Pittsburgh’s Naming Commission voted unanimously Monday not to recommend that City Council rename the Beechwood Boulevard Bridge — aka the Greenfield Bridge — for the laborer and renowned folk artist John Kane.
Edgewood resident Pat McArdle and his son Reese started a petition last summer to encourage the city to name the bridge for Kane, a Scottish immigrant who worked as a laborer and was also a prolific artist. Many of his works are in museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art.
He died in 1934 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Hazelwood.
The hearing attracted roughly 50 people, many of them Greenfielders opposed to losing the name that identifies the bridge with their neighborhood. Historian Helen Wilson further argued that a third name might obscure the original, which honored Beechwood as a grand boulevard with the bridge as its terminus.
Kate St. John, of Greenfield, said the Kane group did not adequately notify the neighborhood of its efforts. The petition was signed by 355 people from all over the city.
Kane’s advocates asked the commission to honor a man “whose legacy is the embodiment of positive things about Pittsburgh and the potential in all of us,” said Jake Reinhart. “It’s not our intention to negate the [current] name. Many bridges have two names.”
Commission member Mike Gable, the public works director, pointed out that bridges with honorary names are numbered bridges. “This bridge is already named and I don’t think it needs a third name.”
Kane was on the crew that built the bridge in the early 20th century. Bridges were among thousands of his paintings depicting the lives and landscapes of Pittsburgh. Known in art circles, he is still fairly obscure in the mainstream.
“I don’t know 10 people in Greenfield who know who John Kane is,” said resident Anita Kulina.
“He was such an inspiring figure,” said Sue Abramson of Squirrel Hill, speaking in favor of a renaming. “Everyone should know about John Kane.”
Commissioner Ray Gastil, the planning director, said the Kane movement has been “a great contribution to education. We’re going to have to find another way to honor his legacy.”
Diana Nelson Jones: djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626.
First Published: April 4, 2017, 1:41 a.m.
