East Liberty the Neighborhood

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the neighborhood of East Liberty was a booming commercial center that serviced the Pittsburgh elites and upper middle class professionals who lived in the eastern neighborhoods, such as Friendship, Shadyside, Point Breeze, Highland Park, and Bloomfield. Much of the business centered around Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh’s oldest road and main thoroughfare through East Liberty. Once known as Greensburg Pike, early settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries used it as a stagecoach route leading east to Philadelphia. The opening of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad and the East Liberty Station in the 1850’s brought an influx of immigrants in the following decades who were drawn to the abundant manufacturing and industrial jobs available in the area. The neighborhood became home to a diverse set of ethnicities including Italians, Jews, African-Americans, Germans, Irish, and Greeks.

In the 1960's, a well-intentioned but misguided decision by the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority demolished 1 million square feet of retail space in East Liberty in order to install Penn Circle and an outdoor pedestrian mall. This redevelopment diverted car and foot traffic away from Penn Avenue and East Liberty's commercial district and by the 1970's a majority of the businesses had left, leaving the neighborhood economically depressed and residents forced to travel outside the once thriving core for employment, amenities, and more.

Throughout the last couple of decades, the area has experienced yet another wave of regeneration, this being perhaps the most drastic of changes, as outside developers have brought a new aim of luxurious lifestyles to East Liberty. Packed with new luxury apartment, high end grocery stores, and a Google Headquarters, the “new” East Liberty appears hastily manufactured to appeal to young business professionals in comparison to the rich, cultivated culture of the neighborhood’s past. Though some tout this new development as the neighborhood’s saving grace, one must ask, “exactly who does this new development benefit?” Longstanding residents of the neighborhood have been displaced in large numbers due to increasing rents and costs of living while a number of local businesses that have taken up residence in East Liberty for decades are closing their doors, unable to meet the demands of the young and trendy, incoming demographics. The overwhelming transformation from this gentrification is nothing new for resilient East Liberty, but it raises concern for the future changes and continuity of this vibrant Pittsburgh neighborhood.