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Editorial: Penn's restoration The East End avenue offers a 'canvas' for artists Monday, December 28, 1998
The stretch of Penn Avenue between Allegheny Cemetery and Negley Avenue has a vibrant history, though often as a rough part of town. In its prime as a retail main street, it was still the site of gang fighting between rumblers from Morningside and Garfield. Today it is scarred by vacant buildings and other signs of urban neglect.
But Penn Avenue is on the rebound.
As it moves through the border of Bloomfield and Lawrenceville, the avenue is lined with businesses and restaurants. And when it reaches Downtown and the Cultural District, it is clearly a thoroughfare in the midst of a renaissance, with new trees and sidewalks and finely restored facades.
Now Penn Avenue Arts Initiative, a collaboration of the Bloomfield-Garfield Corp. and Friendship Development Associates, wants artists to buy or lease buildings on a 10-block stretch of Penn that runs through Friendship and Garfield, and then renovate them for use as studios, storefronts or lofts.
The initiative is offering a $150,000 fund for loans and grants that has been endowed by an anonymous foundation. The initiative will provide technical assistance, helping people to find bank loans and city development funds.
This project faces competition from artist-oriented enclaves on the South Side and East Liberty, where the old Constantin Pontiac dealership has been transformed into living and working space for artists and their families.
But achieving creative solutions for distressed neighborhoods requires pushing the envelope. In this case, the possible payoff is considerable. Pittsburgh could end up with an eclectic artists' district akin to New York's SoHo or Adams-Morgan in Washington - with the new Penn Avenue providing the canvas.
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