For decades, Shadyside and East Liberty have lived like the Cold War's two Berlins. One thrived, one didn't. One had and one had less.

The side-by-side neighborhoods are divided by a sunken rail line that two bridges spanned until the early 1970s. When the forces of urban renewal removed the bridges, the neighborhood border was studded with dead-end streets and fences that blocked passage.

A traffic circle that discouraged trade increased East Liberty's isolation. One slim span, a truss on Highland Avenue, bridges the neighborhoods. Sided by chain-link fence and sloped enough to block sight lines, it is "a study on how to make people feel unwelcome," says Rob Stephany of East Liberty Development Inc.

The divide also served the condition of racial isolation with its physical barriers to movement between the two neighborhoods. Planners, merchants and most residents want to bridge the gap. A symbol of this will be a pedestrian bridge from Shadyside to the Eastside construction project along Centre Avenue east of the Whole Foods Market.

ELDI forged plans for Eastside to weave the neighborhoods and begin a process of genuine commercial integration. Even the name Eastside is a merging of the neighborhoods' names.

It is primarily about commerce, but the benefits could be more profound, said City Councilman Bill Peduto. If people are shopping together, they are interacting, he said, adding, "I'd love to see that former art supplies store [at Highland where Centre turns into Penn Circle South] become a jazz or blues club, something that would attract white and black residents of both communities."

The Home Depot at the north end of East Liberty has done that, drawing a mix of customers from many neighborhoods.

The pedestrian bridge will link Shadyside's Ellsworth Avenue with East Liberty's Centre from Spahr Street, diagonally to Eastside's upper deck. It will be about 14 feet wide and 110 feet long, said Steve Mosites, the developer of the Mosites Co. The Heinz Endowments gave $50,000 toward aesthetic design plans for the bridge.

Eastside will consist of two levels of shops and businesses and accommodate about 400 cars. So far, the committed occupants include Walgreens, Starbucks, two banks, a spa, a dentist's office and the largest Wine & Spirits Premium Collection in the city, said Mosites. The eastern end of the deck will open onto Highland Avenue.

The state Department of Transportation granted $1 million for the bridge. Details of its construction and design are being worked out. Construction on Eastside's upper deck will start in August and that part of the project should be open by late fall, Mosites said.

Eastside is a $29 million piece of a $200 million revitalization plan assembled in 1999 by East Liberty stakeholders. The bulk of the money is coming from the Local Initiatives Support Group and Community Design Center, the city's Urban Redevelopment Authority, Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency and local banks.

Part of the plan is to redesign housing stock. Liberty Park and Eastmall high rises are being replaced by traditional, mixed-income houses, for which ELDI is "working hard to preserve affordability. That's a promise that must be kept," Stephany said.

"We know what residents had to give up for this to happen," said Ernie Hogan, also of the ELDI. "People gave up their homes to have high rises built in the first place, and now they're giving up their homes in the high rise. The purpose is to eliminate barriers so that East Liberty can become the integrated community it wants to be."

Stephany predicted that by "undoing 30 years of bad urban renewal, we can create a commercial synergy between East Liberty and Shadyside. A shopping experience for white and black people is relatively new to Pittsburgh, but it can work. It's a market niche that really says 'diversity.' "

Diversity of income is another matter.

"It can be a good thing. Just don't run us over in the process," said East Liberty resident Alethea Sims, the acting president of East Liberty's Coalition of Organized Residents. "We see buildings torn down, buildings go up, business coming in, and most of the time the residents are ignored. This is our home. We should get a piece of this pie. If residents of East Liberty don't get the jobs they're talking about, if merchandise is priced too high for residents to buy, that doesn't help."

Sims lives at Eastmall and has been agitating for sufficient mixed-income housing that allows residents to upgrade. She also wants planners to provide residents entrepreneurial training.

Several years ago, said Stephany, "everyone realized that East Liberty was operating far below its potential. It was Pittsburgh's second downtown and didn't even have a good family restaurant, he said. "All the stakeholders here contributed to a vision that said, 'This is an important place, a special place in waiting.' "

The big green "W" of Whole Foods Market shines through the window of Rob and Joe Indovina's architectural office on Ellsworth Avenue. Eastside is rising staggeringly fast, right up to Ellsworth's doorstep. The Indovinas established the office in 1982, when Ellsworth had an un-Shadyside-like identity problem, said Joe. "There was a house of ill repute next door and lots of decay. We felt sort of like pioneers."

Today, Ellsworth is as cute as a button. Antique shops and galleries, restaurants, a tapas bar and coffee places nestle one against the other on the scale of a European village. Some in this one-time outpost of Shadyside, including the Indovinas, initially resisted the effort to link it to East Liberty.

One concern has been that muggers would hang out on the bridge.

"We have had people robbed at knifepoint in Shadyside, and when someone flees, it's usually in the direction of East Liberty," said Jamie Marshall of the Shadyside Action Coalition. The plan, overall, is "a nice idea, but there are going to be growing pains."

Shadyside residents have been concerned, too, about the Shady Hill Center Giant Eagle's plans to spruce up and expand at the corner of Shady and Penn avenues. A coffee shop is one proposed business for a small building on the Penn Avenue end of the lot. A GetGo gas station is proposed to front on Shady.

Most of the 150 Shadyside residents who met Thursday with the developer, Echo Real Estate Services, expressed adamant opposition to the GetGo, saying it will breed noise, crime and congestion.

Hogan, who was there, said he didn't like the look of the gas station's staging, boxed in with a picket fence and landscaping. "It looks too suburban, and there are so many cool, urban designs." He said ELDI had since shared some of those designs with Echo.

The area does need gas stations, having lost several over the years, he said. And a coffee shop on the Penn Avenue end makes much more sense than a gas station would. "The number of bus riders at that corner is staggering," he said. "Eight hundred people a day. A coffee place would serve those riders."

As for congestion, he said, elimination of the traffic circle in the next two years will help, returning the streetscape to a pedestrian scale and two-way traffic.

In the spirit of change, a flurry of entrepreneurship in East Liberty is raising the bar, said Hogan, citing hip-hop clothing stores, a record store with an eclectic vinyl collection and attractive restaurants and clubs.

"We want to continue to raise standards so East Liberty businesses can compete. If we don't have a connection to an affluent neighborhood, we can't attract quality commerce and quality jobs for our residents. Our vision is for East Liberty to become a destination but not a Walnut Street. We want to encourage local ownership and bring needed services to the community."

The Indovina brothers have abandoned their opposition, they said, in part because this project is demonstrably vital and because of like-minded projects elsewhere. The trend in urban planning is toward weaving communities to create collaborations, Rob said.

"We're lucky in Pittsburgh that we have strong neighborhoods," so that one can help pull the other away from decay. "A greater East End would be fantastic. The lines are blurring between us."