In 1999, a group of Northsiders’ committed to preserving Allegheny Commons joined forces to raise funds for a comprehensive master plan.

The planning process was led by the Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm Pressley Associates and involved community members; experts in the fields of history, architecture, landscape architecture, and park maintenance; stakeholder organizations in and around the park; and the City of Pittsburgh. The resulting “Allegheny Commons Master Plan” was published in 2002. Implementation began with the completion of a five-acre demonstration area in the East Common and the whole of the park is expected to be restored by 2018, the sesquicentennial of the Commons.

The Allegheny Commons master plan respects the continuum of park history by recommending the preservation of  the most significant features from the park’s more than 200-year evolution, including the 1966 design by Simonds. The decision to honor the site’s evolution became a way to convey the import of the ‘invisible’ design elements from the recent past along with that of the better understood picturesque ancestors. Today, Lake Elizabeth stands as a witness to that continuum.

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