In Troy Hill, a community's beacon to go dark tomorrow

In Troy Hill, a community's beacon to go dark tomorrow: "You have no idea how much this will affect us mentally and socially as far as how we think about our neighborhood,' Mary Wohleber, 88, a fifth-generation Troy Hill resident, told council members. 'Our firehouse is the heartbeat of a town within a town.'
To understand Troy Hill, it is necessary to understand it's topography. The community, which in the 2000 census had 2,540 residents, was settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s on a plateau that today forms the easternmost neighborhood on the city's North Side.
Down one side of the plateau is Route 28 and the Allegheny River; down the other is a valley.
'It's a very narrow ridge, 600 yards. I know because I measured it,' said Wohleber, the neighborhood historian. 'We're only a little bit over a mile long. We're all dead-end streets. We just do not naturally flow into other neighborhoods like other neighborhoods do.
'You really have to have a reason to come here. It's not a neighborhood you just pass through. It's not that simple.'
But while topography may have cut the community off from others, it just as likely has had a role in making it tight-knit. Generations of people have made their homes on the hill, where American flags fly from neat rowhouses and houses of brick and wood. There are shops, professionals' offices, restaurants, small parks, churches (one with the second-most religious relics in the world, St. Anthony's Chapel), North Catholic High School and historic landmarks."