Everyone be sure to make it to the polls today and have their voices heard!

The Post Gazette is offering a voter’s guide for any primary day information you may need!

Friendship Development Executive Director, Jeffrey Dorsey, speaks at the groundbreaking in front of Rob Stephany, URA Executive Director, Emma Lucas-Darby LCCC board and professor from Carlow University, Charlie Batch, LCCC board member and Steeler, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Howard Slaughter, Executive Director of LCCC.

Yesterday, Wednesday, April 16, Friendship Development Associates, Landmark Community Capital Corporation, the URA and many other partners celebrated the groundbreaking for 5000 Penn, three townhomes nine years in the planning. This $800,000 development, on the corner of Penn Avenue and Gross Street, will bring loft-style housing to the heart of the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative.

For more information on the groundbreaking, read the post gazette article, or what Pop City has to say!

Many may have noticed today that the streets surrounding East Liberty Presbyterian Church has been swarmed with camera crews, trailers and onlookers. The silver screen has come to East Liberty again!

The Post Gazette is reporting that the movie is the DreamWorks romantic comedy, “She’s Out of My League,” but filming staff and ELPC staff are saying the movie is “The Shelter,” a suspense thriller starring Julianne Moore about a troubling schizophrenia patient.

They will be filming outside the rest of today and inside of ELPC tomorrow.

Are you aware and active in the 2008 Presidential Election news? Well, now it is easier to get informed about one of our candidate because the Pittsburgh Office for Barak Obama’s Presidential Campaign is located in our own East Liberty!

Located at 208 N. Highland in the heart of East Liberty’s commercial district, take a moment out of your day to stop by, talk to some of the volunteers and pick up information about the candidate.

If Obama is your man for ‘08, you can take advantage of the Obama store, offering buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs, t-shirts and more in support of the campaign. They are also always looking for volunteers, so if you would like to get involved in Obama’s efforts for East Liberty, Pittsburgh and the Nation, get involved!

Visit his website or listen to his speech from from Tuesday, March 18 on acknowledging and repairing our country’s race issues.

Won’t you be my neighbor, East Liberty?
Tomorrow, Thursday March 20 is being recognized as “Won’t You Wear a Sweater?” Day as part of the “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Days.

Tomorrow would be the 80th Birthday of America’s favorite neighbor, and to honor Mr. Rogers, Mr. McFeely — aka David Newell, the public relations director for Family Communications, Inc. (the nonprofit company founded in 1971 by Fred Rogers) — has a special request.

Mr. Rogers’s friend and speedy-delivery postman is asking everyone to wear their favorite sweater in recognition of Mr. Rogers and his neighborly legacy.

So tomorrow, THURSDAY MARCH 20, put on your favorite sweater, give an extra “hello” and smile to all of your neighbors and remember Mr. Rogers’ and the open-armed friendliness that he stood for.

Home ownership can be a confusing and overwhelming life change and because of this many homes are being foreclosed on.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is urging those in need to call 3-1-1, the city’s information phone number, to be directed to agencies and services designed to assist homeowners facing foreclosure.

Here are two articles offering some advice and resources about foreclosure which ran in both the Post-Gazette and the Tribune Review this morning.

Allegra Elson, a teacher at the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council located at 100 Sheridan Square in East Liberty, has been recognized as an outstanding teacher! Ms. Elson teachers English as a Second Language to immigrants, refugees and long-time foreign visitors.

Read more about her in the Post Gazette. Thanks to Ms. Elson for all of her hard work and dedicated to adult education!

East Liberty has a rich and intriguing history, and here is an opportunity to learn more about our neighborhood!

The East End-East Liberty Historical Society has released, Pittsburgh’s East Liberty Valley, a new book dedicated to the history of this area.

Part of the Arcadia Publishing local neighborhood series, “Pittsburgh’s East Liberty Valley” brings the reader from early pioneer days, including the era of the Shadyside Iron Furnace, to the late 19th Century Industrial Revolution. The promoters and inventors of iron and steel, oil, manufacturing, air brakes, aluminum production, and others — such as Carnegie, Frick, Armstrong, Mellon, Heinz, Scaife, Westinghouse, McCune, Lockhart, Phipps, and Hunt — all lived in East Liberty.

Retailing for $20.00, the book is available for purchase at the Franklin West office (272 Shady Avenue, Pgh., PA 15206; 412-661-1151; rentals@franklinwest.com) and through the East End-East Liberty Historical Society (5907 Penn Avenue, Ste. 305, Pgh., PA 15206; 412-661-9660; pbrecht@eastlibertychamber.org). It can also be purchased at any book store that carries the Arcadia “Images of America” series, including Borders Books.

Don’t miss out on this gem of local history!!

East Liberty Development received an honorable mention at Friday’s (January 25th) Seventeenth Maxwell Awards of Excellence luncheon sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness. East Liberty Development was also awarded a $10,000 grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation to continue its work in the field of supportive housing for homeless families.

“We are pleased and honored to have the Sojourner House MOMS project acknowledged as one of the best community-supported housing programs for homeless families in the country,” said Maelene Myers, executive director of East Liberty Development, Inc. “Sojourner MOMS offers a home and neighborhood connections to mothers recovering from addiction, as well as their children. These facilities are so important in combating homelessness in Pittsburgh’s East End and we plan to expand this project.”

“The Fannie Mae Foundation commends East Liberty Development for their outstanding efforts to prevent and end homelessness. We are pleased to award East Liberty Development a grant to continue its efforts to provide supportive housing to homeless families,” said Peter Beard, executive director of the Fannie Mae Foundation.

“East Liberty Development has greatly improved the lives of homeless families through its ability to provide appropriate supportive services and permanent housing for its tenants. They are a wonderful example of an organization committed to ending homelessness in their communities,” said Bob Hohler, executive director of the Melville Charitable Trust and executive committee chairman of the Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness.

Winners were selected by an independent advisory committee for having produced the best examples of supportive housing in four categories: Housing for Homeless Veterans; Housing for Chronically Homeless Individuals; Housing for Homeless Youth; and Housing for Homeless Families. Maxwell Award winners’ case studies are posted on the Partnership to End Long Term Homelessness website at www.endlongtermhomlessness.org.

Photo courtesy of PHLF.

Last Thursday, January 24, a press conference was held to announce the $1.135 Million investment in East Liberty’s Downtown. The former YMCA building, located on Whitfield Street behind East Liberty Presbyterian Church, will become market-rate condominium lofts which will, ideally, continue to boost East Liberty’s market.

The Landmark Community Capital Corporation (LCCC), a new non-profit subsidiary dedicated to local capital investment while preserving the historical integrity of the building, awarded the project a $885,000 loan. This project has been in partnership between LCCC, the URA, MEIZ Development Corporation, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, Senator Jim Ferlo, Congressman Mike Doyle, State Representative Joe Preston and Dr. Howard B. Slaughter, Jr.

“This is the first project really in the core of East Liberty that’s really going to bring life back to the neighborhood,” Maelene Myers, executive director of East Liberty Development, Inc., said at a news conference. “I cannot say enough about partnership.”

Read more about the project:
Tribune Review

Post Gazette

Pittsburgh Business Times