Liberty Building: (6101 Penn Ave)

The Liberty Building represents the beginning of East Liberty’s construction boom around the same time that the electric streetcar system was introduced. Built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, this building demonstrates how the completion of H.H. Richardson's County Courthouse in 1888 popularized Romanesque Revival architecture.

This building initially housed the Liberty National Bank, which had several prominent East End investors sitting as the board of directors. The other floors of the six-story structure housed a range of professional tenants such as physicians, dentists and real estate agents. It’s stature and grand style suggests the optimism of the period when it was constructed and represents the role of East Liberty as a center for professional services as well as retail. Few other neighborhoods in the area provided services like East Liberty did.

Sources:

“East Liberty Commercial Historic District: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.” Prepared by Michael Eversmeyer and Angelique Bamberg. National Park Service. November 3, 2010

“Up-town, Greater Pittsburgh’s Classic Section: East End, the World’s Most Beautiful Suburb.” Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Board of Trade, 1907. Retrieved from Historic Pittsburgh Book Collection, University of Pittsburgh at https://www.historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/object/pitt%3A00aah6674m