Every Pittsburgh day deserves an hour in Schenley Park. The city’s flagship green space unfolds across 456 acres of Oakland hills — woodland trails, a meadow that fills with kites and picnics, the formal plantings around Phipps Conservatory and the Bob O’Connor Golf Course threading through it all.
The park is Pittsburgh’s outdoor living room: runners loop Panther Hollow Lake, skaters glide at the Schenley Park Skating Rink in winter, families fill the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain plaza, and the Flagstaff Hill lawn becomes the city’s cinema and concert bowl on summer nights. The Schenley Plaza, at the park’s Forbes Avenue entrance, adds a carousel, food kiosks and a great green lawn opposite the Cathedral of Learning.
Schenley Park was created in 1889 from land donated by Mary Schenley, Pittsburgh’s great 19th-century benefactor. It’s free, it’s beloved and it’s the green heart of the city’s university district.
