Garfield

Garfield is located on the East end of Pittsburgh next to Friendship, Bloomfield, and East Liberty and Stanton Heights. Similarly to Friendship and Bloomfield, Garfield was also owned by Winebiddle. The name Garfield is actually after the late President James Garfield!

Garfields earliest settlers were blue collar Irish laborers and their families who worked in the mills along the Allegheny River. A modest neighborhood for modest families and most everyone in the neighborhood was steel workers, repairmen, and  all around just extremely blue-collar. Around the 1960’s though Garfield residents started to leave the city to move to nicer suburbs such as Penn Hills and Shaler. While this was all going on is about the time the city decided to change East Liberty into an Urban shopping area to try to bring in more upper-class people to the neighborhood, unfortunately if you know anything about Pittsburgh history you would know that the plan was a complete waste which cost the city a ton of money and almost completely ruined East Liberty. In turn since so many people were moving out of Garfield and East Liberty the city decided to put in a public housing facility named “Garfield Borders” and changed the housing policy so old houses would need to be improved to meet the cities new demands which caused a lot of older residents to flee rather than spend tons of money adding pointless additions to their childhood home.

From 1970-2000s Garfield went from 10,000 residents to 5,000 residents. All the jobs that the Irish settlers had are but gone and the neighborhood is now full of renters, most of which are either working in a nearby neighborhood or apart of the public housing. Some of the neighborhood’s current traditions are negative ones such as drug dealing, prostitution, and illegitimacy are common nowadays in Garfield, and children attending the neighborhoods cchool often fall behind the PA average in grades.

It’s unfortunate that one of the best neighborhoods went from being a subtle middle-class blue-collar town right outside of the glam runoff of East Liberty.

Personally I would not suggest this neighborhood, though I do strangely love it in Garfield the neighborhood is now riddled with crime and homicide, drugs, and gangs. I believe anything Pittsburgh tries to do to it will only make things worse as it had in East Liberty when they first tried to revitalize it.

A few noteworthy places to visit in Garfield though would be Garfield artworks on Penn Avenue which is an art studio as well as a music venue where musicians and artists go to perform. I would also recommend Roboto Project which may technically be in Bloomfield/Friendship area but it is very close to the Garfield line. If you are looking for great Indian food “People’s” also located on Penn Avenue is the best Indian food in the city (in my opinion at least!)

So be careful if you’re looking to move around the Friendship and Bloomfield areas because a lot will advertise as one and end up being in Garfield, my best advice is to avoid going past Penn Ave in Garfield if you do decide to visit.