The picnic shelter at McBride Park in Lincoln Place is open again, nearly 87 years after young workers in a Depression-era jobs program first built it, and after years of visible decay had left its roof and ceiling crumbling. The City of Pittsburgh's Department of Public Works reconstructed the timber-frame structure using the shelter's original 1939 architectural drawings, restoring a neighborhood gathering spot that had fallen into disrepair.
The city announced the completed restoration in a post from the City of Pittsburgh, noting the shelter was built in 1939 through the National Youth Administration, a Works Progress Administration program, and has now been fully restored by the Department of Public Works from the original drawings. That reconstruction leaned on updated engineering support from H.F. Lenz Co. and materials supplied by George Hall Lumber, according to the City of Pittsburgh.
The final transformation! @CitiParks McBride Park Shelter is ready for use!
— City of Pittsburgh (@Pittsburgh) August 19, 2026
Built in 1939 through the National Youth Administration of the Works Progress Administration, the shelter has been fully restored by our Department of Public Works from the original drawings. pic.twitter.com/YK1qix6DR3
The rebuild followed years of neighborhood complaints. Visual records and community reports document that the shelter had fallen into severe structural disrepair as early as February 2019, prompting more than three years of neighborhood advocacy for a total rebuild, per a Facebook video documenting the damage. Local residents had logged falling ceiling materials and roof damage well before the Department of Public Works stepped in.
Finishing the Job With a Historic Roof
To complete the project, the city's Office of Management and Budget set a $30,000 maximum spending cap in May for a competitive bid to install cedar shake shingles and associated roofing materials on the shelter's newly built timber frame, according to a solicitation listed on GovTribe. The cap was designed to keep costs contained while preserving the historic aesthetic the original 1939 design called for.
The shelter's roots trace back to the National Youth Administration, a Works Progress Administration agency established in 1935 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that employed young adults aged 16 to 25 to build civic projects across Pittsburgh, including the 1940 Valley Refuge Shelter in Riverview Park, per Pennsylvania Historic Preservation. Pittsburgh's 1930s park architecture was heavily shaped by Superintendent of Parks Ralph Esty Griswold, who championed a “WPA Rustic” design style using local stone, timber, and low profiles meant to blend park shelters seamlessly into their natural surroundings, the same source notes.
A Hub for Lincoln Place
McBride Park sits at 1785 McBride Street in Lincoln Place, Pittsburgh's southeasternmost neighborhood, which borders Munhall and West Mifflin and had a population of 3,227 as of the 2010 census, according to Explore 90 PGH. Beyond the restored shelter, the park includes a public swimming pool, playground equipment, a baseball field, basketball and tennis courts, and a dek hockey rink.
That dek hockey rink itself was the product of a multi-year push: the city opened it in June 2021 following a three-year funding campaign led by local elected officials, working alongside equipment and material support from the Pittsburgh Penguins, as CBS Pittsburgh reported at the time. The shelter restoration adds to that pattern of investment in the park's aging infrastructure.
The shelter's revival also comes as McBride Park hosts more community programming. CitiParks selected the park as a neighborhood location for its 2026 “Dollar Bank Cinema in the Park” summer series, scheduling free outdoor screenings of Hamilton in June and A Minecraft Movie in July, per the City of Pittsburgh. The Department of Public Works Parks Division oversees daily maintenance for 163 public parks spanning roughly 2,220 acres citywide, working with CitiParks on major upgrades, master planning, and shelter restorations like this one.
