
The pond as it looks today
As we first wrote back in March, Schenley Park’s Westinghouse Memorial and Pond has encountered a whole host of problems since a rough winter caused damage to numerous parts of the site. For a while, the water in the fountain was back up and running thanks to repairs done by the City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Works, and the site appeared to need some cosmetic improvements, but was still a pretty attractive spot for photos.
But the severe storm that came through Pittsburgh in June flooded the fountain. After that, it started to leak again and it hasn’t been functional since. We suspect that the volume of water that went through the pond’s plumbing system was too great for the pipes to handle, and that one of the pipes beneath the basin is broken and causing the leak. However, we can’t tell for sure until the City’s plumbing contractor can visit the site with a camera that can probe underneath the basin.

A little good news: thanks to conservation work, the monument itself looks better than it has in years.

No more graffiti
Of course, we realize that the monument is only part of the project, and the rest is an eyesore. There’s grass growing in the pond, and entire chunks of the walkway have come loose and are piling up to the side. So stay tuned. I wish we had a better answer and a more solid timeline on the project for you, but we need to do a little more diagnostic work to determine exactly what the costs are going to be. (Cross your fingers for that broken pipe!) Then we’ll need to seek out the funding so that next summer’s brides can hopefully go to Westinghouse and find the area even more scenic than they remember!

American Youth gets a shoeshine; photos from March and August 2009
we’re hoping to have an employee picnic nearby and wondered the status of the westinghouse pond
It’s been filled with water so folks can take wedding photos nearby, but that water is draining out because the leak still hasn’t been fully stopped. It won’t be fully functional until sometime next year.
Hope to see it up and running again. I pass it often and it’s enough to break your heart. Particularly now that the weeds have gotten so tall. Please let me know if I can be of any help. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for next year.