Frick Park
by Elizabeth Barrow

Frick Park's steep valleys and wooded slopes are ideal for solitary hikes. It was created when Henry Clay Frick's daughter asked for the park for her debutante party in 1908, and acreage has been added since its inception. After 100 additional acres of parkland in the Nine Mile Run stream valley are annexed to the park, Frick will have nearly 600 acres.

Most birders enter the park at the Frick Woods Nature Reserve entrance, near the corner of Beechwood Boulevard and Forbes Avenue. The 150 acre Frick Woods Nature Reserve offers a variety of gardens filled with Pennsylvania's native plants and a popular trail system used regularly for educational programs and nature walks. At the top of the hill, particularly, warblers and other migrants make the park their stop.

Lower Frick allows access to Nine Mile Run, and across Commercial Avenue to Duck Hollow.

If you are going to bird in Frick, be sure to take a copy of the Checklist of Birds for Frick Park (PDF Format).

Frick Park birders: Please record your sightings in the journal located in the mailbox
on the side of the garden shed near the (old) nature center.

Directions to Frick Park:

From the Parkway East take the Edgewood/Swissvale exit, just east of the Squirrel Hill tunnel.

  • If you are coming from the west (Downtown), take the left fork to "Edgewood" and then the next left fork to Braddock Avenue.

At the end of either exit ramp, turn right onto Braddock Avenue, and proceed up the hill to the first light.

  • Upper Frick Park: continue straight to the second stoplight on Braddock Avenue, then turn left onto Forbes Avenue. At the first light on Forbes, turn left onto Dallas, then make an almost immediate left onto Beechwood Blvd. The entrance to the Frick Environmental Center is about 300 yards on the right.

  • Lower Frick Park: turn left at the first stoplight on Braddock Avenue onto W. Hutchinson. Proceed 4 blocks and turn right onto Lancaster Street at the "Frick Park" sign. Follow a winding road down into the parking lot at the bottom.

From Route 28 or Route 8 cross the Highland Park Bridge and stay in the left-hand lane. After you loop around off the bridge, you will merge onto the Washington Boulevard intersection. Stay in the right hand lane and turn right. At the 5th light, Washington Boulevard becomes Fifth Avenue, and crosses Penn Avenue. Turn left onto Penn Avenue.

  • Upper Frick Park: at the next stoplight turn right onto Dallas. Contine through 3 lights past Forbes Avenue, then make an almost immediate left onto Beechwood Blvd. The entrance to the Frick Environmental Center is about 300 yards on the right.

  • Lower Frick Park: proceed until the 6th light on Penn Avenue, then turn right at the gas stations onto Braddock Avenue. At the second light, turn right onto W. Hutchinson. Proceed 4 blocks and turn right onto Lancaster Street at the "Frick Park" sign. Follow a winding road down into the parking lot at the bottom.