[4] A section of Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh became a red-light district in the 1970s and 1980s, hosting the city's sex industry, including burlesque houses, strip bars, and peep shows, and attracting vice and crime.

[5] The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, formed in 1984, worked over the next 25 years to transform the area into the Cultural District, a center for the arts, eventually bringing the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Bricolage Production Company,[6] Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company,[7] the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Arts Education Center, and a museum of cartoon art, The ToonSeum, to Liberty Avenue.

[8] Liberty Avenue in the downtown area underwent a years-long extensive $3.6 million redesign and repavement that was completed by 1991.

The factory to manufacture George Westinghouse's air brakes was located at 2425 Liberty.

Liberty Avenue is also home to West Penn Hospital as well as many small store fronts.