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African American Center site draws rave reviews
Friday, September 14, 2001 By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Cultural Arts Writer
To the dozens of people planning the African American Cultural Center of Greater Pittsburgh, the facility's proposed site in the Golden Triangle is, indeed, a golden triangle.
It's near the cultural district, the convention center, two hotels and the Strip District. It's near major bus stops. And it's a distinctly shaped parcel of land.
It's also where seven old buildings, some dating to the 1800s, stand. It's where four businesses operate. And it's a parcel that the committee has yet to acquire.
So there is work to be done and deals to be negotiated before construction on the $27 million center can begin at Liberty Avenue and William Penn Place, near 10th Street. The committee will try to finance the center, which will house 93,000 square feet of space, with money from foundations, individuals and the state.
Members of the center's planning committee, government officials and others at a news conference yesterday expressed enthusiasm about the location of what could be a high-profile facility dedicated to black culture and history.
"Conventioneers who come to the city, they'll almost be forced to go see it because it's in their face," said Tim Stevens, president of the local branch of the NAACP. The site is a block from the new convention center.
Mayor Tom Murphy said the center "will be right in the middle of the action" rather than in a city neighborhood that doesn't experience as much foot traffic as Downtown. Murphy noted, though, that discussion about the center shouldn't focus on where it is or what it looks like but "whether there's community will" to make it happen.
City Councilman Sala Udin said there is and that "the word is out" in African-American communities. John Thompson, superintendent of the Pittsburgh Public Schools, expressed early support for integrating the center into curricula.
Andrew Masich, executive director of the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, which is near the proposed site of the African American Cultural Center, said he envisions the organizations partnering with each other.
"It's not a black cultural facility but a cultural facility for all of us to enjoy, including the ethnic groups who are growing in our town," said Esther Bush, president of the Urban League of Pittsburgh.
A few speakers thanked some of the early advocates of a black cultural facility in Pittsburgh, including Emma Slaughter, who has long argued that an African-American cultural center should be located in Homewood. Slaughter, who has been trying to open a black museum there, said yesterday it's unlikely she'll support the Downtown facility.
"The fact that Homewood wasn't suitable means [Mayor] Murphy thought African-Americans out this way weren't suitable," she said. "It made me think they're against developing predominantly black areas."
The parcel chosen by the committee has been criticized by local development officials as being rundown and in need of rehabilitation.
But Denise Gaynor, owner of Liberty Tavern, which is on the parcel in question, said yesterday she resents that her bar is lumped in with the abandoned buildings and adult establishments also on her block.
"I'm working really hard to keep it up," she said. "The whole reason I bought it was, I saw potential where no one else did."
Although Gaynor supports plans for the African American Cultural Center, she hopes that if her landlord, William Zotis, sells the building, she will be relocated by the city. Zotis said yesterday he'd consider selling the building to the Urban Redevelopment Authority, which is helping the committee acquire the property.
Neither Gaynor nor Zotis knew about the chosen location of the cultural center until they read a story about it in yesterday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. William Burroughs, whose company, Eddy Holdings, owns the buildings that flank Liberty Tavern, also said he wasn't notified about the center. He said he would consider selling but had hoped to acquire the whole block for development.
Mulugetta Birru, executive director of the URA and a member of the center's steering committee, said the URA owns one building on the parcel, is looking to purchase three from an owner sympathetic to the plan, and will negotiate for the remaining three.
Oliver Byrd, co-chair of the center's steering committee, said the committee's intention is to build a new structure on the site. He said his committee is "sensitive to preservation issues. ... We don't know what they're going to be, but we are open to them."
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