Morningside's Chislett Street got back one of its old storefronts when Jeffrey Alexander opened the neighborhood's first coffeehouse late last month. Morning Glory coffee drinkers soon will be able to yell "Hey!" to patrons of the Bulldog Grill, a nearby pub that will even welcome dogs at its outdoor cafe.

From these additions to the neighborhood's tiny business district to Big Wheels on the sidewalks to the quick transition to "SOLD" on houses offered for sale, the signs are everywhere: Morningside is on the radar.

For generations, the neighborhood maintained the narrative of a small town, where everyone knew each other, families passed homes to the kids and everyone celebrated the Festival of St. Rocco, with Italian Mass, dancing and fireworks. The 2000 Census counted 3,549 Morningsiders.

Today, a growing number of people are new to the story. They are young, first-time home buyers discouraged by prices in Highland Park and Squirrel Hill.

A thin strip between Highland Park and Stanton Heights, Morningside began developing its farmland in the early 1900s and turning more urban in the 1930s. Most of its houses are brick and two story, with small yards and porches, or flat-roofed rowhouses.

Although few homes are sources of embarrassment, Realtor Justin Cummings said many need updating, with 1960s-era kitchens and bathrooms without showers. Houses that need significant updating are still going for less than $100,000, he said, but larger, spruced-up homes are selling for $150,000 to $200,000. Those prices stagger the long-timers.

Tim Pantano, a native of the neighborhood who has been cutting hair on Chislett Street for 51 years, marveled as he told a customer recently that one house had just sold for $179,000.

Marcella and Dale King bought on Antietam Street after having looked in "a lot of neighborhoods."

"This was the right place," Ms. King said.

The couple, with three children, paid $100,000 for a three-story, four-bedroom house almost five years ago. Their small yard overlooks the Pittsburgh Zoo's parking lot.

A few doors down, a house that had sold for $78,000 in 2005 sold for $124,9000 in April.

Until this summer, interest in the business district -- which occupies little pieces of three parallel streets -- had not kept pace. A Rite Aid and the Morningside Market sell a variety of items. The latter is a throwback: a corner store with a tin-stamped ceiling and vintage ceiling fan. It sells a little bit of a lot, from wiffleballs and gift wrap to cereal and other basic groceries.

Eddie's Pizza Haus is the only restaurant. Maroni's Bar is the only tavern. Residents have three places to get a hair cut, one bank, a mechanic, a dentist, a law office, a real estate office and a Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

A restaurant tops almost everyone's wish list. The Bulldog Grill -- a restaurant and pub with a dog-friendly outdoor cafe -- is set to open in the summer.

Among the relative newcomers, Grant Ervin, 31, a policy planner for 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a land use alliance, is a buoyant neighborhood advocate who recruited the partners of the Bulldog Grill to the former Stagnos bakery. As head of planning and development for the Morningside Area Community Council, he is trying to find good fits for other vacant storefronts.

He and his wife, Amy, found the neighborhood four years ago on a bike ride and were able to buy their first house. She is head of the council's beautification committee.

In 2005, state Sen. Jim Ferlo's community affairs liaison, Joe Kramer, joined the council to help it "take on more of a community development role."

The council had two weighty goals for its neighborhood plan, which was paid for with grants from Mr. Ferlo and the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh. At each of a series of meetings, more than 100 people weighed in on ways to perk up the business district and use the empty elementary school. The top choices are a community center and condos.

The council hired Pat Clark, a community planning consultant, and Bob Graddeck, community projects director at the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University, to conduct a market study and a survey of new home buyers.

Mr. Graddeck said 40 people responded to a new-resident survey of 200 households. Most had been living either in other East End neighborhoods or other cities. Most of the people from other cities had relocated to work at universities and hospitals, he said.

The newcomers said Morningside's traditional narrative appeals to them, said Mr. Clark.

"There's a lot of ethnic pride from the days when it was a strong Italian neighborhood, and people find that cool," he said. "I was pleasantly surprised that there was less tension between the 'old school' and the 'new' " than in many neighborhoods.

Mr. Pantano said he has never remembered so many young people showing up eager to make the neighborhood better.

"Their ideas are fantastic," he said one day in his barbershop. "It's the first time we've had young people making things happen. 'Course, most will probably only stay a few years."

Considering the pending mini-boom of gathering places on Chislett, he put in a word for his choice: "We need a deli real bad, any kind of deli."

Olga Watkins, a partner in the Bulldog Grill, said the restaurant's concept is "a family-friendly historic Pittsburgh-themed pub serving contemporary comfort food." The partners are committed to buying as much food as possible from local farmers and vendors.

"We want it to reflect the folks in the neighborhood and be a casual, laid-back, community place," she said.

Mr. Alexander's small coffeehouse on Chislett Street replaces a dry cleaner whose owners retired.

He relocated earlier this year from Providence, R.I. where he had directed an arts venue in a cafe.

"I wanted to do something along those lines but on my own and smaller," he said.

Like so many newcomers, he found the neighborhood through friends who have moved there.

Morningside "offers a good lesson to other neighborhoods," said Mr. Clark.

"It's so common in this city that when someone dies, a place sits empty. That's the importance of the hand-off. Morningside is really good at the hand-off."