Once upon a time, and a very bad time it was, shabby, derelict Lawrenceville seemed down for the count. Although there were many houses from the Civil War era, historically attractive and built to last, time and tide were not kind. Too many were vermin-infested, boarded up, seemingly beyond repair. Windows agape, roofs torn, the worst hosted crack addicts – and pigeon refuse three inches deep.
“It was tough to see those changes,” RIDC’s Frank Brooks Robinson, Jr., says. “It was a tough time.”
Nevertheless, there was much to recommend the area. Sandwiched between Downtown and the pricey East End, Lawrenceville was “compelling,” developer Joe Edelstein says. There was a walkable Main Street, river frontage, a solid core community.
It’s hard to say who first saw real potential in the crumbling buildings, who had sufficient faith to put down cold cash – and sufficient persuasive powers to convince others to do the same.
Some say it was A-1 Realty’s Lee Gross, who, arriving in ’95, was first, or at least among the firsts. “Everything was all boarded up,” he remembers. Having heard that artists were finding their way to Lawrenceville, he thought he’d take a look. Liking what he saw, he bought a building. “Everyone thought I was crazy,” he says. But he liked the feel and bought another. After that, “I just went up and down the street,” he says.
In the last two years, Gross says, “Lawrenceville has recognition and demand has surged.” With upscale restaurants, boutiques, and galleries drawing professors and programmers, attorneys and architects, doctors and designers, “it’s a very hip crowd,” he says. “People love coming here. From 1995 to now the change is amazing.”
Transformed by Art
After Gross, another important arrival was Artists and Cities, a non-profit group providing affordable space for artists. Created in 1994 by Becky Burdick and Linda Metropulos, Artists and Cities targeted “neighborhoods that hadn’t yet had an opportunity to pick themselves up,” Metropulos says.
Fresh from their Spinning Plate success in Bloomfield, when Burdick and Metropulos transformed a former Baum Boulevard auto dealership into artists’ space, the two turned to Lawrenceville. “In the ‘90s virtually no one was investing in Lawrenceville,” Metropulos remembers. “Becky and I felt there was an opportunity to find a use for abandoned buildings and also to bring new construction to the neighborhood.”
At the time, the 100-year-old Ice House was boarded-up and bound in weeds. “It was a real gem,” Metropulos says of the 43rd Street factory, “that no one else saw in a neighborhood that no one else was interested in.” By ’99 they had secured funding, opening 32 artists’ work spaces in June, ’01.
Four years later, in ’05, came Blackbird Lofts, 36th and Butler, a new building that fit perfectly into the Lawrenceville architectural fabric. Designed by Strada’s legendary neighborhood-context maestro John Martine, Blackbird took 11,000 square feet of vacant space and transformed it into a middle-income mixed-use building. “Condominiums for wealthy people were not our model,” Metropulos says. “People thought we were crazy. But we pushed the envelope. We wanted people to invest here.”
They did. Not only did every one of the 15 loft-style units sell, but they went to “a great group of people,” she says, half of whom moved to Pittsburgh from elsewhere. Standing back, taking a deep breath, Artists and Cities closed it doors. “It’s one of the things I’m proudest of,” Metropulos says.
Impact of the Pioneers
Pride informs Joe Edelstein’s Lawrenceville projects, too. Like Lee Gross the recipient of numerous historic preservation awards, Edelstein’s Wylie Holdings has been working for a decade in Lawrenceville. He came, he says, because he wanted “a walkable neighborhood that had the prospect of becoming great. So we didn’t target serviceable, good-looking buildings. They’re not part of the problem. We wanted to make the greatest possible impact. We could take a building that’s falling down and turn it into something.
“I feel like a pioneer,” Edelstein adds. “It’s exciting to be part this revitalization; it’s a heady time. When I see scaffolding belonging to someone else, I’m happy. Because Lawrenceville is a good investment.”
RIDC’s Frank Brooks Robinson, Jr., knows all about good investments. Spreading out aerial photos of the Lawrenceville waterfront, there – there he circles a finger – are 14 acres, the former Heppenstall Steel site, “a very strategic property,” he says. Using 
words like “cluster” and “synergy,” Robinson speaks of “organically growing this development."
“I have a whole lot of optimism,” he adds. “This neighborhood – this site – has geography. There are risk takers -- committed people. Engines of growth. A good mix of neighborhood activity.”
An expert in brownfield development, he’s re-cast such former industrial sites as Keystone Commons (Westinghouse’s East Pittsburgh works) and the Pittsburgh Technology Center (J&L’s South Oakland works). Now he’s planning the Lawrenceville Technology Center.
Working on the idea since 2001, RIDC purchased the site in ’02, began planning in ’03, looking for uses that will be compatible with the neighborhood. “The challenge of this site is that it’s right in the middle of a residential community,” Robinson says. “There are emotional as well as physical ties here. So we want to be good neighbors. One goal is to weave the site back into the community – and open the sight lines to the river.”
Neighbors, related perhaps to the adjacent CMU robotics facility, spin-offs “ready to move into their own digs,” Robinson says. Neighbors, like the new Children’s Hospital up the hill on Penn Avenue, “ready to produce the next step in bio-engineering – clean, high-end, advanced manufacturing.”
Yes, that Children’s Hospital, says Joe Edelstein, with its 3,500 employees and incalculable visitors. “What an incredible windfall for this neighborhood,” he says, “the cherry on top of the sundae. It’s the single most substantial development on the horizon, one that will have a dynamic impact. It will be incredibly positive.”
Poised to transform Lawrenceville the way that Shadyside and West Penn Hospitals helped transformed Friendship, Children’s may make all the difference to the neighborhood. “Once the hospital opens,” Lee Gross says, “forget about it.”
Award-winning writer Abby Mendelson is the author of numerous books, including The Pittsburgh Steelers Official History and Pittsburgh: A Place in Time. Ghost Dancer, a collection of short stories, is available at amazon and bn.com.
Photos:
Kelly Hoffman (Lawrenceville Corp.) and F. Brooks Robinson (RIDC)
Lee Gross
Mural
Linda Metropulous
Joe Edelstein
Children's Hospital under construction
All photographs copyright © Ed Rieker