The Hill District is scattered with signs of its Jewish past -- outlines of Stars of David on Baptist churches, Hebrew etched above doorways, a torah depicted on an oval cartouche above the arched entrance of the Blakey Program Center on Wylie Avenue.

The relationship between Jews and blacks goes deeper than signs and the passing of asylums of one to the other. Yesterday's bus tour of the lower Hill provided a look into their briefly shared sense of place.

The tour was part of a larger event that drew 100 people to the Hill House to renew a once-strong collaboration between blacks and Jews. Shalom Sankofa, a joint program of the Urban League Young Professionals of Pittsburgh, Shalom Pittsburgh and the Black-Jewish Dialogue, is intended to create future forums for local Jews and blacks.

"Welcome back to the Hill District," city Councilman Sala Udin told the gathering, recalling the sights and sounds of his youth, specifically the vibrancy of Logan Street, which was sacrificed for the Civic [now Mellon] Arena:

"When I was a young thing, my mother would take me two blocks from our house to this place that was like an amusement park. It had all kinds of small shops, languages, all kinds of sounds, music, cheese hanging from strings, little chickens, baskets and crates and little old ladies with 100 bags on each arm."

In the 1940s, Jews were the largest ethnic group among blacks, Italians, Syrians, Greeks and "every other ethnic group that was represented in the city," said Nick Lane, a self-described amateur historian. He and historian Laurence Glasco of the University of Pittsburgh narrated the stops along the bus route.

The bus took people in two shifts, maneuvering up and down Centre, along Crawford, up Webster, down Erin, up Wylie, gingerly cutting corners close and stopping in front of what used to be.

Deborah Friedman, the director of Jewish Residential Services in Squirrel Hill, said her mother grew up on Cherokee Street, in the upper Hill, and that she has vague memories of visits back to the Hill as a little girl.

"I always felt jealous that I didn't get to live here because of all the wonderful stories I heard as a kid," she said. Her mother's family and many people from the same Ukrainian village settled in the Hill about 1913. "Mother used to tell me that the Irene Kaufmann Settlement [now the Hill House] was the heart of life, where people learned English, where they learned about everything they needed to know to live here."

The first stop, Freedom Corner at Centre Avenue and Crawford Street, was the point at which urban renewal stopped for more than 30 years. Now, new townhouses stretch throughout the lower Hill, covering whole blocks, interrupted here and there by a ghost of the past.

On Webster Avenue, the bus slowed in front of a brown brick building that resembles a three-story apartment. The sign read Zion Hill Full Gospel Baptist Church.

"This was the Keter Torah Synagogue," said Mr. Lane. Several people gasped. From the far side of the bus, they leaned in for a better view. The Star of David on the side is a remnant made of wood, with a plywood panel behind it. Its original Polish congregation was made up largely of ragpickers who supplied rags to the steel industry, he said.

Richard Mottsman, in a camouflage ball cap, raised his arm and called out, "My grandfather was one of the founders of this synagogue."

On Erin Street, a smaller yellow brick structure, now the Enon Baptist Church, was a Belorussian synagogue whose Star of David has been altered to look like a star sucking in its gut. Red-painted wood covers the arched windows, and a Guardian security sign is tacked to one.

At 1727 Bedford Ave., the bus stopped at a three-story, long-gone market, its top windows broken. The gray boarded-up building behind it, the birthplace of the late August Wilson, is being covered with ivy, obscured by weeds.

"The Hill lives on in Jewish memory as a nostalgic location," said Mr. Lane, "but the life of the Jewish community in this area was relatively short, peaking in 1910." By the mid-1940s, most Jews had relocated to other neighborhoods.

But the bonds lasted, Mr. Udin recalled.

"When I went to Mississippi" during the civil rights movement, he said, "many there fighting alongside were Jews. We went to jail together, we fought together. I am hopeful we can continue to broaden our involvement."