The real Crawford Grill, the famed Hill District restaurant and jazz club, sits empty and for sale.

But at the Home & Garden Show, it's been brought back to life in a special 40-by-12-foot room filled with the faces of the larger-than-life characters who passed through the club during its heyday.

On the second floor of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, the room will be populated twice a day by 10 young jazz musicians from the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. The students of bassist Paul Thompson will perform jazz standards for two hours each of the 10 days of the home show.

During the performances (see schedule), the convention center's food/beverage service provider will serve drinks and appetizer-sized samplings of food similar to what was served at Crawford Grill No. 2 on Wylie Avenue before it closed in 2002. Short ribs and sweet potatoes, one of the grill's Saturday specials, will be on the menu, according to Levy Catering. Tables will be set up around the stage.

The teenage musicians may find inspiration all around them. The walls of the Post-Gazette-sponsored display are covered with period photos of Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Max Roach, Stanley Turrentine, Billy Strayhorn and others who performed at the grill or other Hill District hot spots such as the Hurricane, Blue Note and Savoy Ballroom. All were captured in black and white by Charles "Teenie" Harris, the famous Pittsburgh Courier photographer who documented black Pittsburgh history from the 1930s through the '70s.

In addition to jazz musicians, Mr. Harris photographed politicians, actors and actresses and pro athletes. Among the nearly 50 images at the show are ones showing Hill District native Lena Horne and baseball players Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, who played for the Pittsburgh Crawfords of the Negro Leagues. Since the Crawfords had a special link to the Grill, they are honored in a special display of replica uniforms behind the bar.

William "Gus" Greenlee, who owned the ball team at its peak, opened Crawford Grill No. 1 on Crawford Avenue in 1931. The bar quickly became a gathering spot on the Hill, partly because it was the headquarters of Mr. Greenlee's numbers racket. In 1943, Crawford Grill No. 2 opened on Wylie Avenue and was eventually taken over by Mr. Greenlee's business partner, Joseph Robinson. In the 1950s, his son, William "Buzz" Robinson, suggested they book jazz bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Art Blakey, beginning a tradition that continued until the club's closing.

All of the grill's owners appear in Mr. Harris' photos, which are now owned by the Carnegie Museum of Art. The museum allowed the Post-Gazette to print the photos on newsprint and display them on chalkboard walls. Since Mr. Harris left behind only negatives, no captions, the hope is that show-goers will help identify people in the photos. They range from a small boy in military uniform leading a parade, to a group of well-dressed couples out for a night on the town, to a pair of young servicemen cuddling with their dates in a booth.

Pieces of chalk will be on the bar to write in names, and a museum staffer will be available on both weekends of the show. There will also be markers and plenty of white wall space to write in memories of other people and places in the pictures. It used to be called graffiti -- now it's first-person history.

The exhibit, which combines features of Crawford Grill No. 1 and 2, also includes a set of 1950s booths provided by Construction Junction, a 1940s Wurlitzer piano similar to a mirrored instrument used by William "Woogie" Harris (Teenie's brother), and liquor, soda and beer bottles from the 1940s and '50s. High overhead are Pittsburgh Public Theater posters of several plays by August Wilson, who stopped by the Grill occasionally with fellow writers Nick Flourney and Chawley Williams.

The room's dominant artwork is "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" by Jorges Myers, a compilation of objects including bandleader Leroy Brown's electric guitar. Nearby is "Turrentine's Saxophone" by Biko, constructed with the famous jazz man's old instrument. Both were borrowed from The Legacy Apartments, whose decor honors the Hill's musical legacy.

When the students aren't performing, videos of jazz and baseball greats will play on a large plasma TV on the front of the display. It's not the Crawford Grill, but for 10 days in March, it will sound almost as sweet.