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Hill City helped inner-city youth
Tuesday, February 13, 2001 By John L. Ford, historian and History Center School Programs manager
Hill City was a city within a city. It was located on Bedford Avenue in Pittsburgh's Hill District from the late 1930s through the 1940s. It had a mayor, fire and police departments, judges and jury system and other services found in Pittsburgh's traditional city government.
This "city" was managed by the expert and devoted leadership of Howard C. McKinney, who had been hired by the Friendly Service Bureau of Pittsburgh.
A committee that was addressing the increased crime during the Great Depression of the 1930s created the Friendly Service Bureau. It became the corporate arm of the Hill City Program. Pittsburgh attorney Homer S. Brown chaired the committee, and Mayor Cornelius D. Scully inaugurated the program to promote crime reduction.
Col. George E.A. Fairly supervised the crime prevention section. But it was under director McKinney that crime was drastically reduced after the youth in Hill City began to take responsibility for the city government from within their own ranks.
McKinney remained director of the Hill City Program until he was drafted into the Army in 1942. Following his overseas duty including time in China, he was reinstated as director in 1949.
Like many programs for inner-city youth, the Hill City Program did not have enough funding. It would not have survived as long as it did without the support of Pittsburgh businessman Harry Hendel, who donated the building and paid many expenses.
Through the partnership of McKinney and Hendel, the Hill City Program can be credited with saving and improving the lives of many Hill District youth.
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