Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Arment Poliziani sorts through a few of the thousands of paintings he keeps in a gallery on Steuben Street, West End. Mr. Poliziani has had a lifelong passion for collecting art from all over the world.

By Diana Nelson Jones
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Arment Poliziani's friends and family say he could always spot the next big thing before anyone else. He was one of the first people to put a skylight in a building, and his car had an under-the-dash record player before most people had heard of such a thing.

Now 80, Mr. Poliziani's gait is a shuffle, his speech challenged by health problems. But he owned as many as 25 buildings in his time and ran several businesses, hoping to spark investment. He has always believed the West End's rebirth was just around the corner, said his son, Mike, on a recent stroll down Main Street.

"Dad always said, 'The West End's gonna be something.' "

A hammer pounding inside St. James Church punctuated the languid afternoon quiet. The renovation inside is one sign that the momentum Mr. Poliziani spent decades expecting may be drawing near.

Three years ago, James Frederick opened James Gallery on Main Street. It's as urbane as the two art galleries Mr. Poliziani owned for decades were homey, and it has been the site of "awesome catered events," said Carol Carmichael, who runs Carol's Restaurant across the street.

Last fall, Rick Hvizdak bought a 42,000-square-foot former window manufacturing plant on Main and opened Artifacts, which represents not even one-third of his collection of Oriental rugs and antique furniture.

Mr. Hvizdak has since bought the St. James Church and Mr. Poliziani's art galleries, Armand Gallery and Armand Gallery II. The church will be a warehouse for Artifacts, doubling the square footage. Plans for the galleries are pending.

"I've been buying antiques for 15 years," said Mr. Hvizdak, a Florida resident who owns the Olde Stonewall Golf Club in Beaver County. "It's my hobby and I love it. I like the [West End] location in relation to the highway systems." (In fact, the West End has been used by commuters as a short-cut to avoid parkway traffic.)

He said he expects Pittsburgh to be just a piece of his market, "but I think people will come to Pittsburgh" to buy.

His investment contributes to what Mr. Frederick calls "a design-industry niche" the West End seems to be carving out. Caldwells' Windowware, a pioneer, remains in business after many decades there.

"Things often take longer than you'd like," said Dru Imler, executive director of the nonprofit West Pittsburgh Partnership, "but there's a synergy that comes from the people who are investing and the quality of the investment. It's up to us to claim the business community for people versus cars. We think the best is yet to come."

Mr. Frederick, who expects to hold as many as 75 private events at James Gallery this year, said he moved the gallery from Dormont because of the excitement the city had started to generate.

"We're committed to the West End, and ours is the kind of business that could be a catalyst for development," he said. "We were prepared to establish without depending on walk-in traffic. We'd like to see that eventually.

"I look at the glass as being half full right now," he said.

James Gallery inspired Tina Krashna to open Ceramiche Tile and Stone on Main Street four years ago, when Mr. Frederick was renovating his building.

"I've known James for a long time," she said. "When I saw he was going to plant his feet in the neighborhood, I thought there was something going on, just knowing James and his vision."

Since then, April Gruver, a former pastry chef at the Duquesne Club, opened Vanilla Pastry Studio, Ms. Carmichael opened her restaurant, and Larry Clark and his family spent 310 hours cleaning and turning the West End Park House -- formerly the Temperanceville Tavern -- into Grill 424 three months ago.

"This place will come around," said Ms. Carmichael. "It could be like a mini Shadyside. Summer has been slow, and the guy at the Grill said the same thing, but I told him, 'Don't you close. You hang in there.' "

Mr. Poliziani hung in there when many were abandoning the West End, said state Rep. Tom Petrone, D-Crafton Heights, whose office is on Steuben Street.

"I've known him all my life, and I've never known anyone who worked harder. I can still picture him in freezing weather with no gloves pumping gas."

Mr. Poliziani, the oldest of 12 children, moved to the West End almost 60 years ago and opened a filling station on Chartiers Avenue.

A small parts department grew into what is now Mondae's Auto Supply on Neptune Street, a business he owns but no longer operates. He also once operated Norma's Furniture, named for his wife, out of a property he owned on Steuben Street.

As a young man, he developed an almost indiscriminate passion for art and creative handiwork. He amassed a collection of tens of thousands of pieces, many of which he bought at shops and flea markets in cities he visited for auto-supply trade shows. He believed art galleries could make the West End a destination.

His Armand galleries were so named, he said, "because when I went to school, my teacher wrote my name as Armand."

Armand I also did business as a frame shop. Armand II was most often closed, but he would go in nearly every day, turn on the lights and look over the stuff of his dreams.

"I think he wanted to provide stability for the future," said Mr. Petrone. "He stuck and he stuck and now other people are picking up on it. I do believe we're gong to see substantial changes in the next few years on the West End. And it might not have happened if it wasn't for him."