Forgotten History: Pittsburgh's First Museum

Given the dominance of the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in Pittsburgh's cultural scene, we can perhaps be forgiven for thinking they were the first museums to grace our fair city. But Pittsburgh had a museum founded by a hometown boy named James Reid Lambdin a decade before Andrew Carnegie was even a gleam in his father's Scottish eye.

James Reid Lambdin

James Reid Lambdin, c. 1845, miniature self-portrait
National Portrait Gallery

James Reid Lambdin was born in Pittsburgh on 10 May 1807, the middle son of three born to James and Prudence Harrison Lambdin. His carpenter father died in 1812, and James left school a few years later to help support his family at age 12 by working in a local bookstore.

James was inspired to become an artist at the tender age of 7 after seeing a reproduction of the legendary Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington. He took advantage of access to art instruction books at the shop where he worked. In 1822 at age 15 he moved to Philadelphia to further his artistic ambitions.

Artist Thomas Sully, who had studied under Stuart and Benjamin West, agreed to take James on as an apprentice. But before doing so, he insisted that James complete six months of training with artist Edward Miles. Miles' miniatures and portraits were renowned throughout Russia and England, and in his youth he had studied with famed British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. James Reid Lambdin absorbed all he could from these impressive influences, and within two years of arriving in Philadelphia exhibited a portrait at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was fortunate enough to have his own likeness painted by Sully. During that process he benefited from seeing a master at work close at hand. James made the most of his time in Philadelphia, joining The Painters Club and attending its weekly meetings.

Lambdin returned to Pittsburgh in July 1824. Once back in the city of his birth, he began to advertise his services as a drawing instructor and portrait painter. Unfortunately, there was only so much work to be had in 1820s Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh Gazette

Life as a portrait painter in early America meant traveling to wherever people of means who might want their portraits painted lived. Lambdin therefore left Pittsburgh once again to peddle his talents in various cities via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. He was an artist of considerable skill and impressive training, and was able to steadily built his artistic reputation and portfolio. He even managed to snag a wife during this period, having met Mary O'Hara Cochran as a pupil in one of his Pittsburgh drawing classes. They became engaged in May 1826.

Peale Museum, New York City, c. 1825.
Museum of the City of New York

But the couple had an unexpectedly extended betrothal. Pittsburgh Judge William Wilkins offered in early 1827 to financially sponsor James for two years of European travel and study. That kind of sponsorship and patronage was an artist's dream come true. This was an era before full color art reproductions, and nothing could beat studying the great artistic masterworks of Europe in person.

Unfortunately for James Lambdin, financial setbacks caused Wilkins to rescind his offer. Although James painted his way to his planned departure in New York City, he didn't have the money to set sail. While cooling his heels in New York, he visited the museum of his friend Rubens Peale, one of the sons of famed American portraitist Charles Willson Peale. Due to poor eyesight Rubens had not pursued an artistic career like his father and brothers, and was instead making his way as a museum director. Rubens first served as director of his father's Philadelphia Museum (aka Peale's American Museum), then as co-founder and director with his artist-brother Rembrandt at the Baltimore Peale Museum, and finally as founder and director of the Peale Museum in New York City.

James had come to know the flagship Philadelphia Peale museum situated in Philadelphia's Independence Hall from his time in that city. He would have recalled it as the prototype for Rubens' New York establishment. Encouraged by Rubens, it didn't take long for James to decide to move on from the loss of his European study-abroad plans, capitalize on his connections, and open his own museum establishment back in Pittsburgh. In making this move, James was likely hoping for a steadier income from the museum business, which would support his artistic career and allow him to settle comfortably into domestic life.

The plan didn't quite live up to expectations.

The Lambdin Museum Collection
James Reid Lambdin opened the first museum west of the Allegheny Mountains on 8 September 1828. He married Mary O'Hara Cochran three days later on 11 September 1828 at downtown Pittsburgh's Trinity Church.

Mary O'Hara Cochran, c. 1850, by James Reid Lambdin.
Smithsonian American Art Museum

The new Pittsburgh Museum of Natural History and Gallery of Fine Art was situated at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Market Street downtown. The museum solicited subscribers who maintained memberships. But it was also open to the general public, with admission of 25¢ for adults and 12 1/2¢ for children. It should be noted that these were hardly bargain prices for working class Pittsburghers, since a tailor in 1830 might earn 25¢ for a pair of pantaloons that took him 15 hours to sew!

The Lambdin collection consisted of an eclectic assortment of natural history, archaeological and artistic specimens. As such, it reflected the philosophy of Charles Willson Peale, who thought such museums should be made available for education "to both the unlearned and the unwise."

American museums of the day were not that far removed from "curiosity cabinets" that individual collectors maintained to showcase wonders and oddities of the natural world. Whether in an actual cabinet, room, or museum space, specimens were displayed using both logical and idiosyncratic organizational systems. Collecting itself was a haphazard affair, governed by subjective tastes for beauty, oddities and marvels. A combination of natural history and art was typical of such collections, reflecting the era's philosophical and scholarly interrelationship of art and science. The quality of these collections varied considerably.

Pittsburgh Gazette, May 1830

Pittsburgh was fortunate to have a respectable and representative assortment of early American and European artwork in its new museum, made possible by James Lambdin's professional acumen and contacts. Like the Peale museums, the Lambdin Museum's art collection intentionally included original pieces alongside copies of both old and contemporary famous and popular art. 

James displayed his own paintings beside work by his teacher Thomas Sully, Charles Willson Peale, and copies of work by the famed Gilbert Stuart. He hosted visiting expeditions, too, including the 18x14 foot Calvary or The Moment Before the Crucifixion by one-eyed painter, author and playwright William Dunlap. This monumental painting, which Dunlap considered his masterpiece, was sent on national tour in 1828 and made its way to Pittsburgh (the current location of the painting, if it even still exists, is unknown).

James Lambdin's apprentice Russell Smith claimed that there were about 60 paintings at the museum, some of which had belonged to a German count (possibly a member of the near-by Harmonite community, or the Baron Muller mentioned in Thomas Cushing's History of Allegheny County).

The following letter from notable Pittsburgher William Croghan, father of Mary Croghan Schenley, was written when he was preparing to sell off his own collection in January 1831. It gives us an idea of the quality of artwork that may have been showcased in Lambdin's Museum:

...I expect soon to leave here & know now whether I shall again go to keeping house, I am therefore anxious to dispose of those I offered and others--Those I offered you were 1st Oedipus, Antigone & Polyneus, from a story in the Greek mythology) by Biloq a French artist--This painting was purchased in Paris, in 1824, by W. Lee, (a connoisseur)formerly our consul at Bardran & late 4th auditor of account, & for which he then paid as he spared me, 1500 francs
2nd Is a head (doubtless an original) by Rembrandt, purchased at the same time & by the same person for 500 francs
3. The Head of a Miser said by VanDyke (doubtful) certainly of fine execution.
4. St. Peter, by Tiepolo an Italian artist
5 & 6. Concert & Feast--Muller   
6 & 7. Freebooters--&Money changers--these are two splendid paintings & universally admired--by Vos
8 "Blessings before meals." Has the appearance of being once a fine painting, it is much injured by age--
For those paintings I am willing to take Three Hundred Dollars (300) I think, they would be an acquisition to any gallery--the motives that induce me to sell are what I had stated--Respectfully

Yr oh Sr

I leave here about 1s February next                                                                   WiCroghan

Just as curators do today, James Reid Lambdin worked at keeping his exhibits fresh and exciting in order to entice the public through his doors.

Unlike modern-day museum curators, Lambdin's natural history offerings were really fresh.

At one exhibit, in addition to taxidermied representations of specimens from the avian world, Lambdin's Museum was home to two live white crows.

Pittsburgh Gazette

Pittsburgh Gazette

The museum also featured a novelty of the day: gas lighting. Although gas lighting was commonly in use in Europe and other US cities, in 1829 Lambdin's Museum was "brilliantly illuminated" and was one of the first public spaces in the city of Pittsburgh to experiment with this technology. The city itself would not be lit with gas until April 1837.

Aside from using the novelty lighting of his day, James Lambdin also sought to impress and drum up business by displaying curiosities, much as P.T. Barnum would do a decade later. Lambdin supplemented his regular collection with traveling exhibits of Egyptian mummies, artificial fireworks, armless musicians, and dioramas on subjects ranging from the Great Fire of Russia to the Battle of Waterloo.

There was also a visiting mermaid. She was apparently quite a hit in 1831 -- or at least her ad copy claimed so, stating that even the most "sceptical persons expressed a satisfaction on beholding it."

Not everyone was impressed with Lambdin's Museum. German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied passed through Pittsburgh in October 1832 and had this to say:

In the local museum, I had seen several interesting animals native to this region, and had ordered them from a fisherman at the fish market. Dr. Harlan of Philadelphia had also given me a letter to the owner of the museum, a portrait painter, Mr Lambdin; and through this I had been able to familiarize myself with those interesting animals. Otherwise the museum is scarcely worth seeing and does not deserve mention.

Apparently not a fan of American portraiture, that Prince Maximilian. Too bad he didn't get to see the mermaid.

Despite such criticism, James persevered with gathering specimens. Existing letters detail shipments of shells and birds and mention his friendship with John James Audubon. The museum received a positive review, with homage paid to the extensive avian collection, from Mrs. Anne Newport Royall. She is considered by some to be America's first professional female journalist, and she described the museum in an 1829 travel book entitled Mrs. Royall's Pennsylvania. Her description of the museum gives us a singular tantalizing glimpse of the variety of the exhibits and the way some specimens were displayed:

Lamdbin's Museum and Gallery of Paintings was established 8th September, 1828, and now contains a valuable collection of paintings from ancient as well as modern masters. Fine landscapes, by Doughty, Birch, Lawrence, &c. Pictures from the collection of Baron Basse Muller. Portraits of distinguished characters, by Stewart, Sally, Peale, and Lambdin.

The Museum contains about two hundred foreign birds, among which are the birds of Paradise; twenty quadrupeds; five hundred minerals; three hundred fossils, amongst which are many bones of the Mammoth; three hundred marine shells; twelve hundred impressions of medals; one hundred ancient coins; a handsome collection of articles from the South seas; marine productions; Indian articles; &c. &c. 

I would suppose Mr. Lambdin to be man of great taste himself, from the neatness and skill displayed in the arrangement of the articles displayed in his Museum--all the articles being put up in neater and better order than any Museum I have met with. The shelves are white, neat, and so regular that they are a show of themselves; and the whole enlosed (sic) with glass. Here I, for the first time, saw flowers of all sorts, pinks, roses, &c. &c. made out of seashells, the most extraordinary of labor and ingenuity I ever saw, excepting the wooden globe in Salem Museum.  These flowers are of all sizes and colors, and are said to be the work of  Mrs. Peale, of Philadelphia.  

Mr. Lambdin is himself an Artist, quite a genteel and amiable man.  It is hoped that he may receive the favor and patronage of travellers and enlightened strangers who pass through Pittsburg, it being the only specimen of taste or amusement in the city--no library, no atheneum, no gardens, no theater...

It is unclear from from Mrs. Royall's description whether she actually met the "genteel and amiable" James Lambdin. Although the museum bore his name and regularly advertised its collection, he was in fact largely an absentee curator, inconsistently present in Pittsburgh due to continued travels seeking portrait commissions.

From the 1830s on, James and Mary and their newborn son George stayed for extended periods of time with friends in Ohio and Mississippi. It was Lambdin's painting apprentice, a 16 year old painter christened William Thompson Russell Smith but known as Russell Smith, who maintained the Lambdin Museum when the boss was away. Russell Smith recalled in his memoirs:

Portrait of Russell Smith by James Reid Lambdin, 1838

In the agreement with Mr. Lambdin I was to aid him in any way I could in his painting as a return for his instruction; but as he was about to open the "Pittsburgh Museum"--a partial off-shoot of Peale's in Philadelphia, he had little time to paint or give instruction and I gradually drifted into helping in the stuffing of birds and beasts, arranging minerals, antiquities and Indian costumes--of which there was a most extensive collection given by General Clarke (Lewis' companion)--and hanging the pictures etc; and finally keeping accounts and managing when Mr. Lambdin was off in the South for five months at a time reaping a harvest with his brush to help pay the rent and other expenses of the Museum, which did not pay its own way.

The museum functioned as a cultural center and atheneum, and was home to the Philosophical Society and Pittsburgh Reading Club. Nineteenth century author Samuel Young recalled:

Well do we remember Lambdin's Museum at the corner of Fourth and Market streets. Here night after night a dozen or so of youngsters, who sought to be Forrests or Booths, used to gather and perform upon the stage. The only pay Lambdin ever gave his performers of this class was a hot lunch, and Englishman-like, a big pitcher of hot punch. There was not enough of this latter to "make drunk come," but it put all in a good humor. Our position in this galaxy of genius was that of a singer of Irish songs, and we were able to "bring down the house" on occasions.

The museum was also the site of scholarly lectures such as these on Chemistry. 

Pittsburgh Gazette, March 1832

Pittsburgh Gazette, September 1829

 

Trouble, Vexation and Pecuniary Loss: Whither, Lambdin Museum?

Pittsburgh Gazette

So what happened to the museum, and why don't we know about it today?

Despite its prominence in Pittsburgh's cultural scene, the Lambdin Museum was not a financial success. James' passion was for painting, not museum administration. He would later describe his curatorial efforts as "years of trouble, vexation, and pecuniary loss."

At least through January 1833 James was still showing his work at a gallery in Pittsburgh, but he moved with Mary and their son to Louisville Kentucky in 1832. He transferred the contents of his Pittsburgh museum to a rented building on Main Street in Louisville, and a board of trustees incorporated the Louisville Museum Company in February 1835. 

The museum was rechartered in 1838 as the Harlan Museum Company, but little is known about its subsequent fate. By that point James Lambdin and his family had moved on, quite literally, permanently settling to Philadelphia. He and Mary raised seven surviving of nine children, and their oldest son George Cochran Lambdin achieved considerable success as a still-life flower painter.

James Reid Lambdin went on to a stellar career as a painter of some of America's most prominent citizens of the day. Every American president from John Quincy Adams to James Garfield sat for him. He was a prolific artist and his paintings can be found in museums and collections around the country. Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art possesses two of his portraits.

Benjamin Darlington by James Reid Lambdin
Carnegie Museum of Art

Henry Clay by James Reid Lambdin
Carnegie Museum of Art

 

The McCandless/Northern Allegheny Heritage and Cultural Center in northern Allegheny County also possesses an original Lambdin painting, that of Judge Wilson McCandless (1810-1882), namesake of the township. It is unknown if the painting's provenance has been thoroughly researched but at the very least it can be traced to the possession of Judge McCandless, whose estate appears to have placed it for sale in 1859 at the First Exhibition of the Pittsburgh Art Association. According to the catalogue for that noteworthy exhibit, McCandless possessed at least two other Lambdin works of Pittsburgh legal contemporaries and friends: Portrait of Walter Forward, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (now in the Smithsonian collection, although the University of Pittsburgh's Darlington Library owns an engraving) and Portrait of the late Judge Baldwin (US Supreme Court Justice Baldwin was the namesake of the southern Allegheny County suburb of Baldwin).

Judge Wilson McCandless by James Reid Lambdin
McCandless/Northern Allegheny Heritage and Cultural Center Collection

Lambdin's erstwhile assistant Russell Smith would himself achieve great acclaim as a landscape artist. Poor Smith didn't get much painting done under his apprenticeship with James Lambdin but didn't seem to mind, later noting:

....I did very little painting until I was twentyone; but I never blamed Mr. Lambdin; he could not help it; and I believe, in my various duties, I learned much that was of great use to me in after life, when my pursuit of painting took an entirely different turn. Mr. Lambdin also had a good collection of books on Art and these I used much to my advantage especially "Edwards' Perspective," and, in order to put its' rules into practice, I drew many buildings and views in and about Pittsburg, which have since the destruction of the Great Fire, a value....

Russell Smith's paintings of Pittsburgh are indeed valuable treasures that preserve a visual record of the city from the early 1830s, just as James Lambdin's portraits allow us to visualize the men and women of their day. 

But the museum these men maintained is long gone, the building likely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1845. The site is today occupied by the PPG Plaza Ice Rink (aka Tomb of the Unknown Bowler).

James Reid Lambdin, c. 1862
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division

_________________________________________________________________

Selected Sources and Suggested Reading
Catalogue of the First Exhibition of the Pittsburgh Art Association
Crutcher, Lawrence M. George Keats of Kentucky: A Life. University Press of Kentucky, 2012.
Cushing, Thomas. History of Allegheny County. Chicago: A. Warner & Company, 1889.
Kelly, George Edward. Allegheny County, a sesqui-centennial review. Pittsburgh, PA: Allegheny County Sesqui-Centenntial Committee, 1938.
Lambdin, James R. Journal of James R. Lambdin. Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA.
Lewis, Virginia E. Russell Smith Romantic Realist. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956.
Martin, Scott C. Killing Time: Leisure and Culture in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1800-1850.
University of Pittsburgh Press, Nov 1, 1995.
O'Connor, John Jr.  Reviving a Forgotten Artist: A Sketch of James Reid Lambdin, The Pittsburgh Painter of American Statesmen. Carnegie Magazine 12 (September 1938): 115–18
Sargent, Elizabeth Kennedy. Lambdin’s Pittsburgh Museum of Natural History and Gallery of the Fine Arts, 1828–1832.  Tutorial research paper, Chatham College, 1984.
Swetnam, George. Pittsburgh's Early Painters. The Pittsburgh Press. Sunday August 6, 1967. United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics. History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928: Revision of Bulletin No. 499 with Supplement, 1929-1933. Gale Research Company, 1966.
Weidner, Ruth Irwin. The Lambdin Family Collection of Paintings by James Reid Lambdin and George Cochran Lambdin. Philadelphia: Schwarz Fine Paintings, 2002.
Witte, Stephen S. Witte and Marsha V. Gallagher. The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied: May 1832-April 1833, Volume 1. University of Oklahoma Press, Apr 9, 2014.
Young, Samuel. The history of my life; being a biographical outline of the events of a long and busy life.  Pittsburgh: Herald Print. Co.,1890.

The Lower Hill District and Civic Arena

Any good Pittsburgher knows how to give directions using long-gone buildings and businesses as current landmarks: "Yinz go down to that intersection where Kaufmann's used to be, across from where Border's was, and turn right up past where the old school uniform store was." If you're from around here you know exactly what's being described and you'll get to where you're going, no problem. This remembrance of things past dominates our lives so much that local filmmaker Rick Sebak produced “Things That Aren’t There Anymore,” a popular cinematic homage to former Pittsburgh attractions that exist only in collective memories.

Pity the poor non-Pittsburgher who has no historical context to follow such directions and who becomes even more lost after receiving our 'help.' It's inevitable as time passes that our 'where it used to be' method of giving directions will change as infrastructure and landscape changes.

Old descriptors eventually become meaningless.

That's how we define progress, after all: out with the old, in with the new.

Except those are pretty much fightin' words for historical preservationists, who work to assure that historic properties are kept intact and/or that modifications reflect a respect for the past. As a society, we must weigh the value of preservation against the limitations it places on urban growth, and sort through the layers of history to decide what to preserve and what to let pass into the realm of memory. What do we save? What gets consigned to dust boundless and bare? How will these decisions affect us, and what is best for the community?

It's an enormous task, keeping our past present for the future.

Here in Western Pennsylvania we have always quite literally built upon our past. There are layers of regional history forever inaccessible, sacrificed to the necessities of surviving in what was once the edge of the colonial western frontier, later hell-with-the-lid-off industrial Pittsburgh. There wasn't time to contemplate preservation; we moved forward, tore down, built anew. 

Our losses differ from deliberate and mindless destruction that occurred in other places as a result of ideological zealotry. There's nothing hereabouts that's the equivalent of descruction during the French Revolution, the English Protestant Reformation, or parallels to modern-day destruction of statues of Buddha in Afghanistan and pillaging of Sufi tombs and mosques by Muslim extremists intent on destroying what they find offensive. No, lost Pittsburgh history isn't usually due to willful destruction for destruction's sake (although there are some arguable cases), nor as a result of ideological violence. 

We've lost our past in the name of Progress.

The list of lost architectural and social witnesses to Pittsburgh's history is a long one. We have too often been reactive when it comes to historical preservation, not thinking about preserving until Progress reduces what we know to rubble.

Such was the case with Pittsburgh's Lower Hill District, an area that would be completely unidentifiable to its former residents many times over due to multiple iterations.

Picked Clean: Pittsburgh's Cultural Crossroads
What we think of as The Hill was once known as Farm Number Three, owned by a grandson of William Penn and then sold to a Revolutionary War veteran. That farmland on the slopes nearest the city was purchased in the late 1840s by Thomas Mellon. He subdivided it into individual plots and flipped them for a profit, thereby beginning the Lower Hill's development as a settled community.

The area was filled with large homes and gracious estates in the early to mid 19th century. At the same time, the region boasted of one of Pittsburgh's antebellum communities of free people of color, known as Arthursville.

As the wealthier white families died off or moved further from the urban center, population expansion after the Civil War brought freed slaves from Virginia, then Jews, Italians, Syrians, Greeks, and Poles to the Lower Hill. Beginning in the late 19th century, a renowned Little Harlem developed there which became a vibrant center of African American cultural life in the city.

Lower Hill District, with Downtown Pittsburgh in distance, circa 1906-10. Photo by William H. Matthews. 
University of Pittsburgh, Kingsley Association Records

But by 1960 the City of Pittsburgh had razed 95 acres of the Lower Hill, forcibly relocating over 400 businesses and 8000 mostly black residents. 

Lower Hill demolition, 1957. Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection, University of Pittsburgh

Why? Progress.

In 1946 department store magnate Edgar Kaufmann and Councilman Abe Wolk partnered to give the region a new amphitheater and cultural center. Their vision was for a "Center for the Arts" that would include a combination of opera house and symphony hall, multiple arenas, theaters, an art museum, luxury apartments, hotels and offices.They garnered private pledges of nearly $100,000 for construction and went looking for a building site.

Pittsburgh Mayor David L. Lawrence briefly pitched a plan to build this complex at the city’s Point. That plan had some merit in that it would renew what had become an area of industrial blight, but was not practical in terms of handling the anticipated traffic.

The Hill was perceived as a better choice because it was a prime location, and ripe for renewal. It had nothing good going for it in the eyes of many, who characterized it as filled with architectural blight and vice. As described by one Pittsburgh Councilman, the buildings in the Lower Hill were sub-standard and "....have long outlived their usefulness....there would be no social loss if they were all destroyed."

And so they were destroyed.

Preservation of the Lower Hill neighborhood was not a viable issue in the face of the perceived need for a municipal auditorium to benefit the entire tri-state area. A Pittsburgh Press article from the time notes that "The Hill...was completely worn out, like an old pair of shoes that has gone the last mile."

By September 1955 the federal government had approved an ambitious redevelopment plan in the Lower Hill and made more than $17 million in loans and grants available for it to happen. Demolition began in May 1956. Once the mass demolition of 80 blocks under the principle of eminent domain had been completed, construction of what became the Civic Arena began on 25 April 1958.

31 May 1956. "A ceremony to mark the beginning of demolition for the redevelopment of Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill District neighborhood includes Mayor David L. Lawrence symbolically commencing the project."  Note bemused on-lookers, presumably Lower Hill Residents, in the background. Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center

In January 1957, as the bulldozers rumbled up its brick streets, Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority expected that by year's end "....half of the 1800 families living in the Lower Hill will be relocated; that 90 percent of 970 parcels of property will be acquired; that land will be cleared for construction of both the new public auditorium and the Crosstown Boulevard...."

Too bad if you were one of those 1800+ families.

Too bad if you were a member of Bethel AME Church on Wylie Avenue and Elm Street. Bethel was founded in 1808. It was a vibrant center for the black community with connections to Wilberforce University, Payne Theological Seminary, and home to Pittsburgh’s first black elementary school. It had even been a stop on the Underground Railroad. 

 

Bethel was seized by eminent domain and the Romanesque-style building was demolished in 1957. Never mind that eminent domain laws excluded churches from such fates. Surely it was coincidental that Church of the Epiphany two blocks away was spared -- a Catholic church with a mostly Irish congregation at a time when Pittsburgh's mayor was Irish Catholic?

 

Bethel AME Church, 1957 destruction. Charles 'Teenie' Harris Collection, Carnegie Museum of Art

According to Urban Redevelopment Authority documents examined by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2018, Pittsburgh's "housing authority would relocate 1,551 families, 29 percent into public housing. A URA survey in 1953 showed that of 1,885 total families in the Lower Hill at that time, 67.1 percent were black, 32.9 percent white. Their average annual incomes were not too far apart. In today’s dollars, those averages would be $26,068 for white families and $25,360 for black families. The URA tracked the relocations. Most black families moved to the Middle and Upper Hill, a few to Homewood. Most white families moved to Uptown and the South Hills;Brookline, Beechview, Mt. Washington and Mount Lebanon."

These residents of The Lower Hill were on the front lines of the city's "attack on blight." It's doubtful that any of them would have described their neighborhood as a garden spot; new building, infrastructure and renovation were undeniably necessary in Pittsburgh's oldest; residential area. But making that happen required renewal of a different sort, and a different kind of vision for the city.

One newspaper photograph in early January 1957 of Bedford Avenue demolition explained that the area was being "Picked Clean" and excitedly noted "By next year, most of the lower Hil District will look like this."

So the Hill was a slum and its building owners -- most of whom didn't live there -- were being paid for their blighted properties beyond what measly incomes they'd get from rentals. Who could complain?

Lower Hill residents, that's who. But they had no voice in what happened, or at least none that would be heeded. There were few profiles of those displaced by Progress and the ones that did get published took on mocking, ironic tones: lowlifes were getting what they deserved. One example: over the preceding decades, local papers ran stories about Hill resident C. Cephus Ford many times, highlighting his reputation as Pittsburgh's "most arrested man." He was always described in the first sentences of these articles first as either "Negro" or "colored" as was typical of the times. That was followed by a reference to his gambling operations. This Post-Gazette lede from May 1936 was typical: "Cephus Ford, the colored gentleman who has done so much to promote the growth of straight flushes and naturals in the Hill District...."

After dozens of articles chronicling Ford's misadventures and arrests, it must have seemed like a no-brainer in the newsroom to profile his gambling kingdom being destroyed along with the rest of the neighborhood. Given his press notoriety, he was perhaps one of the few Hill residents that white Pittsburgh might recognize. The resulting article was hardly a sympathetic portrayal of the typical experiences of displaced Hill residents.

Click to see entire article: Pittsburgh Press 6 January 1957

A contemporary headline from the Pittsburgh Courier, a newspaper for Pittsburgh's black community, read "Urban Renewal Means Negro Removal".

But few paid heed.

Colwell Street looking west toward the intersection with Stevenson Street, October 1956. Photo by John R. Shrader. 
Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center.

Much has been written about the ramifications of urban renewal attempts in general, and specifically about the impact of the demolition of the Lower Hill neighborhood. Today it's well nigh impossible to defend such heavy-handed actions for the greater good, not when the mass relocation of so many families--mostly black and mostly without a voice in the pre-Civil Rights Era--affected this entire region.

The impact of leveling the Lower Hill wasn't limited to just the residents of that neighborhood. The mass exodus of so many people increased urban crowding in other areas of the city, and accelerated the 'white flight' of city residents to the suburbs. Prices that home-owners received weren't enough to buy new homes elsewhere, contributing to the proliferation of opportunistic slum landlord domination of rented housing in impoverished, over-crowded neighborhoods and increased burden on the developing public housing system.

All of this contributed to the incubation of failed hopes and dreams, and gave birth to more high-crime communities.

So much for Progress.

New housing in the Hill was promised when the Lower Hill was torn down. But it wasn't until decades later, from 1993-2000, that Pittsburgh's Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) acquired the abandoned and derelict land above the Arena and built the Crawford Square development there. That's long after the displaced residents of the Hill who might have benefited from such development had died or moved on.

1958 Centre Avenue area. William V. Winans Jr. Photograph Collection, Detre Library & Archives, Senator John Heinz History Center

Progress Creates a Dome
And what replaced the Lower Hill neighborhood? Originally budgeted at $19 million, the Civic Arena took forty months and cost $21.7 million to construct.

Cleared Lower Hill with footprint of Civic Arena under construction, c February 1958. The architectural firm of Mitchell & Ritchey and the engineering firm of Ammann & Whitney and Robert Zern designed the structure. 
 Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, Detre Library & Archives, Heinz History Center

A massive cantilever arm allowed the six movable parts of the roof to retract without any interior supports, and was considered to be an architectural marvel. Anyone who ever witnessed the dome opening during a concert or event remembers the awe-inspiring sight of 'raising the roof.'

Considered the world’s first and at one time largest indoor sports arena, the building was most fondly known locally as "The Igloo". Oh, sure, it was formally named the Mellon Arena from 2008-2010 due to ubiquitous corporate sponsorship naming rights, but that name didn't resonate with real Pittsburghers. Circuses, rock stars, the Harlem Globetrotters, monster truck shows, and political campaigns regularly flocked to the Igloo. The Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team was its anchor tenant.

Pittsburgh Business Times file photo

But, hey, more Progress! The no-longer state-of-the-art Civic Arena was decommissioned almost fifty years later when its successor, the $321,000,000 CONSOL Energy Center facility (since renamed thanks to more ubiquitous corporate sponsorship rights), opened near-by in October 2010.

There was much impassioned and polarizing debate about the merits of preserving the doomed dome and designating it as a historic landmark. Efforts were spear-headed by concerned individuals. Groups like Preservation Pittsburgh and Reuse the Igloo cited the need to preserve the building due to its innovative retracting roof, its symbolism of mid-20th century urban renewal, and its status as a cultural center for the community. But the latter argument was mocked as an ironic parody of the feelings of those who remembered the wholesale displacement of the Lower Hill community so that very same Arena could be built fifty years earlier.

The merits of saving the Civic Arena were publicly contested for months, amidst accusations that the official discussion process was corrupted (or, more benignly, affected) by competing special interests.

The elephant in the room was the history of demolition of the Lower Hill fifty years earlier. The Civic Arena had its ardent fanbase, but cultural memories root deep. Former Lower Hill residents and community advocates remembered their neighborhood with aching fondness, anger, and regret. One organization dedicated to preserving modern architecture stated:  

Civic Arena was surely worthy of being included on any one of these (preservation) listings but 20th century architecture has one big disadvantage: people remember it being built, they remember what was torn down to build it, and that sentiment or stigma is often harbored regardless of the objectivity of building advocates.

Such sentiments were eloquently summarized by Councilman Sala Udin at one of the City Council hearings about Arena preservation: 

The demolition of my home along with 8,000 others in the 1950s and 1960s began a multi-generational wound. The redevelopment can begin a healing process to preserve the people, and I hope that once this arena is demolished we can depend on this entire preservation community to support the development of the people with the same vigor that you now support of the preservation of a building.

Practical concerns were also voiced. The National Trust for Historic Preservation could cite multiple examples illustrating how building reuse nearly always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction, including buildings of equivalent size and function to the old Igloo.

But building rehabilitation and renovation is expensive. There had to be a compelling purpose for refitting a building the size of the Civic Arena, plus deep pockets to make it happen.

Neither existed.

Historical sentiment and cultural interests lost to financial and business agendas, which together sealed the Arena's fate. Preservation attempts failed and demolition began in the fall of 2011. This time lapse video by YouTube user "DayGraphics2012" shows how it was deconstructed over a nine month period:

Epilogue
It's been six years since I wrote the above. The Arena space is STILL an empty lot awaiting future development. It remains alive in community memory and even has a Facebook page devoted to chronicling personal reminiscences of events attended there.

Nothing can bring back the Arena; it was doomed by its own historical baggage and there was no room on the development agendas for such a colossus.

Likewise, nothing will return the pre-Civic Arena Lower Hill to its former vibrancy.

But out of this dust and rubble, Pittsburgh's power-brokers have a unique opportunity to build something fabulous and to right past wrongs.

A 2007 option agreement gave the Pittsburgh Penguins exclusive rights to develop a 28 acre site over a ten year period. There were penalties if they failed to act, with the Sports Exhibition Authority or the Urban Redevelopment Authority be given the right to offer the land to another developer. An official site plan has yet to be decided upon, although there's still plenty of talk about combining commercial, residential, and retail components for a "mixed-use live-work-play community."

Careful new investments and sensitive development could mean economic revitalization for the area and attract new residents, businesses and even tourists. This bid for Progress is special; it's a chance to rebuild on the ashes of memory and opportunity.

We can still hope that pressure to hold onto this valuable real estate will not prevent a thoughtful and responsible process of discernment and reflection regarding its development from occurring. Foresight needs to be directed to deciding what will be best for the good of the present and future community -- and this time, the process needs to pay heed to the voice of the public. A dedicated physical homage marking what once was on the site -- both the Lower Hill community that was sacrificed and the beloved Igloo it made room for -- would be the icng on the cake.

Ironically, today there is a concerted effort to draw more people to living space in the Downtown area. Imagine that...had the Lower Hill been developed as promised decades ago, it would have provided Downtown with housing stock that could be redeveloped and reused as part of 21st century urban Progress. After all, historic buildings in older neighborhoods attract people to urban living, and are an integral part of defining a city's personality.

What are the communal ramifications of living with things that aren't there anymore, but which remain present in cultural memory? We're living the results.

But done is done. We owe it ourselves to channel the energy spent regretting what was done to assure that we don't foster even more regrets over future development plans. We have layers upon layers of history in Pittsburgh. We can't bring back what is gone, but we can and should honor our own legacies when we rebuild.

PERIODIC UPDATE: It's now 2019, and the former Civic Arena space remains one big empty lot for the foreseeable future.

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Selected Bibliography and Further Reading

Arena History
Council votes down Civic Arena preservation
Many ask council to preserve Civic Arena

The Hill District: History
JLL tapped for role in redeveloping Pittsburgh's Civic Arena site 
Penguins Skating Uphill Over Arena Site Plans 
Pens look to Philly for ideas on developing former Civic Arena site 
Pittsburgh's Hill District: The Death Of A Dream
Rainy weather is making things messy for demolition of Civic Arena 
Return to Glory: Hill District determined to regain lost greatness  
SEA urged to use a portion of parking revenue to support HIll