August 6, 2022: “Heirs, History, and Land: Recovering and Conserving Black Spaces and Stories.” Featured presentation, Shelton Family Settlement at Possum Trot Family Reunion and Historical Marker Unveiling, Berry College, Rome, Georgia. (Delivered remotely.)
July 2022: Agnes Scott College is awarded a $750,000 Mellon Foundation grant to conduct research, community engagement, and develop curriculum on race and racism in Decatur, Ga. The grant application relied on my research; the institution wrote that if the grant is awarded that the college would seek to hire me as a researcher and adjunct professor. It would have been nice if Agnes Scott College had consulted with me prior to using my name and my credentials in the application. Needless to say, I did not collaborate with Agnes Scott College on its project.
Obsessed is probably too strong of a word to describe my interest in the October 1934 turf war among two Washington, D.C. gambling entrepreneurs. But, I have had a very keen interest in the case ever since 2019 when I first read about it while working on the Talbot Avenue Bridge Historic American Engineering Records (HAER) report. It had been nearly four years since my first interviews with an aging Washington, D.C., former journalist had turned me onto the historical significance of numbers gambling. By the time that my research took me to the Takoma Park, Md., driveway where a notorious mob hitman gunned down newspaper employee Allen Wilson, I was hooked.
The free virtual program covers the history of racketeering and numbers gambling in the D.C. burbs, from the Black gambling entrepreneurs who ran the numbers in rural African American communities throughout the mostly rural suburban county to the white D.C. kingpins who made their homes there to complicate law enforcement efforts to rein them in. The so-called “Mistaken Identity Murder” caps the program as I connect the dots on one of the D.C. area’s most sensational gangland killings.
The alleged hitman, Tony “The Stinger” Cugino, was one of the East Coast’s most feared killers. In my “Squirrel Hill by the Numbers” walking tours, participants visit the site where Cugino allegedly dumped the body of one of the loose ends he cleaned up earlier in 1934 before killing Wilson. With Cugino, it’s always “allegedly” because he never made it to trial, for the Wilson murder or any of the others attributed to him. The official reports were that he hanged himself in 1935 in a New York City jail cell after the police finally caught up with him. By that time he had been suspected in hits all throughout the mid-Atlantic and upper South, including another infamous Montgomery County murder case (the “Chevy Chase Car Barn Murders“) just a few months after Wilson’s “Mistaken Identity Murder.”
Come for the numbers history and stay for the murder!
Baltimore Sun, Oct. 23, 1934.
Beyond the Zoom room
The Silver Spring program is the second of three lectures on racketeering history I’m giving this month. Pittsburghers can drop in on “Cold Storage and Real Luck” at the Lawrenceville Historical Society July 20. There were mobsters on 1500 block of Penn Ave. in Pittsburgh and the story of the city’s giant refrigerator building and Pittsburgh’s most aptly named bar has several good rackets chapters.
On August 1, just a few days before Pittsburgh’s infamous 805 episode‘s 92nd anniversary, I’m speaking to the Moon Township Historical Society. Tony “The Stinger” and his 1934 visit to Pittsburgh may or may not be on the program but lots of Steel City vice will be.
Wanted Poster for Tony “The Stinger” Cugino. United States Postal Inspection Service Bulletin, Oct. 2003.
Just a reminder that the Lawrenceville Historical Society program on the former Federal Cold Storage Co. building and Lucky’s bar is next week. There’s lots to cover, from ice entrepreneurs to mobsters to Pittsburgh’s gay community. One fun part of the program will be discussing the documentation over the past year of the cold storage company building’s demolition.
For a deeper dive into the Federal Cold Storage Company building, check out the new Society for Industrial Archeology newsletter. Not a member? No problem, copies will be available at the program.
Under every stone (or building foundation) in Pittsburgh there seems to be a mob story. It’s no different in the 1500 block of Penn Avenue in the city’s Strip District. The mob history is what caught my attention around the same time that plans became public to demolish the former Federal Cold Storage Company building popularly known as the “Wholey’s Building” for the giant illuminated fish that dominated one facade. Over the past year i have been documenting the building’s history and the lives of the people who owned it and who worked there. As I watched a demolition carefully deconstruct the walls adjacent to a historic bar, I got interested in the bar’s story, too.
Federal Cold Storage Company building demolition, Feb. 2, 2022.
Federal Cold Storage Company building demolition, Feb. 11, 2022.
Federal Cold Storage Company building demolition viewed from the Hill District.
1519 Penn Ave. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission Historic Resource Survey Form.
Folks can learn more about the cold storage building and the Lucky’s story at a special Lawrenceville Historical Society program Wednesday July 20 at the Carnegie Library on Fisk Street. No more spoilers here. The program is free and open to the public. See you then.
Decatur, Ga., got a new school last week. Sort of: it’s an old city school building with a new name. The City Schools of Decatur voted May 22 to change the name of the city’s only middle school from Renfroe Middle School to Beacon Hill Middle School. The new name went into effect July 1, 2022.
Carl G. Renfroe Middle School, 2018.
A grassroots effort to change the school’s name began in 2020 after I designed a walking tour of Decatur’s erased Black community. The middle school, which is located across the railroad tracks from the former Beacon Community, was one of the stops in the tour created for the 2020 National Council on Public History annual conference (which was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic).
Renfroe Middle School as viewed from across the railroad tracks in 2015.
I conducted the tour intended for the conference virtually and then recreated it several times over the next year for various Decatur community and religious groups. Participants in one of those virtual tours began an online petition to change the school’s name: “Rename Renfroe Middle School To Reflect Decatur Values.”
The petition got more than 700 signatures and the attention of city leaders. In the first paragraph, the petition’s authors cited my walking tour, which included oral history excerpts of people talking about the school’s namesake, Carl Renfroe who was Decatur’s school superintendent between 1959 and 1975.
“Rename Renfroe Middle School To Reflect Decatur Values” petition screen capture.
The petition only cited one of the examples that I used in the walking tour. It was an excerpt of an interview that I had done with a Black man who attended Decatur’s segregated schools (a federal consent decree forced Decatur into compliance years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case).
Decatur Displaced and Erased Walking Tour screen capture, Renfroe Middle School stop.
The complete entry for the walking tour’s storymap was a lot more detailed and it included an excerpt from an interview with a former civil rights and social justice activist who lived in Decatur during Renfroe’s tenure. William Denton taught education at Agnes Scott College and Atlanta University.
Commerce and West Howard This intersection didn’t exist before the 1960s. It was created during urban renewal when the city of Decatur extended then-Oliver street south to Howard. Visible to the south is carl g. Renfroe middle school. Intersection didn’t exist until urban renewal in 1960s. This is Decatur’s only middle school. It is named for educator Carl G. Renfroe (1910-2004), who was Decatur’s school superintendent (1959-1975). Despite serving after the Brown v. Board of Education case (1954) Renfroe resisted desegregating city schools and is remembered by residents for racially biased decisions and language.
It was an embarrassing situation for me to be sitting during my graduation and the superintendent of the school system, Carl Renfroe, spoke and commented that evening, “we are proud of our nigras,” you know …“we are proud of our nigras” — R.L, Decatur resident and former trinity high school student, February 2018.
I just have to say that that brought to mind a sense of irony because when we were first there, the superintendent, Renfroe, was of the old school and he did everything he could to keep black and white children separated — William Denton, former Decatur resident and civil rights activist, February 2018.
The interview with Denton was one of several that I did with the former Decatur resident over ten years. Denton is one of a dwindling number of people still living who would know about the inner workings of Decatur city government and its schools. He and his wife Barbara were active in their efforts to bring equity to the city’s school system. They also were among the first generation of 1970s community activists who sought to maintain Decatur’s trajectory towards housing and social equity. For years they were among the leaders of the South Decatur Community Council, the precursor to the contemporary Oakhurst Neighborhood Association.
The Dentons agreed with the city’s decision to change the school’s name. Barbara Denton expanded on our earlier conversations about Renfroe:
Regarding the late-great “Renfroe” Middle School and Carl’s role in maintaining school segregation: He advised the Board to gerrymander the school zones in the early 70’s in order to maintain maximum segregation. Bill wrote to him in disagreement. When he failed to respond, Bill informed federal E.E.O. of this action. The Decatur distract thus joined about 80 other Georgia distracts under E.E.O. supervision.
She added that she and her husband attended the school board meeting when the school was named for Renfroe:
We were at the Board meeting when the naming of the new middle school was announced. Board member Scott Candler looked directly at us and smirked when he saw our jaws drop. Fait Accompli! I’ll never believe Renfroe deserves credit for a desegregated middle school. Given Carl’s history we think its origin lies in the E.E.O. designation as an obstructionist system.
After the petition went live, accusations started flying about the veracity of the allegations against Renfroe, whom the Dentons said vigorously resisted desegregation.
Oakhurst Neighborhood Association Facebook comment attached to a post about the name change petition.
To allay the claims that the oral history comments about Renfroe were unsupported and/or unreliable, here is the video clip played during the virtual walking tours. Perhaps they can assist Decatur residents in complying with the Facebook comment author’s suggestion to “be smart.”
Last week, the Silver Spring Historical Society (Silver Spring, Maryland) invited its Facebook audience to share stories about a donut shop. The society (which really isn’t a society; it’s four boomer building huggers) is short on history and steeped in nostalgia that celebrates the white supremacists who “built” Silver Spring and erases Black history. This post accepts the historical society’s request for “specific memories” of the site.
If only Pittsburgh had a functioning historic preservation law and a more sophisticated historic preservation advocacy community. A few weeks ago I was in the city’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood to plan for my upcoming Squirrel Hill by the Numbers walking tour dates and I noticed that the facade of 1926 Murray Avenue was missing. It had been there last winter.
Former Beacon Club (1928 1/2 Murray Ave., left) above “H&R Block” and former Squirrel Hill Veteran’s Club (right, 1926 Murray Ave.) in 2019.
I had first encountered the block where the building is located in 2019. I had begun doing interviews for my research into the social history of numbers gambling in Pittsburgh. The Beacon Club, one of Pittsburgh’s most iconic and infamous twentieth century gambling clubs, had been located next door at 1928 1/2 Murray Avenue. Many of the people I interviewed early on and later described the club’s significant roles in Pittsburgh’s underworld history, Jewish history, and Black history.
Today, the Pittsburgh City Council heard testimony related to the nomination of the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House as a City of Pittsburgh historic site. My written testimony (below) supplemented the 2021 nomination report I prepared and my oral testimony delivered during the hearing.
Tito House Historic Site Nomination Bill No. 2022-0190 Pittsburgh City County Hearing April 20, 2022
Testimony of Dr. David Rotenstein
For the record, my name is David Rotenstein and I am writing as the author of the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House historic site nomination report.
In 2009, I interviewed a woman who spent her first decade of life in a suburban home that her parents bought in the 1930s. The home was located in a residential subdivision that had racially restrictive deed covenants attached to all the homes. African Americans were prohibited from buying or renting homes there.
1940s family photo.
When I interviewed the woman (who is now 78) in the fall of 2009, she told me that her family had a live-in domestic. She only knew the woman’s first name and the nickname that she and her brother called the woman. My oral history collaborator had several family photos that showed the Black woman with the family over several years in the 1940s and early 1950s. But, my collaborator didn’t recall any personal details about the woman who helped raise her.
I exhausted all of the archival records available to me at the time to try and locate the African American woman’s full name and any surviving biographical information about her. I struck out. Everywhere. I had consulted every known resource except for the 1950 U.S. Census population schedules. At the time, they were not scheduled for a public release until April 1, 2022 — today. This morning I got out of bed, let the dogs out, grabbed some coffee and made tea for my wife, and rushed into my office. I fired up my web browser and surfed over to https://1950census.archives.gov/ and typed the family’s name into the search field. A few seconds later, I had the woman’s name I had waited 13 years to learn.
She was invisible (to me) no more.
Stay tuned for more about this journey.
1936 racially restrictive deed covenant for the subdivision where the family lived.
My first experiences with the Pennsylvania History Code (Title 37 of the Pennsylvania Statutes) happened in the late 1980s. I was in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and working as an archaeologist. My employers had lucrative regulatory compliance contracts: working for agencies and private sector entities required to comply with federal and state laws. These laws (the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Pennsylvania History Code) required parties receiving federal and state funds, permits, and licenses to identify historic places, evaluate their significance, and resolve adverse effects to them introduced by the projects triggering regulatory compliance.
Until 1995, compliance with the Pennsylvania History Code meant doing intensive and costly archaeological surveys and excavations. At the time, Pennsylvania’s state archaeologist had a thing for deeply buried prehistoric sites. Consultants had to prove to his satisfaction that they had dug deep enough and used the appropriate technical expertise to reach soils deeper than what the first Native Americans who lived in Pennsylvania ever walked upon. That meant very deep holes and hiring expensive soils science specialists called geomorphologists.
I remember cursing the state archaeologist many times as I dug or supervised the excavation of neat square holes — sometimes using backhoes and other heavy machinery because the soils were so deep — to identify sites that dovetailed with his research interests. Some of my most vivid archaeology fieldwork memories involve working in subfreezing cold temperatures with negative windchill numbers to meet project deadlines and the state archaeologist’s obsession with so-called Paleo sites.
The author standing in an excavation unit in December 1990. Note the mattock pick (on the surface) used to break up the frozen river bottom soil
Back in late 1990 I and a colleague excavated a deep test unit in temperatures so cold that the dirt re-froze between the excavation unit and the screen being used to recover artifacts — if any were to be found. It was so cold that we had to use a mattock pick (typically used for breaking rock) to excavate in the usually fine river bottom soil because it was frozen. We then had to wait in the cold for the geomorphologist to arrive to tell us what we could see for ourselves: there was no archaeological site where a Weis supermarket was going to be built.
