Riverview Park has had a banner year with the Davis Avenue pedestrian bridge that connects it with Brighton Heights opening last month and completing the $340,000 Valley Refuge Shelter restoration project this month.
All involved – the city, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and residents – will celebrate this and more at the fifth annual Reggae at Riverview from 1 to 9 p.m. Saturday.
The restored shelter will be the backdrop for the free festival that includes a full day of live performances, DJs, Caribbean cuisine, local craft beers, art and vendors. A short program with elected officials, representatives from the conservancy and the city’s Department of Public Works offering comments on the official reopening of the popular shelter is also scheduled.
“Reggae at Riverview is a celebration of joy, connection, and this amazing greenspace we’re proud to steward,” Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy assistant director of community engagement Erin Tobin said in a news release about the concert. “We’re especially excited to welcome attendees back to the beautifully restored Valley Refuge Shelter and celebrate summer with us.”
The concert regularly attracts 500 attendees, she said, and it is a family event. Kevin Maxwell, who has been part of the reggae system in Pittsburgh for a decade or more, had a vision for this from the start. “[He wanted to] create a community festival that was more community-based, something grassroots,” she said, “with vendors and local people that could come out and celebrate the local reggae culture.”
The Truth and Rites Band will perform along with this year’s headliner Milton Blake, a powerhouse reggae artist born in St. Catherine, Jamaica, who is now based in Cleveland, Ohio, according to the release. Blake has worked with some of reggae’s most respected musicians, including Luciano, Mikey General, Dean Fraser, and Sly & Robbie.
“Anyone who has a passion for reggae music will tell you it’s not just a hobby or interest but a whole lifestyle,” said Blaise Edwards of the Truth and Rites band. “That’s why having one day a year for all Pittsburgh’s reggae fans and musicians to gather together outside is really special. Reggae At Riverview has become a celebration of the message and the groove of the music.”
The project made targeted, strategic repairs and upgrades that improve the visitor experience and ensure the long-term functionality of this historic shelter, the release stated. With input from design consultants and key city stakeholders, the work addresses both immediate maintenance needs and community-identified priorities. An allocation to the conservancy from the City of Pittsburgh’s 2024 Capital Improvements Plan Budget via the Parks Tax Trust Fund, plus private donations, an investment from the Merus Charitable Foundation, and a Keystone Historic Preservation Construction Grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission covered project costs, the release stated. The city’s Department of Public Works provided in-kind support.
Tobin said the renovation project wrapped up the beginning of July. Other major projects completed recently included Grand Avenue entrance from the Marshall Shadeland neighborhood improvements, a project championed by the Friends of Riverview Park. The group realized the need to make all entrances into the 259-acre park welcoming, especially a major entrance such as this one, Tobin said. It’s all part of a visioning plan the friends group has been working on with city partners, and one of the first parts completed is this section of the park.
This year’s work follows smaller projects, such as the Zenshine community garden, done in partnership with the city to improve that specific space. Ahead are larger projects, such as the removal of the Department of Public Works salt dome, which many to consider to be an eyesore “We’re a decade away from realizing the vision for that whole section of the park,” she said.
The park is nestled between Perrysville Avenue, Woods Run and Marshall Avenue, and is known for its wooded trails and dramatically steep hillsides. The park’s extensive network of trails invites hikers, joggers, and the occasional horseback rider into the woods, according to the conservancy website. The park is also home to the landmark Allegheny Observatory, a visitors center, swimming pool and activities building, the Mairdale watershed, and the popular 2-mile Riverview Loop, according to the conservancy website. Residents enjoy the park’s pool, playground, ball field, shelters and summertime concerts and movies.
Last year Riverview Park became a nationally certified arboretum, a centerpiece as it continues to evolve with ongoing investments in infrastructure and accessibility, according to the release.
Tobin said the Department of Public Works forestry division has been chipping away at certifying various parks as arboretums the past five years. Mellon and Westinghouse parks preceded Riverview with that distinction, and this year Allegheny Commons will be added to the list. Other private institutions also have certified arboretums.
Lisa Ceoffe, the city’s forester, said the certification basically legitimizes the importance of good tree care and becomes a commitment for ongoing maintenance. Her staff works with nonprofit organizations that love trees and parks, raising awareness of and the needed funds for that ongoing maintenance. She worked with Friends of Riverview Park last year on the certification process, and the trees and maintenance differ there from other parks because the arboretum is more of a trail system rather than trees planted in a lawn area.
The process through Morton Arboretum and the ArbNET Arboretum Accreditation Program involves identifying 25 trees and outlining a bona fide management program, which her department develops in tandem with the various parks’ friends organizations, and scheduling tree-based recreational and education programing. The friends groups generally work on signage and help promote the trees to residents and visitors who can identify and learn about them while visiting in addition to raising needed funds for that maintenance.
Ceoffe offered as example that it cost $30,000 for additional pruning work in Mellon Park, which the Friends of Mellon Park helped pay for and eased the public works staff’s work schedule by enabling it to bring in contracts to help. Aeration around certain trees, she said, is another need it has that it helped solve. The city has two arborists on staff, but bringing in those contractors is “helpful for us to get things done quickly but also legitimizes long-term maintenance for trees in the parks.”
The city just passed five years working with the Mellon Park friends organization, and to mark that anniversary, Ceoffe said they created a capsule describing the progress.
Every city park is different, she continued, and in Riverview, a main objective is making sure the trees on the trail are safe for park visitors’ use.
No other parks are on the arboretum certification list schedule right now, and Ceoffe said her department would like to move into the Regional Asset District park system for more, such as Schenley Park. Highland Park is on hold because of other work is looming there.
Every certification, though, requires a partnership to move on. “I’m happy to put the city on the map and include additional locations for people coming to the city. I think they are surprised when they come from the tunnels and see how green the city is,” Ceoffe said.
She is on the board of Tree Pittsburgh, which will mark its 20th anniversary next year. That nonprofit organization has been collecting seeds from Riverview Park trees for its Heritage Nursery. That process takes years.
“If you go there you will see thousands and thousand of cells [growing] in the nursery,” Ceoffe explained. “Those are then moved to bigger pots and bigger pots and even bigger pots. It takes three to five years before you plant something.”
And when they are ready, they will be brought back to Riverview Park. Hand in hand with that work? Protecting them from deer.
All this fits into Pittsburgh’s designation as a Tree City USA, operated by the Arbor Day Foundation that has its own requirements for that designation. It comes under the oversight of Pittsburgh’s Shade Tree Commission, which marked 20 years of operations this year. Ceoffe serves on its board, too.
Pittsburgh celebrated that milestone in April with 11 tree plantings and a number of special events, according to the city website. That included one, fittingly, at the Allegheny Observatory in Riverview Park sponsored by the Friends of Riverview Park.
Reggae at Riverview performers and activities lineup
1 p.m. – Jonny B Goode
1:30 p.m. – Jahshaolin
2– 4 p.m. – YAADI and kids graffiti lesson with Ras Maisha
2:45 p.m. – Kev Reason
3 p.m. – Valley Refuge Shelter Celebration
4 p.m. – Flow Band with Pittsburgh Flow Club Hula Hoop Workshop
4:45 p.m. – Ras B
5 p.m. – Children’s Hike
5:30 p.m. – Green Rose Sound
6 p.m. – Truth and Rites
6:50 p.m. – Gangsta Shack Movement
7:30 p.m. – Milton Blake and The Royal Fyah
The festival is presented in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, CitiParks, Friends of Riverview Park and the Northside Leadership Conference. Admission is free, and all are welcome. For updates and artist announcements, follow Reggae at Riverview 2025 on Facebook.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.