It was an uncharacteristically warm day in East Liberty during early February 2024, and I was desperately looking forward to a massage to distract me from a heavy workload and the inescapable seasonal depression that suffocates the city under its near-permanent gray, low clouds. Wanting to take advantage of the favorable conditions, I closed my laptop and decided to walk the 25 minutes to my appointment. 

While waiting for a stoplight to change, I took a moment to admire the East Liberty Presbyterian Church in typical fashion when, suddenly, a series of loud screeches came from the steeple and a bird rocketed from a light fixture into the sky. The rapid wingbeats propelled the raptor over the nearby AAA building, around the Walnut on Highland apartment high-rise across the street, and eventually to the cross atop the steeple where it came to a rest. As I got closer to the church, I noticed a second bird perched elsewhere on the structure, and I could not believe my eyes. A pair of peregrine falcons, which had never before been documented at the church, were claiming it as their new nest site. That’s a big deal.

What’s So Special About Peregrine Falcons in Pittsburgh?

You see, fewer than 100 years ago, peregrine falcons – the fastest animals on the planet, which clock in at over 240 miles per hour while diving in their signature stoop almost went extinct. The man-made pesticide, DDT, was commonly sprayed on fields starting in the mid-1900s to control insect populations.

An unforeseen consequence, however, was that birds that ate insects carried traces of DDT in their systems. The falcons that preyed on those same birds would then, in turn, ingest the DDT. The accumulated DDT weakened the falcons’ eggs, depleting them of the crucial calcium needed to maintain their shell strength. The falcons would cover the eggs to incubate them, but the shells, too weak under the weight of the parents, would crack. Peregrine numbers plummeted worldwide, and in the 1960s, there were no peregrine falcons remaining in the eastern United States, and their numbers out west collapsed by a staggering 90%.

Thankfully, in 1972, the United States Environmental Protection Agency – influenced in part by Pittsburgh native Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring – banned the use of DDT, thus laying the groundwork for the peregrine’s recovery. Professor Tom Cade of Cornell University founded The Peregrine Fund to breed peregrines in captivity and release them into the wild in an effort to help populations rebound. The program works to successfully restore peregrine falcons to their historic range in the United States. In 1999, they were officially removed from the United States Endangered Species List.

How These Falcons Came to the Burgh

Peregrine falcons aren’t native to Pittsburgh – or to cities at all, in fact. Their traditional habitats are typically on cliff-sides or along coastlines, as well as mountains and river valleys where they’re able to find high perches to catch the wind and hunt their prey on the wing. Peregrine comes from the Latin for pilgrim or traveler. Thus it’s fitting that they wander from their birth sites to find new territories with similar suitable environs to raise their own offspring, sometimes traveling thousands of miles.

As part of the rehabilitation efforts, conservationists put nest boxes atop skyscrapers and bridges, which mimic the conditions in which the raptors evolved. As it turns out, peregrine falcons have adapted very quickly to their new urban environments and now, within roughly 40 years, fare better than their counterparts in non-urban settings. In fact, New York City, with its endless skyscrapers boasting manmade cliffs and ledges and abundant supply of pigeon meat, boasts the highest density of nesting peregrines anywhere on earth.

Early Conservation Efforts

According to Kate St. John, Pittsburgh’s peregrine authority who documents her avian observations on her blog, Outside My Window, these falcons were first spotted nesting in downtown Pittsburgh in the winter of 1989-1990. With the approval of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, nest boxes were installed at the Gulf Tower by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Peregrines have continuously nested there and at other downtown sites ever since, and in 2002, peregrines also began nesting atop the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning. Numerous other nest sites have popped up in the region, primarily on bridges over the city’s three rivers, and numbers locally have steadily increased.

Programs here and elsewhere have allowed researchers to band chicks that are born at some known sites and track their movements. In fact, the newest female resident at Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning can be tracked back to a skyscraper in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she hatched in 2020 and was named Carla after a prominent employee in the building.

When I contacted St. John about this newly-spotted pair, she indicated this might be the first known nesting attempt by peregrines at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church. And with peregrines being notoriously territorial, the existing nest at the University of Pittsburgh, roughly 2 miles away as the peregrine flies, might prove to be an issue.

The Problem with Falcons in the City

Where was the dividing line between territories, we wondered. Would these new falcons be treated as invaders, or could peaceful coexistence be achieved? With this new potential site being a quick 10-minute walk from home, I volunteered to keep an eye on their progress and report back regularly. As luck would have it, one of the local establishments had some outdoor picnic tables perfectly positioned for monitoring the new couple (peregrines mate for life), and after purchasing some binoculars, I set out to observe – but, as is often the case, I was witness to so much more.

In the northern hemisphere, peregrine falcons typically lay their clutch of 2 to 4 eggs sometime between late February and the end of March, and incubation generally lasts around 30 to 35 days. This meant a lot of time spent freezing my ass off while seated on a wooden bench on the corner of Baum Boulevard and Highland Avenue with my neck craned toward the sky. 

How Peregrine Falcons Nest

The female eventually settled on a former red tailed hawk nest under a buttress toward the top of the steeple as the ideal spot to try her hand at raising a family. Peregrine falcons prefer flat ledges with dirt or gravel so they can dig a depression into which they lay their eggs, but on the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, some of the most prime real estate in the city for these elevation-loving birds of prey, no such flat surfaces exist. The hawks that once occupied the site built a nest of sticks, and those sticks provided the necessary security for the eggs – they wouldn’t roll off the surface of the church, and the falcons recognized this as their best shot at success. Those who came before helped pave their way, despite it being non-traditional for peregrine falcons.

During courtship, the falcons stay close to home to protect their turf. The more agile male, about a third smaller than the female, hunts prey to feed the pair as they share incubation duties. Yes, males do assist in the incubation process, although the amount of time they spend on the eggs will vary by pair (sounds familiar to many of us at ground-level, doesn’t it?). 

Come mid-April, I could assume there were eggs in the nest since the female was spending her time crouched therein with only the tips of her tail feathers visible. Unfortunately, from my street-level perch, there was no way to know how many eggs there might be. Unlike the University of Pittsburgh’s nest site, there is not an National Aviary-run “falcon cam” here where folks can tune in online and keep tabs on the birds and their little ones as they hatch and eventually fledge. 

The Beauty of Bird Watching

While trying to spot any evidence of successful hatching, I had plenty of time to soak in my surroundings without rushing somewhere else. The unforeseen beauty of bird watching, as it turns out, is ample down time. In my line of sight from the picnic bench is a branch of Pittsburgh’s magnificent Carnegie Library system, yet another legacy of one of Pittsburgh’s industrial barons who, unlike those in a similar position today, saw philanthropy as an essential responsibility that comes with such enormous wealth. I couldn’t help but wonder what Andrew Carnegie might think of the current scenery, the current state of the world – and the contrast that I’m sure he’d notice when it came to his ilk in the modern era, something impossible to ignore when a Tesla driver honks impatiently as an elderly woman crosses the street on her way to mass.

The Unexpected Effects of These Falcons

As the temperatures rose, so did the number of passers-by curious about what I was staring at in the heavens. A steady stream of Uber and Doordash drivers would pop on their hazards and leave their cars as they fetched Nashville hot chicken and poké bowls for my neighbors, chatting on their phones in Turkish, Arabic, and Uzbek. Open windows from other passing vehicles emitted an endless sensory tapestry of news radio, thundering bass, cigarette smoke, and the heady, unmistakable aroma of the stickiest and ickiest of marijuana. The odor of car exhaust added a familiar top note to the aromatic profile of the corner, particularly during the evening rush hour.

The bar whose tables I’d been using to observe the falcons inquired about my activities. They even ended up naming a cocktail after the new residents (it is going back on the menu this year, too, I’m told). A local woman, infamous for asking anyone within earshot if they can spare a dollar, took note of my repeat appearances and started to engage in friendly banter. After a few weeks, I, too, became something of a neighborhood fixture as “the bird guy,” and what started as a chance encounter became a near-daily routine.

Read More about East Liberty’s evolution in part one and East Liberty’s future in part three.

Story by Adam Knoerzer
Photo Courtesy of Nijwam Swargiary

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine’s print edition.

The East Liberty Presbyterian Church is impossible to miss. The current structure, completed in 1935, is a soaring Gothic masterpiece that occupies an entire city block at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Highland Avenue in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood. Its $4 million construction costs were fully funded by the famed Pittsburgh industrialist and philanthropist Mellon family, and the land on which it stands was donated in 1819 by the Negley family, another titan clan from the city’s storied industrial past. Its architect, Ralph Adams Cram, designed New York City’s St. John the Divine Cathedral and Princeton University’s chapel, but he was quoted in March of 1935 saying, “of all the cathedrals and churches I have built this is my masterpiece. This church has been the most profound spiritual experience of my life.” 

East Liberty’s Continuing Renovations

The church’s website – a necessary evangelical tool in today’s world – describes the congregation as “a diverse community of believers extending Christ’s radical hospitality to all,” and you’ll find pages dedicated to racial justice and full inclusion, community events, summer concerts and film series, and Taizé prayer services, which date back to France in the 1940s as a means of reconciling divisions among different Christian denominations, Catholic and Protestant alike. Regular tours of the space are on offer, and, perhaps unsurprisingly with the above programming in mind, there are several yoga classes from which one can choose, too.

Across from the church on Highland Avenue and the south side of Penn Avenue, newly arrived commercial tenants hawk high-end salads and French pâtisseries alongside sushi and designer spectacles. On Baum Boulevard, which borders the southern edge of the structure, artisanal brick oven pizzas (vegan options available, naturally) come out alongside craft cocktails and Alpine-inspired beers and wines. A block to the east of the church is language-learning app Duolingo’s headquarters, complete with its very own taqueria that is open to the public. An Ace Hotel, emblematic of the neighborhood’s cachet, even enjoyed a brief tenure in the old YMCA across from the church on Whitfield Street before changing hands and becoming part of the Kasa portfolio of properties post-COVID.

A Hint of the Past on the Other Side

But on the north side of Penn Avenue –  a mere 8 or 9 steps away – you see the neighborhood as it was pre-“revitalization” programs in recent decades. The local pizza joint on the corner buzzes as residents meet and greet, and a stroll down the block reveals wig shops and inexpensive clothing stores separated by boarded-up storefronts. Students from the nearby Obama Academy chatter after school while walking home, their conversations punctuated by the vocabulary of youth. The Kelly Strayhorn Theater, named after neighborhood legends Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn, focuses its services on black women, members of the queer community, and, per their website, “will continue centering historically resilient folks.” Its neighbors are an AIDS task force office and an outpost of Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services, as well as a trendy café that seems unique in the area for its broad cross-section of clientele. 

Combining the New and Old of East Liberty

I’ve walked through and around this intersection – these intersections, really, in all of their forms – in the church’s shadow countless times since moving to Pittsburgh nearly 15 years ago. From errands to groceries to social gatherings, this city block has become a central pole in my Pittsburgh experience. In the time since my arrival, the transformation has been swift and significant; when the Target down the block from the church opened in the summer of 2011, it was abundantly clear that the neighborhood had, indeed, shifted. But for all that was changing in front of my eyes, it was in looking skyward toward the East Liberty Presbyterian Church’s soaring 300-foot reinforced concrete steeple last February that I discovered the neighborhood’s newest residents, a pair of peregrine falcons, and, in turn, the perfect metaphor for the neighborhood: flight.

Read More about the city’s peregrine falcons in part two and East Liberty’s future in part three.

Story by Adam Knoerzer
Photo Courtesy of East Liberty Presbyterian Church

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine’s print edition.

As I saw peregrine falcons set up new digs at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, I contemplated the neighborhood. The area was originally farmland around the time of the American revolution. “Liberty” was the name given to areas on the outskirts of cities in those days. East Liberty was developed as orchards by the end of the 1780s.

The Negley family that donated the land for the Presbyterian Church were the first permanent European settlers in the area. By the late 1800s, East Liberty was, according to the East Liberty Development, Inc., “the richest suburb in America.” The Heinz, Westinghouse, Carnegie, and Mellon families counted among its residents. 

Gentrification’s Impact on the Future of East Liberty’s Community

The early 1900s saw continued neighborhood growth with the addition of theatres graced by itinerant and local talents. Regent Theatre, the oldest, is now named after local legends Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn). The area entered a period of peak prosperity after the Great Depression. The city built numerous churches, synagogues, and community establishments to support the population boom. This would continue until nearly 1960, when a suburbanization program, something akin to neighborhood DDT, destroyed the urban fabric. Single-family housing was demolished in favor of the highway-style Penn Circle that was installed in the district’s center. High-rise apartments were also constructed in their place. The commercial life of the district was disrupted, triggering a period of decline. As seen in so many other parts of the United States, white residents left for the suburbs. East Liberty was all but forgotten.

In 1979, the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce formed East Liberty Development, Inc. (ELDI), a non-profit intended to focus on redevelopment of the neighborhood with a special focus on Penn and Highland Avenues. Despite their initial efforts, the neighborhood suffered. East Liberty had a dangerous reputation, and the chasm between those with and without continued to grow.

Revitalization and Its Realities 

Large-scale shifts took place starting in 2000. A Home Depot was constructed on Highland Avenue a few blocks north of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church. Whole Foods followed nearby in 2002. Around the same time, a pedestrian bridge crossed the busway and train tracks that kept Shadyside and East Liberty apart for so long. The dour and dreary apartment buildings came down. Trader Joe’s, Walgreen’s, and other banking and retail outlets established themselves. Google leased office space in nearby Bakery Square in 2010. Target opened its doors to the community a year later. By some accounts, the neighborhood was on an upward trajectory with hundreds of jobs, many reportedly filled by local residents.

Displacement in East Liberty

But, as with all things, it’s a matter of perspective. In their 2016 “Black Homes Matter” report, the Pittsburgh Fair Development Action Group described how recent development targeted a “new demographic.” The reality is easy to see. The “transformation” of the neighborhood is depends on the removal and displacement of lower-income black residents – forced flight. This phenomenon is not, of course, unique to East Liberty. Rather, this is another example to be cited in the growing anthology of gentrified neighborhoods across the United States. From the same report, the numbers make it clear:

“In the late 1990s, the neighborhood CDC (ELDI) developed a plan to replace the largest subsidized housing community (Federal American Properties or FAP) with less dense mixed-income housing owned by a more responsible set of landlords. Hundreds of low-income people were uprooted and displaced. Of the 546 original households, only about 150 were able to remain in East Liberty. Street vendors were chased from the commercial core. At least 14 locally owned businesses were displaced or lost their clientele and were forced to close.”

Words from the Residents Themselves

As of the report’s publication, only 1.6% of all jobs in East Liberty are by residents of the neighborhood. Some quotes from community residents in the report reflect the tenuous nature of its contemporary state:

“I live here. I’m from here. My whole family is here … We try to stay close together. This is America. I’m a Marine. I went to war three times. I served my country. It feels crazy not to be able to live...where I grew up.” — Jaquaie Macatee, East Liberty resident

“There are people looking at me like ‘what are you doing here?’ I had my first kiss on that street. I had to get stitches over there.” — Deion “1.2” Hardy,  East Liberty resident

“I grew up around here…I’ve always wanted to live here…But now we have four kids – we need a bigger place. We wasted six months looking for something affordable around here so we finally moved out to Millvale. I had to buy a car to commute back here to my job, and then I had to take another job to pay for the car. I work 48 hours at one job, 32 at the other so I get very little sleep. And I miss my neighborhood.” — Aaron Vire, former East Liberty resident

Micro-Encounters and Hidden Realities

As I spent time at the picnic table and around the neighborhood through the remainder of spring and summer – the young falcons I was watching leave the nest roughly 6 weeks after hatching – I talked to more and more people. These encounters illustrated the complicated dynamics of the falcons’ new eighborhood some 25 stories below. What weren’t they noticing while plucking feathers off of doves and starlings to then feed to their new addition?

On a Wednesday evening at the intersection, I took off my headphones and glanced upward at the church steeple just in time to hear a conversation between two women crossing the street in front of me. One remarked to her companion that she liked my shoes and that she was planning on picking up something similar; I casually let her know in that neighborly Pittsburgh way where I’d just grabbed them on sale before we enjoyed a brief chat and went on our respective ways. After scanning the skies from my spot for around an hour, the two women returned and were happy to find me still there – and I asked if they wanted to sit down and join me for a drink. 

An Unlikely Meeting of New Friends

The pair – I’ll call them Mimi and Jo here – were a woman and her auntie. These two are residents of East Liberty and were out for the afternoon having just gotten their nails done at a nearby salon. Mimi, the younger of the two, said she was so glad I told her where to get the shoes because she wanted to wear them for an upcoming court appearance. Her auntie asked why I was looking at the church, and after my usual spiel, she recounted a story of her nephew who once crashed a car while watching birds. Turns out we had more than a few things in common, the three of us.

Discovering a Pattern, Even in 2025

After a round of rosés, Mimi let me know she was preparing to go back to prison. She was in a gang as a drug queenpin, she said. She finally got caught. Her auntie quickly chimed in to note that her niece was one of the best in the business, but Mimi was a little worried about her upcoming stint in jail since it coincided with the release of her boyfriend. Would they remain a pair once the roles reversed? Were they, too, mates for life? We wondered aloud as we lamented the bad timing of it all, and I offered to grab another round to calm Mimi’s growing nerves.

When I got back to the table, Mimi verbalized something that I could sense from the moment I invited them to my perch. She was surprised that I asked her to sit because she and her auntie said they never felt particularly welcomed at this establishment. I did not need no further explanation; the clientele here has, since the bar’s inception, been overwhelmingly white. The kind of white-collar, Carnegie Mellon-graduate (there are those names again) playground that can only be in the beautiful bones of a building that once served a different customer base in a bygone era. I could see management inside shooting glances our way through the pristinely polished large windows, and although I’d become a familiar face, it was obvious that my new friends posed something of a problem.

A Hard Lesson to Learn in Person

Over the course of the previous weeks, I can’t tell you how many times I watched white patrons – myself included – smoke their electronic cigarettes or enjoy weed vapes at the tables without incident as they boisterously caught up with friends, had drinks, and chowed down on $22 personal pizzas (that kind of money buys you a “Monster”-size pizza at the place across the intersection, by the way, which serves 4-6 hungry humans). But when my new friends did the same, a member of the bar staff meekly emerged to inform us, her voice faintly trembling, that smoking was not permitted on the premises. The three of us shared a knowing glance, and Mimi got up and walked two steps to the street corner to finish her cigarette.

During those same weeks, as I peered up toward the church steeple looking for signs of new life, comments from passers-by told me the same story. I’d hear groups of men strolling by and making comments about how that was a “whites-only” place, how it wasn’t for them. And based on who was there – every time I was there – were they wrong? Was this, indeed, on the wrong side of the invisible divide that serves to keep everyone in “their” respective territories?

Diversity Slowly Grows in Certain Parts of East Liberty

For a change of scenery, and to test that theory, I’d sometimes cross Penn Avenue to the café on the northwest corner of the intersection, the newer kid on the block. When the weather got warm enough, they’d put a couple tables out front – not quite as ideal for spotting the peregrine nest, but it afforded me the chance to see things, quite literally, from the other side.

The difference in dynamic was, with each visit, immediately perceptible, and the demographics were approaching something more reflective of the community. The French-themed all-day café proved to be something of a hub for all segments of society, from high school kids grabbing an after-school drink to tech bros working on projects and locals taking a break from their daily errands.

At those outdoor tables, I bought candy for school fundraisers (turns out they take Apple Pay these days) and met a very vocal Scorpio bemoaning the dating scene in this hostile climate – men just want another mother, she said, and I couldn’t argue with that. Neighborhood fixtures shot the shit at the other table, and, soaking in what remained of the sun’s rays, I immediately felt drawn into the community – not an entity separate from it. Taking 8 or 9 steps was like walking into a different world. Maybe, just like Negley Avenue appeared to be for Pittsburgh’s peregrine pairs, this was, indeed, an unseen territorial divide after all.

Nature’s Resilience in a Changing City

At the end of May, my patience found its reward. I spotted the first known peregrine falcon chick hatched on the East Liberty Presbyterian Church. Truth be told, I had become concerned the nest might have been a failure due to no signs of life. But, Kate St. John, our sage local peregrine expert, reassured me that falcons often attempt a second clutch of eggs if the first fails for whatever reason. If the nest did fail, they might not return. If, however, even one egg successfully was to hatch, there was a strong likelihood of them returning next February to once again commence courtship ceremonies.

When, on that afternoon, I noticed a fluffy white ball of feathers peak its head over the stick nest onto Highland Avenue, I knew I was witnessing history – but no one else at street level was any the wiser. Something akin to a miracle was happening at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church, but you wouldn’t find it inside among the yoga mats or the tour groups. You had to know where to look to understand the implications of the events transpiring in the first half of 2024. A species that now calls East Liberty home. Even though it quite literally did not exist here during the redevelopment plans of the 1960s. This would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago. Man-made problems and man-made solutions were, as always, coexisting. Life was again finding a way.

Looking Into a Brighter Future for All, Even the Falcons

In June, I watched the chick take its first hops around its new home, its first frantic, flappy flights, and its first forays into its new neighborhood. Mom and dad would show it how to carve through the sky, swooping swiftly around and above the streets that had seen so much change in so little time. The juvenile’s first flight away from the nest found him in fittingly familiar territory for those of us terrestrial creatures – atop the Whole Foods on Penn Avenue, built in place of a 519-unit affordable housing complex.

By the time the end of July came around, the new peregrine was off to explore on his own. The numbers aren’t exactly encouraging; around 60% of peregrine falcon chicks never survive past their first birthday. I wondered, and still wonder, what might become of him and if he might find a way to succeed against the odds, much like the neighborhood in which he was born. No one officially monitors the church’s nest so the chick is without a band. We’ll never know what ultimately will become of him. Neither of his parents have bands, either. We don’t where they came from, how old they are, or how far they had to fly to call East Liberty home. But we do know this: they saw potential in it, built a nest, and were able to successfully rear a chick. 

Learning a Lesson From These Birds

And here’s what else I know: as of writing in March 2025, these same peregrine parents are back at the East Liberty Presbyterian Church to try it again. Because for them, it’s home now, too. Flight and finding a home are constants in this world, and I’ll be watching it all unfold from my perch, from my perspective, at the intersection.

Read More about East Liberty’s evolution in part one and the city’s peregrine falcons in part two.

Story by Adam Knoerzer
Photo Courtesy of East Liberty

Subscribe to TABLE Magazine’s print edition.