents are able to enjoy an abundance of greenspace.

Have You Noticed?

The Mellon Park Arboretum has grown! There are large vinyl signs on 15 trees that have been newly designated as part of the city of Pittsburgh’s first public arboretum. Permanent, laser-etched tree tags will soon be in place on all 50 of the Mellon Park Arboretum trees, thanks to a generous donation from the Fox Chapel Garden Club.

Download a map of the Arboretum from our website.

Become a Friend of Mellon Park

Friends of Mellon Park is a 100% volunteer-run organization. We are able to help care for the park because of your support. You can become a Friend of Mellon Park.

Please join us and donate today.