Liff Family
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
William and Rebecca Green Liff had three sons, Bernard, Alfred and Oscar.
After getting a degree in architecture from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Bernard Liff founded the architectural firm of Liff, Justh and Chetlin. The firm designed many well known buildings across the region, including the original Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library, the Beth Hamedrash Hagodol Synagogue on Colwell Street, the new wing of Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill and the Gemilas Chesed Synagogue in White Oak.
Liff spent 20 years as the chairman of the Pittsburgh Board of Standards and Appeals and the Code Review Board and is credited with modernizing the local building codes.
In 1938, he eloped with Betty Caplan. She became an active community volunteer and served as chair of the National Council of Jewish Women-Pittsburgh Section.
His uncle Nathan Liff owned the Eagles Rest, a lounge near Millvale where boxing legends such as Billy Conn and Fritzie Zivic trained between the wars. He was inducted posthumously into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Western Pennsylvania in 2000.
