If you’re in East Liberty today or tomorrow, you’ll notice that everything is where it’s expected it to be, unless you’re tuned to your GPS. The street names are changing to reflect the new grid.
With the neighborhood’s impressive revival over the last decade, the city has been working to reintegrate Penn Circle into the community. The streets which made up Penn Circle have been renamed to coincide with their corresponding streets outside the circle. The city began making the streets two-way in 2010, a process which remains ongoing.
From the East Liberty destinations standpoint:
- Kelly’s, Spoon, BRGR and Whole Foods are now on Centre Avenue.
- The East Liberty Farmer’s Market is now at the corner of North Euclid Avenue and Station Street.
- The Allegheny Intermediate Unit is now on Euclid Avenue.
- Station Street Hot Dogs remains, shockingly, at 6290 Broad Street.
Here’s a quick primer on all of the changes, which went into effect last week and are being finalized today and tomorrow with new street signs:
- Penn Circle South and Penn Circle East are now both a part of Centre Avenue, allowing Centre to run uninterrupted from its Downtown origin until it hits East Liberty Boulevard. The small section of Collins Street between East Liberty Boulevard and Station Street is also now officially part of Centre Avenue.
- Penn Circle West has been reabsorbed by Euclid Avenue. North Euclid Avenue now runs from the north in Highland Park to its intersection at Penn Avenue, at which point it becomes South Euclid Avenue until ending at Baum Boulevard.
- Penn Circle North has been reabsorbed by Station Street.
- Everything else remains as is.
Penn Circle, the early 1960s project that turned a large chunk of East Liberty into an outdoor pedestrian mall, involved the destruction of nearly a million square feet of small shops and the construction of a series of one-way streets. It didn’t work as planned and East Liberty fell largely into blight within a few years.