“We shall overcome,” bellowed 21-year-old Larry McKay. He had come to the streets of Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh, hours after a gunman killed 11 people and wounded six at the Tree of Life synagogue. “We’ll walk hand in hand / We’ll walk hand in hand / We’ll walk hand in hand, someday.”

Squirrel Hill, a progressive and historically Jewish enclave, is literally Mr Rogers’ neighborhood, home for decades to the beloved children’s entertainer and educator. Rachel Carson, the famous environmentalist, went to Chatham University. The rapper Wiz Khalifa attended Taylor Allderdice high school. In recent years, the neighborhood has seen an influx of Asian immigrants, attracted to Carnegie Mellon University.

“It’s a very close-knit neighborhood,” said Jay Costa, the Pennsylvania state senate minority leader, an Italian American who grew up two blocks from Tree of Life. “It’s a diverse neighborhood and everybody gets along very well and it’s just incredible that this happened here today.”

I grew up riding my bike through Squirrel Hill. I went to summer camp at Chatham, across the street from Tree of Life. I went on my first dates as a teenager, I played basketball at the Jewish Community Center, I snuck into movies at the historic Manor Theater.

A sign at the entrance to the Squirrel Hill neighborhood near the Tree of Life synagogue. Photograph: Vincent Pugliese/EPA

The Pittsburgh mayor, Bobby O’Connor, an Irish Catholic steelworker married to a Jewish woman and with a black son-in-law, used to camp out in front of Coffee Tree Roasters, as constituents of all colors stopped by to complain about their problems.

The suspect in Saturday’s shooting, 46-year-old Robert Bowers, appeared to have targeted the neighborhood because of the presence of people associated with HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which helps settle immigrants and refugees in the Pittsburgh area.

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” he apparently wrote on social media hours before the massacre. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics I’m going in.”

Just hours later, McKay said he had come out to play his guitar and spread love as best he could.

“I feel like I walk around here and I know people and I can say hi to people and I feel like that’s what’s in danger,” he said. “What events like this create is fear and the urge to remove people from life, to remove oneself from life. So to come out and make music, make art, and talk to people and continue living is just really important.”

Three blocks down the hill on Murray Avenue, the restaurant owner Mike Smalls was buying pizza from Aiello’s, a landmark Sicilian pizza joint, to take over to the Squirrel Hill police station.

‘The neighborhood is really close knit and when you live here, you go to the same restaurant and the same stores and everybody gets to know one another,’ said a local resident. Photograph: Dustin Franz/AFP/Getty Images

“We gotta make this moment about how to organize people,” said Smalls, a Greek American who grew up in the neighborhood and is married to a Jewish woman. “I don’t think this is a leftwing or rightwing thing. I think it’s about the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider and wider and people are pissed and looking for people to point the finger at.”

Small’s neighbor Judy Chang, whose kids attend school with his kids, called across the street. She came to give him a hug.

“The neighborhood is really close knit and when you live here, you go to the same restaurant and the same stores and everybody gets to know one another, everybody knows who their kids are,” said Chang, a Californian who moved here 17 years ago.

She struggled to hold back tears. “Knowing how this is impacting the whole neighborhood, I just wanted to go by and see if everybody was OK,” she said.

On the drive to drop off the pizzas, Smalls said: “This has always been an immigrant neighborhood. We need immigrants in this country. You know what I say: make them all legal and tax them. That would help our country so much.”

At the police station, the mood was tense. Officers in camouflage Swat gear hung around outside. Smalls dropped off the pizza, then noticed some firefighters he grew up with in Squirrel Hill. What kind of pizza? they asked.

One of the firefighters said he was more of a Mineo’s guy, referring to a classic rivalry between two joints only a few stores apart.

“I tell you what it is,” said the firefighter. “I like the sauce better.”

We complained back: Mineo’s has too much cheese. Aiello’s is more old-school, Sicilian-style.

“Ah, see,” said the firefighter. “I like the cheese.”

We laughed. Just for a moment, on this terrible day, it seemed things were routing back to normal in Squirrel Hill. Which is better: Aiello’s or Mineo’s?