The Aurora Club

Posted on March 25, 2020 by David Rotenstein

Welcome back to #Mobsburgh (Social Distancing Edition).

For much of the 20th century, Fifth Avenue was one of Pittsburgh’s major ethnic business corridors. It begins downtown and then winds up the city’s hills towards the eastern suburbs. Its first mile forms a boundary separating the city’s Hill District from the Bluff (or Uptown) neighborhood. That stretch included bars, restaurants, and drugstores that were key sites in the city’s bustling numbers gambling rackets. There were popular places, like Darling’s Drug Store at Fifth and Stevenson, where gamblers placed their bets and numbers bankers, controllers, and runners mingled.

And then there was the Aurora Club at 11 Pride Street. Pittsburgh’s numbers bankers gathered there to drink, play cards, and share information about the city’s rackets. It wasn’t as well-known as the Crawford Grill No. 2 in the Upper Hill nor was it as flashy as Squirrel Hill’s Beacon Club. Yet, for several decades the Aurora Club was an important part of Pittsburgh’s entertainment economy and vice ecosystem.

Former Aurora Club in 2020, corner of Pride St. and Fifth Avenue.

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The right kind of people

Posted on March 19, 2020 by David Rotenstein

Last week the Pittsburgh Planning Commission agreed with a recommendation forwarded to it by the city’s Historic Review Commission that an 1840s house in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood is eligible for designation as a city historic landmark.

The Ewalt Mansion is a two-story brick Greek Revival home built by an early Pittsburgh resident, Samuel Ewalt. According to historic preservationists, the building is historically significant for its architecture and for its association with important people and events in Pittsburgh’s history.

Ewalt Mansion, March 2020.

Lawrenceville is one of Pittsburgh’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Change and displacement are happening so quickly in the neighborhood that in 2019 the City of Pittsburgh passed a new inclusive zoning law. The law is an experiment and temporary — it expires 18 months from its enactment — and it only covers large developers building at least 20 rental units. The pilot program’s goal is to preserve affordable housing. Affordable housing advocates hailed the new law, which only applies to Lawrenceville. Continue reading →

Landmarks

Posted on March 15, 2020 by David Rotenstein

Like most other places in North America, historic preservation in Pittsburgh has (at least) two separate and unequal tracks: one for places associated with white history and another for buildings, structures, and sites associated with Black history.

Last week I visited several buildings associated with Black history that are designated under Pittsburgh’s historic preservation law. There are no African-American-themed historic districts in Pittsburgh. A 2006 Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh report, “Unprotected Pittsburgh,” identified only three locally-designated properties: The Centre Avenue YMCA, John Wesley A.M.E. Zion Church, and the New Granada Theater.