Hazelwood, along the Monongahela River, was once covered with great, old hazelnut trees. A beautiful place to live in the nineteenth century, it attracted some of Pittsburgh's oldest and wealthiest families who built magnificent homes. Stephen Foster would visit friends in Hazelwood and even, so it is said, compose some of his songs there. But the coming of the railroad and of industry changed Hazelwood. The wealthy departed. The good-life was redefined as working-class men and women moved in to tend the furnaces and the coke ovens, enriching Hazelwood with one of the city's most ethnically-diverse neighborhoods. Today Hazelwood advances into the post-industrial age with the Pittsburgh Technology Center, a joint venture of the City, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
