What happened to the far East End neighborhoods? (Pittsburgh, Penn Hills: crime, house)

[ryanm3685]

As of late, there's been some talk about Wilkinsburg - its history, good and bad areas, and hidden gems. I never knew exactly what caused sections of Wilkinsburg to go under. Was it just the fact that Homewood was nearby, because I've heard that the rivalry was so vicious that Homewood had to join forces with East Hills, and Wilkinsburg had to join forces with East Liberty, and those areas don't even like each other.

I also don't know too much about East Hills, Lincoln-Lemington, and Larimer. What caused those places to go bad? What kind of establishments did Lincoln Avenue have previously?

Larimer seems surprising, because I read that it had some of the same Italian communities that Bloomfield did. Only Larimer had better housing, because it's residents were often wealthier than those of Bloomfield. You would think that those residents would be better equipped to protect their neighborhood, no? If they did, we could have had two hopping Little Italys in Pittsburgh.

[bradjl2009]

I think location is a factor with why we have Bloomfield and no Larimer. Bloomfield is much more centrally located and is in a much more graceless area. I can't even remember the last time I had to drive through Mariner.

[Uptown kid]

As of late, there's been some talk about Wilkinsburg - its history, good and bad areas, and hidden gems. I never knew exactly what caused sections of Wilkinsburg to go under. Was it just the fact that Homewood was nearby, because I've heard that the rivalry was so vicious that Homewood had to join forces with East Hills, and Wilkinsburg had to join forces with East Liberty, and those areas don't even like each other.

The person who said Homewood & East Hills ceased fire to fight the LAW gang was a little off, but like myself and everybody else on this forum we've all been a little off at least once (especially when it comes to the underworld culture of street gangs and/or the history of the inner city- most stuff on the internet is either wrong or slightly off, looking back this even includes some of my own posts TBH.)

After fighting amongst each other for a long and violent duration in 1993, all sets of the Homewood Crips that were waring with another set linked up again. This was the big truce where feuding sides teamed up. After that, the Homewood Crips and East Hills Bloods did formally decide to lessen their war (it practically never stoped though), in order to focus on fighting the Wilkinsburg Hoods faction of the Larimer Avenue Wilkinsburg Gang (aka the LAW Gang of most notably Wilkinsburg and Larimer). So no, East Liberty was not really LAW hence the name Larimer; although,the East Liberty Gardens/Omega Place/Enright Court area east of Larimer Avenue was affiliated as LAW gang, but that area to this day is still considered "Larimer" by many black ppl of the far East End.

So both the linking up by Homewood's Crips which lasted until 2002, and the focus shift of the East Hills Bloods + Homewood Crips which lasted for some period in 1994, was in response to murders/shootings/disrespect from a large gang, the Wilkinsburg Hoods faction of LAW. LAW was founded when the original sets of the Larimer Avenue Hoods met with the Taylor Way Boyz/other original sets at a Wilkinsburg park. Before the all out LA style of gang/neighborhood rivalries of 1993, gangs in Pittsburgh were feuding to a lesser degree with each other in 1989-1992. They found common grounds as they both claimed the color black and feuded with BOTH Crips & Bloods. As Larimer beefed with the Garfield Bloods, Lincoln Avenue Crips and East Liberty's two separate Crip gangs, while Wilkinsburg beefed with the Homewood Crips and East Hills Bloods. Once they linked up, sets continued to grow in both respective neighborhoods, and the LAW gang spread across to dominate the whole neighborhood of Larimer and the bad part of Wilkinsburg which was larger than it is today. Before LAW dominated Wilkinsburg, both the Homewood Crips and East Hills Bloods had a presence in Wikkinsburg, but they were chased out. So this was the gang truce to focus on the LAW Gang in Wilkinsburg. Homewood was the first ghetto on the East (1970's it started to get bad) and was the first hood to have black street gangs (some were there even before the Crips). Thus Homewood's Crips were instigators to Garfield, the Hill District, the East Hills and Wilkinsburg and were a large part why they became Bloods (or against Crips in Wilkinsburg's case). While Homewood's predocesser gangs and 'Cociane Cowboyz' instigated rivalries with the black 'Cociane Cowboyz' and predocesser gangs in those four neighborhoods above, which started long before the Bloods and Crips came to town on 1989-'90/'91.

I can go on all day about the 1990's gang wars, because all throughout the 2000's that's what all the 30-40yr old 'cats would talk about at barbecues, barber shops, and such.

[Uptown kid]

I also don't know too much about East Hills, Lincoln-Lemington, and Larimer. What caused those places to go bad? What kind of establishments did Lincoln Avenue have previously?

Larimer seems surprising, because I read that it had some of the same Italian communities that Bloomfield did. Only Larimer had better housing, because it's residents were often wealthier than those of Bloomfield. You would think that those residents would be better equipped to protect their neighborhood, no? If they did, we could have had two hopping Little Italys in Pittsburgh.

-Larimer was most notably German to my knowledge. It was always gritty. the Mafia had a good hold there, but mafia's of that time tended to keep to keep neighborhoods safer than drug crews, let alone the street gangs, that eventually fallowed.
-Lincoln Avenue used to have a big car wash. There were other notable establishments as well. Lower Lincoln east of Lincoln Ave housed many poor Italians back in the day, maybe you were confused Lincoln and Larimer.

Urban Renewal, the steel mills going out, middle class black flight, mass white flight, drugs and an increase in crime all proliferated to decline of these neighborhoods East End neighborhoods (plus in Homewood's case the MLK riots). As soon as respective white flight occurred in each neighborhood, the city truly neglected the area. By this time they were all considered what the gov labeled distressed neighborhoods. Crack finished these areas off. The introduction of crack + violent gangs made G.field-East Lib-Larimer-Lincoln-Homewood-East Hills-Wilkinsburg = local epicenters of violence. Though Homewood was the worst and often acted as the aggressor in rivalries before 1993-the infamous year of gang violence. Wilkinsburg went down hard has black and white middle class fled, poverty, drugs, crime set in. Like all of these neighborhoods, Wilkinsburg lost population so: blight, urban decay, community pride, and business went down. This allowed this other problems and the location factor to fester. In addition, some ppl will tell you the Wilkinsburg police of the 80's war on drugs were crooked and hostile towards blacks, plus the KKK did a march, so race relations were NOT good for a while. Black youth jumped/robbed a few white guys broke into some white households around the time of the KKK march, so it was a bit two sided and their were racist bigots who were white and black.

In the 90's these communities were way more torn than they area now. The crack epidemic ruined house holds and older residents who- grew up in a time where blacks united to fight against in justice and oppression from whites, were against the 'gangsta culture' of black on black violence. The youth thought that the older generation were lame. This was seen all throughout America until African Americans/blacks took black their communities one by one. Peace rallies and barbecues really helped. This dynamic of a torn community was also present mixed race neighborhoods like: Northern Knoxville, part of Hazelwood, Homestead, Duquesne- south of the tracks, Central McKeesport, the areas of Aliquppia closest to downtown, etc.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by ryanm3685

Larimer seems surprising, because I read that it had some of the same Italian communities that Bloomfield did. Only Larimer had better housing, because it's residents were often wealthier than those of Bloomfield. You would think that those residents would be better equipped to protect their neighborhood, no? If they did, we could have had two hopping Little Italys in Pittsburgh.

I can only speak of what I know for certain and it's about Larimer, East Liberty and Highland Park. One side of my husband's large Italian family is from there. They all left due to white flight. Sadly, it was as simple as that for them. They moved to the eastern and northern suburbs. I'm guessing this was the 50s and 60s. My husband was born in the mid-50s. I'll have to ask him if his relatives had already fled by the time he was born.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by Uptown kid

This dynamic of a torn community was also present mixed race neighborhoods like: Deutschtown, Northern Knoxville, Hazelwood, Homestead, Duquesne, McKeesport, Aliquppia, etc.

I think you're wrong about Deutschtown. It was still mostly white in the 80s. I lived in North Side then.

[Uptown kid]

^Oh your right then. Yet the poor whites of Marshall-California, Cali-Kirk, Perry Hilltop, and Central Northside, though very much minorities were in this dynamic rather than Deutschtown which did have mixed-race gangs like the Trades and Deutschtown Boyz. I thought Deutschtown because I saw many poor whites who at a Northside peace rally in 1996 on a caset tape. But you can ignore this as I will edit it out.

[selltheburgh]

Larimer was very Italian from the 50s through the 80s. There are a few older Italian folks who don't speak much English that still live there.

Also the section of Highland Park and East Liberty near the Meadow St Bridge was very Italian. Collins, Sheridan, St Marie.

From what I've been told and have seen, in the 40's 50's and 60's N Euclid south of Stanton was Italian and Mellon and N St Clair were mostly Jewish.

[ryanm3685]

Uptown Kid, thank you very much for sharing what you know, very impressive! Things could be so much better if the city never neglected any neighborhoods. Even if the neighborhoods lost a lot of population, whatever the ethnicities of the former and remaining residents, they could have still held their own. Also, I wish Pittsburgh would have diversified a lot earlier than it did, so that the loss of the steel mills wasn't so destructive.

How did Point Breeze North and Highland Park manage to hold their own despite bordering those areas? Penn Hills should have taken a page from their books, and maybe Lincoln Park wouldn't have gone through as much hell as it did.

[ryanm3685]

Originally Posted by selltheburgh

Larimer was very Italian from the 50s through the 80s. There are a few older Italian folks who don't speak much English that still live there.

Also the section of Highland Park and East Liberty near the Meadow St Bridge was very Italian. Collins, Sheridan, St Marie.

From what I've been told and have seen, in the 40's 50's and 60's N Euclid south of Stanton was Italian and Mellon and N St Clair were mostly Jewish.

Someone I talked to said there's still an Italian food store, on Larimer Avenue near the bridge, that has some awesome sausage. Maybe I should learn some Italian, because I bet the Italians still in Larimer patronize this store.