History of Joe Hammer Square
History of Joe Hammer Square
When planning my move from Massachusetts, I looked on Craigslist to find a place to sublet here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I wanted a place near the center of the city to make transportation easy. The apartment I found is on Joe Hammer Square, a one block long, one way street, less than a mile from the University of Pittsburgh, and about two miles from downtown. Moving here, one of my first questions was, who was Joe Hammer?
I found the answer to this question in the nearby Carnegie Library, upstairs in their Pennsylvania Room. The librarians there were able to quickly help me find the information I was looking for. Above, is part of a newspaper clipping describing how this street was renamed in honor of a World War II veteran, Joe Hammer, killed in action.
In 1944, the Pittsburgh Press ran an article about Joseph Hammer, the 23-year-old Lieutenant who was killed in combat in Southern France, on September 11, 1944. He was the first casualty of the War, and he lived here on this block, then named Ellsinore Square. After he was killed, the 60 residents of Ellsinore Square petitioned the Pittsburgh City Council to change the name of their street from Ellsinore Square to Joe Hammer Square. This was to honor Joseph Hammer, a young man who had lived on this street since he was six months old. The Pittsburgh City Council approved the name change just a few weeks after Joe Hammer’s death.
This led me to wonder how Ellsinore Square had been named. With further research I learned that Pittsburgh has more streets than any other city in the United States, a total of 5888. This high number of streets is due to Pittsburgh’s complex topography, making it difficult to build long streets here. During the early construction of Pittsburgh, there was a full-time city employee to just manage the names of the streets here. From a press clipping dated Feb 11, 1944, I found this person’s name was Samuel M. Lippencot. He described the art, and sometimes just the preference, for the selection of street names.
Another clipping described how it was sometimes left to the developers of subdivisions to name the streets they created. This street was called Ellsinore Square, likely after the Ellsinore estate, previously owned by W. E. Schmertz, that this subdivision was built on. Ellsinore is also the name of Hamlet’s castle in Denmark.
A 1904 map showed that Ellsinore Square was created during the subdivision of the Ellsinore estate. I can guess that the developer of this land followed Schmertz convention and went on to name the surrounding streets after other references to Shakespeare’s plays, Ophelia Street, Romeo Street, and Juliet Street, all streets surrounding what was Ellsinore Square. This naming convention may have also been influenced by the Playhouse located on Craft Avenue on what was the corner of the Schmertz estate.
Having learned who Joe Hammer was, I now feel a little more connected with where I live. I also learned that the Hammers did not sell their home until 1984. It must have been sad for them to live in that house, on the Street named after their son, for the next forty years, knowing he would never return. Like other war memorials, we remember the sacrifices of those who came before us, and we live in appreciation.
I was also interested to know why this one-block long street has numbering that starts at 3200. What I learned is that all the parallel streets this distance from downtown Pittsburgh also start at 3200. Maintaining a numbering system counted from a single street and increasing east simplifies navigation in the Pittsburgh. Among the people this is useful for are city workers and first responders.
Finally, I was interested if the house that Joe Hammer lived in was still here. The answer is yes. That house is diagonally across the street from my house. I’ve gotten to know the people living there. They already knew the history of their home.