Environment
Turning a Vast, Post-Industrial Wilderness Into a Park in Pittsburgh
The city acquired the 600-plus acres of Hays Woods, once used for mining and munitions, in 2016, but the work of restoring the land has only just begun.
“At what point did we step back and start to think of ourselves as something outside of nature?” asked artist Natalie Settles from atop a wooded hillside.
One overcast Sunday this past May, Settles and ecologist Charles Bier introduced about 25 people to Hays Woods, an overgrown 626 acres of ravines and slopes in southeastern Pittsburgh. On a walk sponsored by the nonprofit City as Living Laboratory, the pair pointed out coal debris and bricks littering the ground, a sinkhole, and discolored mine-water drainage, amid mugwort, Japanese knotweed, and other invasive plants. They guided the group down steep, unkempt trails past old-growth trees and native flora.