Is there any significance to the street names in the Oakland/hospital area (McKee, Meyran, etc.)?
Much like the “nonprofit” hospitals and universities that dominate its landscape, Oakland’s street names reflect a mix of high-minded idealism and run-of-the-mill money-grubbing. Several of Oakland’s streets, after all, bear the names of literary giants. Streets in the Schenley Farms area, which adjoins Oakland, have the names of 19th-century British writers: Thackeray, Tennyson, Ruskin. On the western edge of the neighborhood, the streets are named after characters from Shakespeare (Ophelia and Hamlet). Other streets honor historic figures, notes Annie Clark Miller in her 1924 Early Landmarks and Names of Old Pittsburgh. Halket Street, for example, is named for Peter Halkett, a Scotsman who died fighting for the British in the French and Indian War. A few blocks away, Darragh Street honors Pittsburgh’s second mayor who at this point could probably use all the honor he can get. Bates Street was named for Tarleton Bates, a county politician who died in a duel stemming from a dispute ove
