Ormsby divided the land into four boroughs – South Pittsburgh, Birmingham, Ormsby, and East Birmingham, which is present day South Side Slopes. South Side expanded and grew in order to keep up with Pittsburgh's industrial boom, adopting the nickname "Workshop of the World". The industry of glass-making was predominant in the early 1800s, and later the banks of the Monongahela River became home to the iron and steel operations run by the company J&L Steel. J&L (The Jones and Laughlin Steel Company) eventually became South Side's largest employer as by 1910 it employed 15,000 workers. The majority of these workers came as immigrants from European nations such as Germany, Ireland, Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, and the Slavic nations and settled into homes in the present day South Side Slopes. The houses built for them were traditionally one room wide, two rooms deep, and up to four stories high. The houses are built into the hillside with narrow walkways between them. Most of the structures and houses in both South Side Slopes are balloon-framed whereas many of those on the South Side Flats were built from brick, in a rectangular fashion. Many of them were ornamented in the popular style of the 1900s – Romanesque, Italianate and Second Empire. They are fashioned in a classical Victorian style row home way with carved doorways, cornices, corbelling, cast iron ornaments and geometric slate patterns. The Slopes is rich in culture as many immigrants wanted to preserve their native cultures and languages; so they built many bars and churches, many of which still exist today. South Side Slopes is located at 40.42 N and 79.97 W. The area South Side Slopes covers is approximately or 460.632 acres. It is made up of many slopes with elevations ranging from to . There are some areas that are too steep for automobile navigation so the numerous staircases located throughout South Side Slopes serve as the "streets". There have been approximately 70 sets of staircases found in the neighborhood. South Side Slopes is part of District 3 in Allegheny County. 18th Street, Arlington Avenue, and Josephine Street are two of the main roads that run through the neighborhood. It is approximately from the Monongahela River and the historic Birmingham Bridge. The Slopes neighborhood is also close to the diverse East Carson Street and the SouthSide Works shopping center. South Side Slopes has an overall cold climate, meaning it has about 5,400 heating degree days and fewer than 9,000 heating degree days based on a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit.