Last year the Pittsburgh City Council voted to designate a former bootlegger-turned-brewery executive’s home as a historic landmark. Joe Tito became a booze and gambling kingpin during Prohibition. He built an empire from his 1817 Fifth Avenue home and a brick garage. Both buildings comprise the city-designated historic site. At a January 17, 2023, development activities meeting, Uptown Partners of Pittsburgh, the community development corporation that sponsored the historic landmarking, announced that it supported demolishing the garage. It would be replaced by one of two buildings in a $70 million redevelopment project.

Located at 1818 Colwell Street, Tito built the garage in 1922 to house his family’s fleet of trucks used to move bootleg whiskey and beer throughout the region. After Prohibition ended, Tito and his brothers bought the Latrobe Brewing Company. They converted the garage into the brewery’s first Pittsburgh beer distributorship. It’s where they first sold Rolling Rock beer in 1935.

The former garage-beer distributorship enjoys the same legal and regulatory protections from demolition as the house. From a historic preservation standpoint, the building is just as historically significant as Joe Tito’s former home. Any proposal to demolish either building must be reviewed by the Historic Review Commission. Approvals to demolish designated buildings are rare. They typically only happen if a building is in danger of immediate collapse or if its upkeep will impose a financial hardship on its owner.

Neither condition applies to the Colwell Street building.

Yet, it’s conceivable that the HRC might approve the demolition. In its February 2022 hearing to designate the property, the commission voted to not recommend designation. The Planning Commission unanimously disagreed in a vote the following week and so did the City Council. In a six to two vote June 7, 2022, the Council approved designating both buildings.

Pittsburgh’s three historic preservation advocacy organizations have remained silent in response to the demolition proposal. One, the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, was the only organization to not support the landmarking effort. They demurred because the property owners opposed the designation.

In 2021, before the project to nominate the properties began, PHLF executive director Michael Sriprasert replied to my request for support to preserve the property, “We think the 1817 Fifth Ave building could be eligible for a PHLF plaque, if the owner wishes to apply.” After the nomination was filed, the organization’s communications director wrote, “We wouldn’t oppose the nomination if it proceeded, but we wouldn’t support it either.”

During the February HRC hearing, commissioner Karen Loysen didn’t see any merit to landmarking the buildings. She also suggested that the best way to commemorate Joe Tito’s contributions to local and national history would be a historical marker.

“I think it’s a compelling story but I think it’s plausibly more appropriate for a state historical marker, you know, rather than [designating] the entire site,” Loysen said before voting to not recommend landmarking.

Even one Tito family member, Joe Tito’s grandson Richard Tito, thinks the best way to commemorate the family’s history is through a historical marker.

“It looks like the garage might be the first shoe to drop, and that might ultimately lead to the house being torn down,” he emailed me after I told him about the recent proposal. “As I think I told you last year, the best outcome may just be a historical marker in front of the property that tells people who Joe Tito was and his contributions to the growth of Pittsburgh.”

Perhaps it’s time to throw in the towel and let go of Joe Tito’s former home and beer distributorship. Instead of having a chance to experience the buildings in their urban setting and learn from how the built environment can inform our understand of history, future generations of residents and visitors will be able to read about the Titos in a historical marker and in history books. That’s not why Pittsburgh has a historic preservation law. But, it seems like that’s what the property owners, community members (through Uptown Partners), and the historic preservation community want.

UPDATE: April 20, 2023

The Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission received an application to demolish the Tito brothers’ garage. The Historic Review Commission will hear the application at its May 3, 2023, meeting. Though it’s not as old or as sexy as the 1880s house, the garage/beer distributorship is arguably as historically significant as the house — maybe more, even. If you take into account that much of the property’s landmark significance comes from its ties to Prohibition-era history, then the only building constructed specifically for Prohibition-era activities is the garage which housed the Tito brothers’ bootlegging truck fleet. After Prohibition, it became the first known place where Rolling Rock beer was sold. If the garage is demolished, the property loses a major part of its integrity — the capacity to tell the full story of what happened there and why it is historically important. Demolishing the garage could impact the property’s eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and it could jeopardize federal funds, tax credits, etc.

©2023 D.S. Rotenstein

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