Editing Altoona, Pennsylvania (section)

===Neighborhoods===
[[Image:Altoona City Sections V2.jpg|right|thumb|Map of Altoona neighborhoods]]
The main sections of Altoona are Downtown Altoona, Center City, Logantown, Fairview, Juniata, Wehnwood, Calvert Hills, 5th Ward, Westmont, Eldorado, East End, Dutch Hill, Pleasant Valley, Hileman Heights, 6th Ward, Mansion Park, Llyswen, Garden Heights, and Highland Park. Some significant neighborhoods are Little Italy, Gospel Hill, Toy Town, Columbia Park, Knickerbockers, and Curtin. Some areas within Logan Township, outside the city limits but still considered sections of Altoona, are [[Lakemont, Pennsylvania|Lakemont]], [[Greenwood, Pennsylvania|Greenwood]], Bellmeade, Westfall, [[Newburg, Blair County, Pennsylvania|Newburg]], and [[Red Hill, Blair County, Pennsylvania|Red Hill]]. Many of the older districts consist of a mix of [[Terraced house|rowhouses]] and individual homes, which were a common building style in railroad towns in order to provide for worker and manager housing, respectively.

====Downtown====
The downtown is the cultural and commercial center of Altoona and straddles the famous railroads. As is typical of a traditional city layout, the downtown is centrally located and contains significant development in all directions. Much of the area is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] as the [[Downtown Altoona Historic District]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/PA/Blair/districts.html|title=National Register of Historic Places - Blair County}}</ref> Popular landmarks include the [[Mishler Theatre]], the [[Penn Alto Building]] (formerly the Penn Alto Hotel), the Gable's Building, City Hall, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, and Eleventh Avenue itself.

Altoona has several notable churches, including the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at the corner of 13th Street and 13th Avenue, the building on the corner of 12th Street and 14th Avenue that previously housed the First [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]] Church, and the First [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] Church on the corner of 14th Street and 12th Avenue. The Station Medical Center, formerly known as the Station Mall, was a downtown mall built during the 1970s in place of many old railroad shops. The downtown contains most of what is known as Altoona's [[Little Italy]] district.

Because of the geography of the area, exact or natural boundaries for Downtown are not present. Therefore, Downtown is generally defined by what the city has zoned as Central Business: between 13th Avenue and the PRR Expressway, and from 7th Street to 16th Street. However, it is common for areas within Logantown and Center City to be expressed locally as "downtown".

The [[Texas Wiener|Texas Hot Dog]] was originally created in downtown Altoona in 1918; however, the [[Paterson, New Jersey]] Texas Hot Dog location, which opened in 1924, is more famous.{{cn|date=December 2024}}

=====Architecture=====
The commercial core of the downtown includes many multistory residential, commercial, and mixed-use facilities designed at the turn of the 20th century in a mix of [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]], [[Edwardian architecture|Edwardian Baroque]], and [[Romanesque Revival architecture|Neo-Romanesque]] styles. This style features high ceilings, resulting in taller buildings than is typical for the number of floors. The high ceilings are typically made of either [[Tin ceiling|tin]] or [[plaster]], although sometimes a [[Dropped ceiling|drop ceiling]] is utilized.

Individual homes originally provided housing to managers and executives of the PRR and have structural similarities to Victorian or Edwardian mansions, but built very narrow and tall. These are sometimes used as double or triple family apartments or even converted into commercial space. Outside of the commercial core is a mosaic of multistory commercial structures, mixed-use facilities, single story commercial structures, apartment buildings, multiunit housing, and single-family homes.

The U.S. post office in Altoona contains two oil-on-canvas [[List of United States post office murals#Pennsylvania|WPA-commissioned murals]] painted by [[Lorin Thompson]] in 1938, titled ''Pioneers of Altoona'' and ''Growth of the Road''.<ref>{{cite web|title=U.S.Post Office/Altoona |url=http://ilovealtoona.com/2012/04/u-s-post-office/ |publisher=Central Pennsylvania Community Foundation |access-date=19 January 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105015903/http://ilovealtoona.com/2012/04/u-s-post-office/ |archive-date=5 November 2013 }}</ref> Murals were produced from 1934 to 1943 in the United States through the [[Section of Painting and Sculpture]], later called the [[Section of Fine Arts]], of the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]].