The rubble from homes demolished in East Liberty to make way for Whole Foods. The “authorized personnel only” sign on a chain link fence is covered in stickers that say “Homes Not Whole Foods.”
Note: This piece was written from perspective of an attendee at the meeting between developers from LG Realty Advisors and the East Liberty community that took place on Monday, December 12, 2016 at the East Liberty Presbyterian church.
First, please watch the video below, in which a Black woman born and raised in Pittsburgh addresses the developers who have demolished the homes at Penn Plaza in East Liberty to make way for the Whole Foods. Please note that after Jacquea Mae spoke, lawyer Jonathan Kamin, representing LG Realty Advisors, told her that she had “no grounds” to speak freely at this community meeting. Jacquea Mae is a member of the artist and activist collective 1HoodMedia.org.
In 1999 the plan for East Liberty was to have a mixed income neighborhood with housing for everyone, where low-income homes would be indistinguishable from market rates homes. Seventeen years later, Black residents have been displaced to make room for a flagship 50,000 square foot Whole Foods, built less than a mile from another Whole Foods store on Centre Avenue. Over 300 Black citizens have been relocated, either (according to the developers) elsewhere in East Liberty, elsewhere in Pittsburgh, or outside of the city. Their homes have been demolished. Apartments will be built above the grocery store that will go for an unrestricted market rate, renting for thousands of dollars a month. None of the apartments that are being put in place will replace the homes destroyed. Developers called the meeting on December 12 with the stated intention of gathering community input for the redevelopment of Enright Park, which has also been partially demolished to make way for Whole Foods. Community members were told they had less than 18 hours to present their wishes for the park to a meeting with the city of Pittsburgh planning commission at 2 pm the following afternoon.
The only universal truth that I know is that nobody knows what is best for anybody, and this sentence kept turning over and over in my head like a short prayer while in attendance at the meeting. It took me a minute, as I sat in the front row crinkling my bag of Doritos, for me to recognize how angry I was, this simmering distress that was making my heart beat faster. It took me a second to see just what was up with the suits who came in with their five-figure watches and told the members of the public that they wanted to hear what they had to say—but only as long as the comments were about the park, and not Black peoples’ homes or lives. The presentation by the developers from LG Realty Advisors was full of distractions from what should have been the issue on the table: people. Instead of people, they started by talking about the removal of trees necessary to make way for the grocery store, trees they were responsible for replanting — that would take fifty or sixty years to return to their beauty. They talked about about the width of sidewalks. They talked about how the park would be 2.2 acres counting the sidewalk and this was more than they had to allocate so we should be happy about it. They talked about bike lanes. They threw up some pictures from what looked like a Google image search about some different features the park could have, where they said, “Your children can come and play.”
Demolition of the affordable housing previously at Penn Plaza.
A playground does not resolve the economic inequalities that result in Black families being relocated. It does not offer the promise of a sustainable future. A playground is not the same as the affordable daycare center originally planned for Penn Plaza—or affordable daycare centers that used to be a part of affordable housing constructed in East Liberty back in the day, affordable housing that the city also failed to invest in and also destroyed when it became a “symbol of decline.” No, the playground equipment is being constructed for children who will be living in the market rate homes or children whose parents can afford to shop at Whole Foods. It is not being constructed for the East Liberty community members who were taken from their homes and sent away. And for the record, it is not being constructed for the children of someone like me, who has too little money to envision being in a financially secure position to have and raise children the way I want to have and raise them.
The developers from LG Realty Advisors continued to show their blind spots to the community members as they said that all of these plans had been on the mayor’s website all along, never considering the fact that some of the people most affected by the changes might not have easy access to the Internet, or might be so busy trying to survive day to day that they don’t have time to log onto the mayor’s website. Have you ever walked past the East Liberty library and seen how many people use the computers to get online? And what would be the point in logging on, if the laws favor the real estate developers anyway? The developers, the city, can do whatever they want; this project is perfectly legal, but that doesn’t make it right.
That’s when it occurred to me that the narrative LG Realty Advisors was putting forth at this meeting in the basement of the East Liberty church was exactly the same narrative that has been put forth since colonizers arrived in America and began to relocate Indigenous people West from their homes—another act that was perfectly legal under American law. The developers kept insisting, time and time again, that they could do whatever they wanted with this land — they owned it — reasserting their dominance and power over the members of the public present at the meeting.
A no loitering sign in East Liberty displayed next to an image of a Black family, with a caption reading “Times Have Changed.”
And they kept urging those in attendance to stop talking about Whole Foods or houses and refocus public attention on the park, these little peanuts they threw out to the community for 18 hours of input into the design. As the developers from LG Realty kept directing the public to the “boxes” they could design, I kept thinking about prisons, all these little boxes that people are shuttled through, all these places to check on a form, these false illusions of autonomy that are put forth so that we believe we have a say in people who profit off of stripping our lives away from us. The park — the amount of park that the developers are so graciously leaving for public input — is a numbing agent to keep the East Liberty community from feeling a systematic disease and nobody believes it, and nobody is accepting it as enough, because it just isn’t.
Plans for Whole Foods, parking garage, and apartments that will cost thousands of dollars in rent at Penn Plaza to replace the affordable homes destroyed.
Plans for the redevelopment of Enright Park.
The developers immediately followed up their assertions of power over the community — the reiteration that they owned the land, they could do what they wanted — with the reasons why they thought the community should be grateful. For example, LG Realty Advisors were sure to point out that they were the only development company earmarking $12 million for affordable housing. (As a community member in attendance pointed out, they’re also the only ones redeveloping Penn Plaza.) In any case, the earmarked money does sound nice and generous, except for when you consider the fact that a lot of that money comes from tax breaks — so it’s actually our money in the first place. The developers insisted that they are allowed to do that, they are allowed their tax breaks, its up to them to decide what they do with it which, yes, it is true, because everything in this country favors the rich — that doesn’t mean that the rest of the public has to be grateful, or to settle for the scraps they hand out.
Plans for Whole Foods. This was the first time developers had shown their plans to the public, with less than 18 hours for community input.
LG Realty Advisors also made it a point to list all the things they had done to relocate the Black people who lived in the subsidized housing units that had been destroyed, different levels of support they provided to be sure Black people had a “choice” about where they ended up, failing to realize that people did not want to “end up” anywhere, but would probably prefer to be granted the respect of autonomy over their own lives. In all of the praise the developers heaped upon themselves they failed to imagine that people didn’t want to be living in subsidized housing in the first place, that, as men with enormous amounts of wealth and power, they are in the unique position to do something radical — rather than moving people, providing with a means to get themselves out of poverty. Rather than shuttling them from place to place, provide the space to build their own businesses maybe. Or a grocery store where the community can afford to buy the produce. You don’t know what is best for anybody.
At the beginning of this post I asked you to watch the video with Jacquea Mae, and here she is addressing the Penn Plaza developers again. Immediately following this, Jonathan Kamin, the lawyer representing LG Media Advisors (the man on the right) chastised Jacquea Mae for “not wanting to listen” or “engage in a dialogue.”
He was right. When individuals with money and enormous power are making choices that affect peoples’ lives, it is they who have to be quiet and listen to the ones they are affecting—not police their emotions, their manner of speaking, or the way in which their message is being shared. Lawyer Jonathan Kamin fails to realize that he is a member of a group that has had the entire course of human history to speak. Wouldn’t being quiet and listening be a radical act that could lead to change?
There is an expectation at these kinds of meetings, I think, for community to arrive complete informed about what is happening — to have been following the progress of change through the mayor’s website, through news reports — despite the fact that nothing is done to empower people to feel as though they have any say in the change that is inevitably going to happen. Big box stores come in, Black people are relocated, men in expensive suits and enormous, costly watches stand at the front of a room and lecture the public about how gentrification is “good for some people” (them). And they will tell us their names but they won’t tell us their annual salaries but it’s okay, many of us already know you make way more than we will ever know.
It’s important to show up to meetings like this if you can, it’s important to be ugly and unapologetic, it’s important to speak and keep speaking, and be angry, because if we are not angry then, to paraphrase Zora Neale Hurston, people will take everything away and say that you agreed.
These men are ultimately going to be responsible for turning East Liberty into a place where only rich white people can afford to live, and all the while they are going to be telling the community members they are displacing that what they are doing is healthy, and right, because it makes money.
They’re going to keep talking about their grocery store and their parking lot, and say nothing about people, because they have never had to consider anybody mattering outside of their own scope of reality.
Concerns about the Penn Plaza redevelopment can be directed to the city at dolores.hanna@pittsburghpa.gov, where they will be a matter of public record.
A brief update: On December 13, 2016, following this community meeting, so many people turned up to the city council to provide their testimony that they did not have time to cast their vote for the redevelopment of Enright Park. They have moved the vote to January 10, 2016. Please continue to voice your objections to the removal of affordable housing from East Liberty and the favoriting of corporate interests over the lives of Black citizens of Pittsburgh.
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