“To provide a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family.”¹ This was the goal of The Housing Act of 1949, the national law that launched President Harry Truman’s Urban Renewal program.² Urban Renewal was an attempt to “rebuild the troubled cities of America” by directing federal funds toward the purchase of blighted areas and their sale to the private sector for redevelopment.³ As a result, in 1960, the City of Pittsburgh, along with Chicago, Los Angeles, and many other cities received funds from the federal government for public housing as a means of reversing the decline of neighborhoods, such as Easy Liberty, “the heart” of Pittsburgh’s East End.⁴ By 1970, East Liberty had become a location of concentrated government subsidized housing, as the City of Pittsburgh erected three high-rise public housing complexes in the neighborhood—East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park. However, efforts to develop a community that offered equal opportunities for adequate housing served only to isolate the sector of the population that Urban Renewal sought to help, and thus exacerbated poverty, leading to a multitude of related social problems in the area.⁵ The synergy between racial and economic uniformity supported by East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park resulted in an increase of criminal activity, concentrations of fractured families and communities, and a decrease of commercial activity in the neighborhood. These results, the outcomes of isolated poverty created by public housing, led to the eventual disintegration of East Liberty as a once-vibrant community.⁶

 
The disastrous results of public housing built under the well-intentioned Urban Renewal program, and later, the Great Society program, were not unique to Pittsburgh. Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes, a series of 28 sixteen-story federally-subsidized apartment buildings, fostered racial and economic isolation that resulted in the eventual stigmatization of Chicago’s South Side.⁷ Until the 1930s, the South Side of Chicago was a white, middle-class neighborhood. However, its residents increasingly flocked to the suburbs, and poor African Americans migrating from the South rapidly moved into the neighborhood as the original residents withdrew.⁸ Within 20 years, the neighborhood had disintegrated into a slum occupied primarily by low-income African Americans, forming “a health hazard, a hotbed of crime, and...a danger to the real-estate market in surrounding areas.”⁹ With federal funding from the Urban Renewal program, Chicago’s city government began construction of the Robert Taylor Homes in 1950, hoping to salvage the neighborhood from its progression to urban blight.¹⁰ However, their efforts proved to have the same effects as those in Pittsburgh, instilling a sense of hopelessness within the public housing residents. The resulting increase in crime, combinations of impoverished families and communities, and decrease of commercial activity in surrounding neighborhoods led to the decline of Chicago’s South Side as it did for many urban neighborhoods across the country, including Pittsburgh’s East Liberty. 

East Liberty’s Urban Renewal was triggered by a cascade of local redevelopment efforts beginning in the Hill District, yet another blighted Pittsburgh neighborhood, in the 1950s.¹¹ The Hill District had steadily deteriorated in the early decades of the 20th Century, and by midcentury, the neighborhood was primarily comprised of low-income families.¹² According to City Councilman George E. Evans, by 1943, “90 per cent of the buildings in the area [were] sub-standard and [had] long outlived their usefulness.”¹³ To revive the Hill District, the city crafted a plan to redevelop the neighborhood into one of residential and commercial success.¹⁴ Urban Renewal in the Hill District included a plan for construction of the Civic Arena.¹⁵ Despite City Council’s claim that there would be “no social loss” in its erection,¹⁶ relocation presented many problems for Hill District residents, who typically could not afford private housing elsewhere.¹⁷ The Neighborhood Alliance Atlas, a collection of census data compiled by the Neighborhood Alliance to combat the city government’s indifference, reported that construction of the Civic Arena, alone, required the clearance of 95 acres, and that Urban Renewal, in its totality in the neighborhood, resulted in the demolition of 1,300 buildings and the relocation of 8,000 residents.¹⁸ Many families displaced by the Hill District’s redevelopment moved to Homewood, where they caused severe overcrowding.¹⁹ Homewood’s close proximity to East Liberty, another neighborhood marked for Urban Renewal, led city officials to construct East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park as a solution to the overcrowding caused by redevelopment efforts elsewhere in the city.²⁰

 
In the early 20th century, East Liberty was a thriving residential neighborhood and center of commercial activity, even referred to as the city’s “second downtown.”²¹ By 1950, the neighborhood boasted more than 575 local businesses,²² the service of more than 100 trains a day, and its own newspaper, entitled the East Liberty Tribune.²³ However, following World War II, East Liberty began to experience a decline in population, as many of its residents, followed by businesses, relocated to the suburbs.²⁴ East Liberty’s declining population left many properties vacant, making it an opportune location for the city to implement public housing.²⁵ However, it is important to note that public housing was only one part of East Liberty’s Urban Renewal. For instance, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (the “URA”) aimed to curb the trend of suburbanization in 1960 by launching a plan which required the clearance of 254 acres to build a traffic circle that would encompass Penn Avenue, the heart of East Liberty.²⁶ The URA simultaneously called for the construction of a shopping mall on Penn Avenue, modeled after those in the suburbs.²⁷ The intent was that drivers would park their cars around the shopping district and walk between the stores.²⁸ However, the new driving pattern was poorly designed and, in fact, led shoppers away from the commercial district on Penn Avenue, further endangering the once-thriving local businesses.²⁹ Much like Urban Renewal’s plans for public housing in East Liberty, the URA’s development of the shopping district on Penn Avenue demonstrated the “thin line separating good intentions from unintended consequences” that led to the deterioration of East Liberty.³⁰ 

 
The City of Pittsburgh began receiving federal funds for the redevelopment of East Liberty in 1960, leaving construction and implementation of the public housing units to the financial support of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. According to President Johnson, a great society was “a place where the meaning of man’s life [matched] the marvels of man’s labor.”³¹ To accomplish this goal, Johnson extended Urban Renewal’s public housing programs, including the Housing Act of 1949, which sought to demolish America’s urban, impoverished, and typically overcrowded neighborhoods, and replaced them with what was intended to be decent and affordable government-subsidized housing.³² The Johnson administration also passed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, which legislated the creation of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).³³ The Department consolidated all government organizations concerned with urban housing, such as the Federal Housing Administration and the Public Housing Administration.³⁴ In the past, urban and housing issues had been left to Congress, but Johnson felt that a great society could only develop with “a lasting commitment [to eliminate urban blight] by the executive department.”³⁵

 
In addition to the creation of HUD, the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 authorized “rent supplements,” with which tenants would pay one quarter of their annual income on rent, with the government supplementing the balance.³⁶ This policy encouraged private ownership of public housing units, as landlords were guaranteed a profit from the government, which maintained few responsibilities beyond their construction and rent supplementation.³⁷ The City of Pittsburgh thus applied “rent supplements” to East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park, but, like many other privately-owned public housing units in the city, the buildings and their tenants were neglected by the absentee owners, Florida-based Federal American Properties.³⁸ In the 30 years that the East Liberty high-rises remained standing, Federal American Properties ignored the complaints of tenants regarding deterioration and sanitation, leaving the buildings to disintegrate into examples of urban blight and as catalysts of the neighborhood’s general disintegration.³⁹

 
However, the tenants of Pittsburgh’s public housing facilities were not alone in their neglect by absentee landlords. Cities across the country, including Chicago and Los Angeles, experienced similar problems with private ownership of federally-subsidized housing units. For example, South Central Los Angeles, which is comprised primarily of Latino residents, has been on the decline since the 1960s, when the government first began to subsidize concentrated housing with “rent supplements.”⁴⁰ In fact, 62 percent of the apartments in the neighborhood were built between 1960 and 1978 and in 2000, “absentee landlords [owned] 91 percent of units.”⁴¹ It is therefore no surprise that approximately a sixth of the area’s properties “have outstanding code violations.”⁴² However, many of the landlords of South Central Los Angeles’s public housing facilities, like those of the East Liberty’s high rises, were remiss in maintaining the properties, as they made minor and perfunctory adjustments to avoid government inspection.⁴³ “Rent supplements” in Los Angeles only further encouraged the absentee landlords’ negligence, as they increasingly ignored the complaints of tenants and allowed the buildings to deteriorate, fostering an environment that, in 2000, boasted the “highest documented incidence of elevated levels of lead in the blood of children under six in Los Angeles,” and “the highest mortality rate from asthma in the county.”⁴⁴ Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society not only continued the housing policies of earlier Urban Renewal programs, but it also attempted to expand the role of the government, specifically the executive branch, in urban and housing issues with the enactment of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965, and its policies regarding HUD and “rent supplements.”⁴⁵

 
In 1960, the City of Pittsburgh authorized the construction of three high-rise public housing units, including East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park in East Liberty.⁴⁶ Together, East Mall, a 160-unit, eighteen-story apartment complex straddling 5808 Penn Avenue, Penn Circle Towers, a 152-unit, twenty-story building located at 6231 Penn Avenue, and Liberty Park, a 352-unit, seventeen-story complex at 6209 Broad Street, encompassed Penn Avenue, dominating the commercial district. In total, the three buildings offered approximately 500 housing units to the East Liberty community.⁴⁷ Under the supervision of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the city’s economic development agency, the three high rises were built from brick, concrete, and glass.⁴⁸ However, the URA was severely limited by the city’s allotted $68 million for Urban Renewal, and could therefore not afford the best materials.⁴⁹ In fact, the brick, concrete, and glass high-rises were expected to deteriorate within 40 years of their construction.⁵⁰ Acknowledging this limitation, the city explained in Redevelopment Plan for Area #10 [East Liberty] its intention to reexamine the high-rises 40 years from the date of City Council’s approval of construction.⁵¹ In the meantime, the agreement assumed that rehabilitation of East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park would be the responsibility of the Florida-based owner. Unfortunately, Federal American Properties proved to be negligent in addressing the concerns of residents, avoiding expensive rehabilitation at all costs.⁵² However, because minor improvements were made within this period,⁵³ evidence of no more than perfunctory attention to tenants’ concerns, the city was able to turn a blind eye to the disintegration of the buildings,⁵⁴ which eventually became a factor in the neighborhood’s transition from “the heart” of Pittsburgh’s East End to an area overcome with urban blight.⁵⁵

 
As the approximately 500 housing units went on the market,⁵⁶ an influx of low-income African American families relocated to East Liberty.⁵⁷ Economic and racial uniformity consequently emerged within the neighborhood, as the redevelopment of the Hill District, according to the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Alliance, displaced 1,239 black families and 312 white families.⁵⁸ Furthermore, in the 1960s, “African Americans were three times as likely to live in poverty as whites.”⁵⁹ Race was inseparable from socio-economic status, and as a result, when 1,239 black families were forced to relocate from the Hill District, a “significant portion” was eligible for public housing.⁶⁰ In 1970, the year that construction of the three high rises was completed, 19.3 percent of the population of East Liberty was black. However, by 1980, once the process of relocation was complete, 46.3 percent of the neighborhood’s residents were black.⁶¹ Public housing in East Liberty not only isolated the high-rise residents in racially and economically uniform communities, but it also promoted racial and economic prejudice.⁶² East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park isolated and compartmentalized some of society’s most unstable citizens.⁶³ In doing so, it created an environment in which the isolated poor could blame the rest of society for their poverty, frequently basing their judgments upon socio-economic and racial stereotypes.⁶⁴ 

Racial and economic uniformity only exacerbated poverty in the East Liberty community. A lack of diversity hindered the development of a “networking system,” particularly regarding “employment opportunities,” within the three high-rise apartments.⁶⁵ James G. Banks, a consultant for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said of government subsidized housing projects, “Friends and relatives often make excellent job resources. In impoverished communities, however, the lines of communication are poor. Further, their connection with the main world of business is limited. Thus, information about opportunities [was] limited.”⁶⁶ Because East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park were islands of isolated and uniform poverty, residents struggled to form the connections necessary to obtain sustainable employment.⁶⁷ The three high-rise apartments of East Liberty consequently became permanent dwellings for the impoverished, rather than stepping stones to economic independence.

 
As more and more of the poorest of the poor were housed in these buildings, crime increased dramatically in East Liberty.⁶⁸ For example, in 1973, three years after the three high-rises were completed, 1,023 major crimes were committed in the neighborhood. This translates into a .096 percent local crime rate, as compared to the .043 percent rate city-wide.⁶⁹ East Liberty’s crime rate increased over the course of the next 12 months to .125 percent, or, in other words, 1,331 neighborhood crimes were committed that year.⁷⁰ Finally, in 1975, 1,594 major crimes were committed in East Liberty, increasing the region’s crime rate to .150 percent, nearly triple the city-wide crime rate of .053 percent.⁷¹ The parallel between crime and residence in public housing emerged within East Liberty in the 1970s as a result of the psychological isolation created by the high-rises.⁷² East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park’s dominating structures geographically emphasized the disparity between the wealthy and the poor, and thereby fostered hostility within the economically disadvantaged tenants.⁷³ Additionally, the struggling families that habituated the government-subsidized housing projects deprived their children of the attention and affection necessary for their development.⁷⁴ The widespread instability of family life in the high-rises formed citizens who “[struck] out against humanity and became delinquents” within the neighborhood.⁷⁵ In fact, in the Cooks Bridge complex in Needham, Massachusetts, yet another location of public housing for an isolated segment of the population, criminal activity bore such a psychological weight upon the residents in the 1990s that they took matters into their own hands and launched a protest against the local housing authority.⁷⁶ Research from the National Housing Institute showed that, much like the residents of East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park, “the lack of or poor maintenance and drug-related crime” became oppressive to the tenants of the Cooks Bridge complex, as they were victimized by geographical separation and a concentration of increasing hostility among the economically disadvantaged.⁷⁷ 

Ranging between 17 and 20 stories, East Mall, Liberty Park, and Penn Circle Towers dominated the skyline and isolated tenants from broader residential neighborhoods. Tenants were not only separated geographically from the community, but also psychologically, as their residence within the high-rises immediately identified them as economically disadvantaged and promoted the instability so frequently associated with tenancy in these complexes.⁷⁸ The psychological isolation of the tenants in East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park supported behaviors within East Liberty that were expressed through crime, including regular burglary and internal theft.⁷⁹ In fact, a 1977 survey conducted by the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Alliance revealed that 50 percent of East Liberty residents, as compared to the city-wide statistic of 29 percent, considered robbery a “major or very serious” concern.⁸⁰ According to Officer Michael Gay, an East Liberty police officer, who made regular visits to each of the three high-rises in the 1990s, burglaries and thefts were so severe that an officer could expect to make two calls a day regarding criminal activity in the high-rises.⁸¹

Peter Bolanis, the last owner of Bolan’s Candies, previously located on 6214 Penn Avenue, recalled multiple robberies 

within the 30 years that East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park were in use.⁸² He said that over the course of this period, “I was robbed twice coming from the back [of Bolan’s Candies after taking out the trash] and once, while the store was closed. [The robbers] broke into the safe and took the cash register.”⁸³ However, Bolanis pointed out that the most serious theft his business experienced was internal. He had employed residents of the high-rises as cooks and shopkeepers, and could recall numerous occasions when the revenue numbers did not add up, an indication of employee theft.⁸⁴ The psychological hostility instilled by the government-subsidized housing complexes in the minds of its isolated residents was disastrous for East Liberty;⁸⁵ businesses were consistently subjected to robbery and internal theft, and the majority of the East End community in 1970, the first year of occupation in the high-rises, agreed that “the streets were not safe, [and that] their property was vulnerable [to robbery.]”⁸⁶
 
Illegal drug activity also festered within East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park, where some of the city’s most unstable and struggling citizens dwelled. In fact, drug usage became so prevalent in East Liberty’s public housing complexes that it gradually permeated surrounding neighborhoods, eventually stigmatizing the entire area as one of illegal drug activity.⁸⁷ According to Dana Ramsey, the owner of Dana’s Styling Salon on Penn Avenue, the buildings were “crack-infested,”⁸⁸ and eventually came to be referred to collectively as “the crack stacks.”⁸⁹ The most notorious of the three high-rises, East Mall Apartments, “both [fit] and [fed] the perception that there are [narcotics] problems in East Liberty.”⁹⁰ Officer Mehama, a Zone 5 policeman who made regular visits to East Mall, recalled driving under the apartment complex and seeing its residents suspiciously turn away from the car as he drove by.⁹¹ More importantly, he also remembered them turning back for a glimpse as he pulled away, suggesting, as he believed, that they “[were] up to no good.”⁹² The compartmentalization of the high rises allowed for the proliferation of narcotics, as residents, already burdened with isolated poverty, were more quickly involved in drug use in the confined housing units.

In the 1980s, illegal drug activity, particularly the use of crack cocaine, escalated to a point of near ubiquity within the East Liberty high-rises.⁹³ Furthermore, youth in the community became increasingly involved not only in the usage, but also in the sale, leading to “an unprecedented level of violence and crime” within the neighborhood.⁹⁴ This trend was not unique to East Liberty; crack cocaine had become increasingly prevalent in urban public housing complexes across the country, and in response, the federal government increased the standard penalties for illegal drugs.⁹⁵ The number of people imprisoned for illegal drug activity, whether by use or sale, consequently increased eight times between 1969 and 1991.⁹⁶ Possession and distribution of illegal drugs, particularly crack cocaine, contributed to the deterioration of East Liberty as a whole, as the drugs within the public housing units eventually permeated the surrounding area, until all of East Liberty became identified with illegal narcotics activity.⁹⁷

 
East Liberty high rises defined the prototype family of public housing as unstable and led by a single parent, typically female.⁹⁸ In fact, in 1970, 18.3 percent of the households in East Liberty were female headed.⁹⁹ By 1980, however, 23.9 percent of families in the region were single-parent, and led by a female.¹⁰⁰ A young parent in the high-rises had to face “financial, emotional, and physical” obstacles when raising a family in an environment of isolation and frustration with one’s place in society.¹⁰¹ Furthermore, many of these parents were often “unprepared for the demanding responsibility of raising children and managing a household because they themselves [did] not receive the nurturing that leads to maturity.”¹⁰² An immature parent could not effectively manage the complications of raising a family in an environment with desperation, criminal activity, and limited opportunity beyond the high-rises. East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park systematically concentrated fractured families, frequently overwhelming already struggling parents with their depressing surroundings. According to Officer Michael Gay, “The whole culture of East Liberty changed as young [unstable] families moved into the high-rises,” overwhelming the neighborhood with instability and eventually reshaping the entire neighborhood to mirror the fractured families that composed it.¹⁰³

Social instability at the community level began immediately upon the erection of the public housing complexes. In earlier subsidized housing, families typically had two parents, each of whom was employed.¹⁰⁴ Public housing thus once served as a stepping stone between economic disadvantage and economic independence for low-income families. As a result, the tenants of government-subsidized apartments tended to live lives of “stability and order” as they transitioned to economic independence.¹⁰⁵ However, as the poorest of the poor were given the opportunity to relocate to East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park, stable families “moved out.”¹⁰⁶ The new tenants were some of society’s most troubled citizens, having just relocated from the slums of the Hill District or Homewood. According to Mr. Bolanis, when the City of Pittsburgh built the high-rises, it “took out all the people who lived [in East Liberty’s public housing] and did well.”¹⁰⁷ Families that had relied on public housing as a stepping-stone prior to the high-rises, found the new, more unstable tenants, undesirable to live with and, consequently, relocated.¹⁰⁸ East Liberty’s high-rises thusly became islands of society’s most troubled citizens, leaving East Liberty to disintegrate as more stable families left.¹⁰⁹

The final effect of East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park on the community was a decrease in commercial activity. In fact, of the 575 businesses located in East Liberty in the 1950s, less than 100 remained in 1979.¹¹⁰ Mr. Bolanis said that when Bolan’s Candies relocated to Penn Avenue in 1969, the business was “doing 700 covers [a restaurant term for orders] a day,” but “wasn’t doing 170 a day in 1990.”¹¹¹ Executive Director of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Rob Stephany, explained the difficulties of maintaining a business in East Liberty as a result of “the blight at both ends.”¹¹² The high-rises encompassed Penn Avenue, the neighborhood’s commercial center, and as a result, businesses became isolated, circumscribed by the poverty.¹¹³ Although the high-rises represented only a fraction of the neighborhood’s population, patrons from outside East Liberty labeled the neighborhood as one of poverty.¹¹⁴ The high-rises overwhelmed the neighborhood with impoverished and troubled residents, and customers did not want to venture into the neighborhood, which was characterized by its reputation for criminal activity, to shop.¹¹⁵ For example, George Tanner, the owner of Liberty Video, said that his customers “were afraid to even go near [East Mall] because of the crime and things like residents tossing garbage and dirty diapers out of the window.”¹¹⁶ Bolanis agreed, pointing out that customers’ fear was irrational, as the entire neighborhood had been stereotyped as being dangerous due to the reputation of the high-rises for crime, but also due to the concentration of African Americans, saying “Women walking up the street can see black youth and get scared.”¹¹⁷ According to Al Blumstein, a criminology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, “People don’t even want to have a sense of vulnerability. If there’s a perception of problems that can be very serious [for local businesses.]”¹¹⁸ The general sense of fear within patrons of East Liberty businesses suffocated Penn Avenue and the surrounding business district.¹¹⁹

The presence of East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park also caused a decrease in local commercial activity due to a general decline in more affluent residents who left the neighborhood in response to their construction,¹²⁰ and also due to the fact that the residents who replaced them could not afford to purchase the goods sold in the local stores.¹²¹ Although Urban Renewal’s goal was to revive East Liberty as a residential area and commercial center, the plan inserted a dysfunctional population into the area, and thereby permanently limited commercial activity, as local residents could not afford to be patrons of local business.¹²² In 1979, 88 percent of families dependent upon public housing earned less than $10,000 a year.¹²³ When asked what percentage of his customers were tenants in the three high-rises, Peter Bolanis stated, “I don’t know if I could find a number that low.”¹²⁴ Furthermore, the presence of the tenants in the projects discouraged residence elsewhere in the neighborhood, eventually causing a general population decline. The population of East Liberty was 6,863 in 1960, but by 1970, the population had decreased to 4,054, illustrating a 41.0 percent decrease.¹²⁵ Many of the people who had lived in East Liberty before the construction of the high-rises, typically residents who could afford to support the neighborhood businesses, considered the new tenants undesirable and consequently relocated, drawing business away from East Liberty’s stores.¹²⁶ A lower population meant less business, and this, in combination with the fact that residents could not afford to support the local businesses, led to a decrease of commercial activity.

In 2001, The Community Builders, a Boston-based non-profit development organization, purchased the East Mall, Liberty Park, and Penn Circle Towers Apartments. In 2005, East Mall and Liberty Park were demolished, while Penn Circle Tower remained standing as a temporary home to relocatees.¹²⁷ The URA gave the residents of East Mall and Liberty Park, approximately 300 people, $1,000 to cover the cost of relocation, in addition to Section 8 vouchers for new housing.¹²⁸ According to Aletha Sims, President of the Citizens Organization for East Liberty, the City of Pittsburgh and the URA successfully organized the process of relocation, saying, “I don’t know of any other neighborhood where the residents had this much input.”¹²⁹ Residents were also given priority in the replacement public housing complexes on the sites of East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park, where the rentals cost the same as they were in the towers.¹³⁰ 

Recognizing that the stigma of the high-rises, having triggered racial and economic uniformity, increased crime and concentrations of fractured families and communities, and decreased commercial activity in East Liberty, the Community Builders agreed to reconstruct the new government subsidized housing with two significant changes—the new housing incorporates townhouse-style, mixed-income units and private ownership.¹³¹ For example, the organization has erected Fairfield Apartments, a series of 16 three-story row houses, which serve as both attractive apartments and homes for mixed-income families, on the site of former Liberty Park Apartments.¹³² The 124-unit complex seeks to correct the mistakes of the high-rises, preventing the geographic and psychological isolation of the poor, which lay at the core of the neighborhood’s decline.¹³³ The developers seek to socialize the environment of public housing by eliminating the human compartmentalization of the projects. Furthermore, The Community Builders has developed more homes, in addition to apartments, in the neighborhood that, in 2001, was composed of approximately 84 percent renters.¹³⁴ According to Kevin Anderson, the owner of Bat’s Barber Shop on 5911 Penn Avenue, “People need to be able to buy their homes because it gives them some independence. There’s a pride in ownership.”¹³⁵ This “pride” has already begun and will continue to stabilize East Liberty as a community, adding a degree of success to family life and local business that has not been present in the area since before East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park.¹³⁶ 

The high-rise public housing complexes of East Liberty’s 1960s geographically and psychologically isolated the poor. Together, East Mall, Penn Circle Towers, and Liberty Park created a disastrous combination of racial and economic uniformity, an increase of criminal activity, concentrations of fractured families and communities, and a decrease of commercial activity in the neighborhood. These results, the outcomes of isolated poverty, circumscribed the future of the high-rises’ tenants, as well as the community as a whole. The stigma of the high-rises gradually overwhelmed East Liberty, Pittsburgh’s once thriving “second downtown,” reshaping the neighborhood to mirror the instability of their residents and disintegrate as an example of urban blight.¹³⁷ “East Liberty is a [neighborhood that] already has lived and died, and now it is struggling to come alive again.”¹³⁸ The neighborhood’s future success will depend upon The Community Builders’ ability to correct the geographic and psychological mistakes of the high-rises with townhouse-style, mixed-income units and private ownership. Having grown up on Collins Avenue, down the street from Liberty Park Apartments, and working as a Zone 5 police officer in the neighborhood, Officer Michael Gay is optimistic.¹³⁹ He states, “East Liberty is going through a time of change right now. It’s going back to the good.”¹⁴⁰ 

 

 

 1 James G. and Peter Banks, The Unintended Consequences: Family and Community, the Victims of Isolated Poverty (Chicago: UP America, 2004) p. 37
2 Ibid., p. 37
3 Ibid., p. 37
4 City Planning Commission, Redevelopment Plan for Area #10 (Pittsburgh, 1962) p. 41
5 Violet Law, “At Liberty to Speak,” Pittsburgh City Paper (1 November 2007) http://www.pittsbrghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/content?oid=oid%3A37791 (accessed February 27, 2009)
6 Dan Fitzpatrick, “Plans for Progress: Initial Makeover Was Done with Good Intentions But Ended with Dismal Results,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette (May 23, 2000)
7 Law
8 The Robert Taylor Homes, http://www.bradley.edu/las/eng/lotm/Chicago/rthomes2.htm (accessed October 20, 2009)
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 East End Historical Society, Images of America: Pittsburgh’s East Liberty Valley (Charleston: Arcadia, 2008) p. 121
12 “Planners OK Euclid Ave. Development,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette (October 25, 1969)
13 Homes and Communities: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “The Hill District: History,” Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, http://www.clpgh.org/exhibit/neighborhoods/hill/hill_n4.html (accessed February 26, 2009)
14 East End Historical Society, p. 121
15 Ibid., p. 121
16 Homes and Communities: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
17 Banks, p. 38
18 Homes and Communities: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
19 East End Historical Society, p. 121
20 Ibid., p. 121
21 Law
22 East End Historical Society, p. 121
23 Ibid., p. 37
24 Ibid., p. 121
25 City Planning Commission, p. 41
26 Urban Redevelopment Authority and Joseph M. Barr, Relocation of 100 Households in the East Liberty Urban Renewal Project City Planning Commission (Pittsburgh: n.p., 1967)
27 East End Historical Society, p. 121
28 Tony LaRussa, “Some Give High-Rise Apartments Low Marks,” Tribune Review (May 23, 2003)
29 Ibid.
30 Fitzpatrick
31 The White House, “36. Lyndon B. Johnson,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/LyndonJohnson/ (accessed February 17, 2009)
32 Banks, p. 37
33 Ibid., p. 51
34 John B. Willman, Profile of the 1970 Population Residing in East Liberty Department of Housing and Urban Development (New York: Praeger, 1967) p. 51
35 Ibid., p. 51
36 John A Andrew III, Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1998) p. 133
37 Ibid., p. 133
38 Ibid., p. 133
39 East Liberty Development, A Vision for East Liberty (Pittsburgh: n.p., 1999) p. 121
40 “HHI (Healthy Homes Initiative) Education Project Summaries,” http://www.fhasecure.gov/offices/lead/hhi/education/cfm (accessed September 26, 2009)
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Andrew III, p. 133
44 “HHI (Healthy Homes Initiative) Education Project Summaries”
45 Andrew III, p. 133
46 East End Historical Society, p. 121
47 Tim Schooley, “East Liberty’s Transformation,” Pittsburgh Business Times (August 12, 2005) http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/205/08/15/focus.html?jst=cn_cn_lk (accessed February 20, 2009)
48 LaRussa
49 Ibid.
50 City Planning Commission, p. 41
51 Ibid., p. 41
52 East Liberty Development, p. 21
53 Jan Ackerman, “Housing Demolition Troubles Some,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (January 16, 2001) sec A, p. 9
54 East Liberty Development, p. 13
55 Law
56 Schooley
57 Andrew III, p. 154
88 Homes and Communities: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
59 Banks, p. 49
60 Ibid., p. 38
61 Department of City Planning, A Community Profile of East Liberty (Pittsburgh: n.p., 1974)
62 Harry J. Davenport, “Homes! Homes!” East Liberty Shopping News (City Planning Commission, 1945)
63 Banks, p. 109
64 Davenport
65 Banks, p. 107
66 Ibid., p. 107
67 Ibid., p. 107
68 Michael Gay, interview by author, telephone interview, Pittsburgh (March 11, 2009)
69 University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, An Atlas of the East Liberty Neighborhood of Pittsburgh, 1977 (Pittsburgh: n.p., 1978)
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Gay, interview by author
73 Banks, p. 104
74 Ibid., p. 113
75 Ibid., p. 113
76 Lucia Hwang, “Taking Charge: Public Housing Tenants Organize,” National Housing Institute, http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/95/phorg.html (accessed September 26, 2009)
77 Ibid.
78 Banks, p. 104
79 Peter Bolanis, interview with author, personal interview, Pittsburgh (March 2, 2009)
80 University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work
81 Gay, interview by author
82 Bolanis, interview with author
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid.
85 Gay, interview by author
86 Analysis of Police—Community Relations in the East Liberty Community, 1970 Archives of the Industrial Information Society—East Liberty, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
87 Bolanis, interview with author
88 LaRussa
89 Mike Rosenwald, “Perceiving Is Believing,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (May 25, 2000)
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid.
93 Banks, p. 79
94 Ibid., p. 79
95 Ibid., p. 79
96 Ibid., p. 79
97 Bolanis, interview with author
98 Department of City Planning
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
101 Banks, p. 109
102 Ibid., p. 110
103 Gay, interview by author
104 Banks, p. 109
105 Ibid., p. 109
106 Ibid., p. 110
107 Bolanis, interview with author
108 Banks, p. 110
109 Bolanis, interview with author
110 Fitzpatrick
111 Bolanis, interview with author
112 LaRussa
113 Ibid.
114 Banks, p. 113
115 Bolanis, interview with author
116 LaRussa
117 Bolanis, interview with author
118 Rosenwald
119 Bolanis, interview with author
120 Banks, p. 109
121 Bolanis, interview with author
122 Ibid
123 Banks, pp. 65-66
124 Bolanis, interview with author
125 Department of City Planning, p. 4
126 Banks, p. 109
127 Mark Belko, “URA Settles with East Liberty Apartment Dwellers,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December 24, 2003)
128 Sonya M. Toler, “Liberty Park Residents Upset Over Foreclosure,” The Pittsburgh Courier (May 31, 2003)
129 Diana Nelson Jones, “Dreams Alive in East Liberty,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (November 1, 2006) sec. B, p. 1
130 Belko
131 Schooley
132 LaRussa
133 Ibid.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid.
136 Jan Ackerman, “Architects Sketch of East Liberty Renewal,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December 7, 2000)
137 Law
138 Patrick J. Kiger, “Can East Liberty Rise Again?” December 1983, Pittsburgh Localities—East Liberty, John J. Heinz Regional History Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
139 Gay, interview by author
140 Ibid.
 

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