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Father Henry challenged his audience that night to help him launch a community organization that could confront the neighborhood’s growing problems. Scores of volunteers would help drive a program of advocacy, planning, and revitalization activity in the Penn Avenue commercial district and the surrounding neighborhoods. Using the sale of $5 membership “shares,”, he made each person a stockholder in this new engine for change. Over 500 of those shares would be sold in the weeks and months to come, and the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation was officially born in January of 1976. That month, Father Henry also launched the Bloomfield-Garfield Bulletin, a community newspaper to "promote a spirit of community." With the community behind it, the BGC began work to reverse the neighborhood’s decline. Progress was fast-moving, and in its first year, the BGC not only turned back plans for a methadone treatment center in the heart of the business district, but it also secured $85,000 from Pittsburgh City Councilto invest in the commercial district. Since those early successes, the BGC has continued to fight for the health of the community:
Community Development Office Staff Richard Swartz, Executive Director Youth Development Center Staff Richard Flanagan, Youth Development Director 2008 Board of Directors President: Jason Wilburn Bill Cornell In the mid 1990s, the BGC bought a 19th-century church – the former Pacific Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of North Pacific Avenue and Dearborn Street – and turned it into the Bloomfield-Garfield Community Activity Center, which is used by many of our youth programs. At the Center, BGC youth clients have access to two computer labs with high-speed Internet connection. The Center is also the site of many other BGC functions, including public meetings and holiday programs, such as an annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day event and a neighborhood Christmas party. It's also available for other community organizations and neighborhood families at low rental rates. (For rental information, call 412-441-6950 x 11.) In 2008, the Community Center will undergo a combination of infrastructure and cosmetic improvements through a three-phase construction schedule. EDGE Studio on Penn Avenue has completed preliminary design work, funded by the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.The BGC partners with other community-based groups to help create change in Pittsburgh's East End. In 2008, the BGC joined with three other community development corporations to create the East End Partnership, a new community development collaboration to work on revitalization strategies for the diverse communities of the East End. Our partners include: East End Partnership East Liberty Development Inc. Friendship Development Associates Inc. Friendship Preservation Group Garfield Jubilee Association Inc. Lawrenceville Corporation Lawrenceville United Penn Avenue Arts Initiative |
On November 1, 1975 at St. Lawrence O’Toole Roman Catholic Church in Garfield, the Rev. Leo Henry gathered parishioners, business people, and residents of the Bloomfield and Garfield neighborhoods. As he observed a community spiraling downward from a decade of physical and economic decline, he felt compelled to do something to address its future. 
