Broadhead Manor, Northern corner of Broadhead Fording & Mazette Roads, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, PA

Significance: Broadhead Manor, first occupied in February 1944, is among Pittsburgh's earliest public housing projects. At the beginning of World War II, the tremendous demand for shipbuilding resulted in a 6,000 person increase in the workforce at Dravo Corporation's Neville Island site. This expansion created an influx of workers in need of housing. The U.S. Public Housing Authority responded by developing a war-worker's housing project near Pittsburgh's West End in an area known as Fairywood. The architectural firm of James A. Mitchell and Dahlen Ritchey was chosen to design 500 (later reduced to 448) dwellings. The site plan was provided by Simonds and Simonds. Constructed in 1943-44, the simple Bauhaus-inspired row houses were spartan both inside and out, but were artfully arranged on curvilinear streets. The houses were designed to be converted to low-income housing after the war.
Survey number: HABS PA-6221
Building/structure dates: 1944 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1979- before. 1990 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1991 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1996 Subsequent Work