PetSmart to Open in East Side Borders

PetSmart is coming soon to East Side

What is more boring than 12,000 square feet of empty commercial space? A store that isn’t needed. PetSmart is gearing up to open a new location in the bottom level of the bankrupt Borders in East Side. It isn’t needed, and we implore you not to shop there.

…Because there are already two fantastic, locally owned pet stores within a block from the Eastside shopping area.

Smiley’s Pet Pad (215 South Highland Ave / 412-362-7556 / map)
Petagogy (5880 Ellsworth Ave / 412-362-7387 / map)

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Let the (Obscure) Games Begin This Weekend!

Steel City Games Fest in Pittsburgh brought to you by Obscure Games

Pittsburghers are invited to come out and play with Obscure Games at the 2nd Annual Steel City Games Fest on ~~Aug. 27 and 28~~ in East Liberty.

SCGF is a 24-hour festival of new and original sports, street games and physical games. The festival’s goal is to celebrate the power of play, revitalize urban space, foster community and explore creativity in unorthodox ways. The festival will take place in East Liberty at the Shadow Lounge, the Waffle Shop and Mellon Park.

Obscure Games is a Pittsburgh-based non-profit project that designs and creates new sports, street games, board games and parlor games. The organization has produced hundreds of public game events in its two-year existence, and was able to fund the entirety of this year’s festival through community and member support on Kickstarter.
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Poll: The Worst Parking Lot in Pittsburgh?

Whole Foods Might be the Worst Parking Lot in Pittsburgh

Healthy eaters beware! All of the good stuff you put in your body may be counteracted by toxins created due to increased stress levels when parking at Whole Foods in Eastside.

If you typically shop for overpriced junk food from the other local grocers, then you’re in luck because those stores probably have a much better place to put your car. Seriously, the parking lot at Whole Foods sucks. Shame on the developers that planned that hell hole.
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Borders Eastside Becomes “Fleeting Pages” May 7

Fleeting Pages takes over the old Borders in Eastside for one month

Fleeting Pages takes over the old Borders in Eastside (pic by Ronald Woan)

Pop-up Indie Bookseller Fleeting Pages will re-open the doors at the empty Borders on Penn Circle South in East Liberty at 10am on Saturday, May 7, 2011. Fleeting Pages will sell independently published material of all stripes, as well as host writing workshops, literary readings and other events. Per their website, Fleeting Pages will take over “a space, left empty by a failed big box bookstore, for one month, and fill it with independent & self-published work of all kinds.” They currently have an open call for material.

Taking over the closed Borders Bookstore, Fleeting Pages will be open 7 days of the week until June 3, at which point this pop store will close its doors. “We felt that it was long enough to test some theories, and to make it worth giving up the rest of our lives for eleven weeks,” states Fleeting Pages creator, Jodi Morrison of Braddock, PA. Morrison explains her motivation behind the project; “I have always had a fascination with space, art, culture and economics.”
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East Side Borders Closing, Bookstore Bankrupt

Borders in East Side closing due to bankruptcy

Borders in East Liberty closing due to bankruptcy

Borders officially filed for bankruptcy and they are closing about 30% of their stores. The East Side Borders is one of those 200 stores scheduled to close.

Pittsburgh is losing bookstores left and right. First Barnes and Noble, then the much-loved Joseph-Beth Booksellers closed twice, and now, the last remaining big box bookstore in the city, Borders in East Liberty.

Besides Whole Foods, Borders in East Side is one of the components to the transition from East Liberty to “East Side.” Target will open a couple blocks away, but what could possibly go in the Borders space? Nothing comes to mind. Look at the storefront between Borders and the liquor store… vacant since the the complex was built.
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