Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Liberty Avenue
is a major thoroughfare starting in downtown
Pittsburgh
,
Pennsylvania
, United States, just outside
Point State Park
. Liberty Avenue runs through Downtown
Pittsburgh
, the
Strip District
, and
Bloomfield
and ends in the neighborhood of
Shadyside
at its intersection with
Centre Avenue
and Aiken Avenue. Liberty Avenue is about 4.3 miles (6.9 km) long.
A survey of Pittsburgh in 1784 already shows a
Liberty Street
in its present location.
[1]
It is also called Liberty Street in a map from 1860.
[2]
Downtown
[
edit
]
Buildings along Liberty Avenue
Beginning in the 19th century, the thoroughfare became a place of middle- and upper-class commerce. A history of Pittsburgh notes that a Market House was established in 1832 along Liberty Street between Sixth Street and Cecil Alley.
[3]
Liberty also hosted food suppliers, brewers, and small manufacturers. In 1894, the Joseph Horne department store was built there. In the early 20th century, the Clark Building (named for the
Clark
candy company) and the Second National Bank were built. At length, it became a home for theater and movies, with the
Stanley Theatre
, the Lowe's Penn and the
Harris Theatre
. However, much of this activity was checked, first by the
Great Depression
, and then by the
St. Patrick's Day Flood
of 1936. Some businesses were closed, and others moved elsewhere.
[4]
A section of Liberty Avenue in
Downtown Pittsburgh
became a
red-light district
in the 1970s and 1980s, hosting the city's
sex industry
, including
burlesque houses
,
strip bars
, and
peep shows
, and attracting
vice
and crime.
[5]
The
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust
, formed in 1984, worked over the next 25 years to transform the area into the
Cultural District
, a center for the arts, eventually bringing the
August Wilson Center for African American Culture
,
Bricolage Production Company
,
[6]
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company
,
[7]
the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Arts Education Center, and a museum of cartoon art,
The ToonSeum
, to Liberty Avenue.
[8]
Liberty Avenue in the downtown area underwent a years-long extensive $3.6 million redesign and repavement that was completed by 1991.
[9]
Strip District
[
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]
Liberty Ave. is a main road through the
Strip District
. It is the home to many businesses, mostly offices and business-to-business service and product providers. The factory to manufacture
George Westinghouse
's air brakes was located at 2425 Liberty. This has now become the home of the
Pittsburgh Opera
. There are few retail establishments on Liberty Ave. in the Strip District.
Bloomfield
[
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]
Liberty Ave. is the site of the main business district in
Bloomfield
. Liberty Ave. is also home to
West Penn Hospital
as well as many small store fronts.
Popular culture
[
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]
A semi-fictionalized version of Liberty Avenue is featured prominently in the American version of the television program
Queer as Folk
.
Major junctions
[
edit
]
The entire route is in
Pittsburgh
,
Allegheny County
.
References
[
edit
]
40°27′19″N
79°58′34″W
/
40.45537°N 79.97617°W
/
40.45537; -79.97617