Crawford Grill #2 listed on National Register

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Jazz landmark Crawford Grill headed to National Register

 

MARYLYNNE PITZ

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[e-mail]

 

OCT 5, 2019

 

11:25 AM

If all goes well, Pitts­burgh’s land­mark jazz mecca, Craw­ford Grill No. 2, will be listed on the Na­tional Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places by year’s end. Penn­syl­va­nia’s his­toric preser­va­tion board voted unan­i­mously Tues­day to for­ward the nom­i­na­tion to the Na­tional Park Ser­vice.

That’s a big leap for a Hill Dis­trict build­ing closed since 2003. Lis­t­ing a build­ing on the Na­tional Reg­is­ter means it is wor­thy of preser­va­tion, but it’s the first step in a $2 mil­lion ef­fort to re­vive a place that hosted nearly ev­ery great jazz mu­si­cian and vo­cal­ist of the 20th cen­tury.

If its own­ers suc­ceed in sta­bi­liz­ing and re­stor­ing the land­mark, their next step will be map­ping out a sus­tain­able busi­ness plan. The own­ers’ strat­egy will likely in­clude ex­pand­ing the build­ing to the va­cant prop­erty they own next to the night­club, said Rob Pfaff­mann, lead ar­chi­tect of Pfaff­mann + As­so­ci­ates.

Mr. Pfaff­mann, whose firm is also re­stor­ing play­wright Au­gust Wil­son’s Bed­ford Avenue home, has drawn plans for up­dat­ing and ex­pand­ing Craw­ford Grill No. 2.

 

Marylynne Pitz

Crawford Grill No. 2 nominated to the National Register of Historic Places

The night­club, which op­er­ated from 1945 to 2003, was owned by Wil­liam Au­gus­tus “Gus” Green­lee, a suc­cess­ful num­bers run­ner who started the Pitts­burgh Craw­fords, a base­ball team made up of out­stand­ing African Amer­i­can play­ers. When his health failed in 1950, he sold the club to Joe Robin­son. Later, his son, Wil­liam “Buzzy” Robin­son, ran it, ac­cord­ing to the Na­tional Reg­is­ter nom­i­na­tion writ­ten by Jeff Slack, a Pitts­burgh preser­va­tion plan­ner.

Franco Har­ris, a Steel­ers Hall of Fame run­ning back turned busi­ness­man, is an in­ves­tor in Craw­ford Devel­op­ment Group, which bought the jazz club in 2003. He could not be reached for com­ment.

Pitts­burgh Gate­ways, a lo­cal non­profit founded by Robert Meeder, also has a fi­nan­cial stake in the prop­erty. To trans­form the for­mer Con­nel­ley Trade School into the Energy In­no­va­tion Center, Pitts­burgh Gate­ways used his­toric, new mar­ket and con­ser­va­tion ease­ment tax cred­its as part of its fi­nanc­ing for that proj­ect.

“His­toric tax cred­its would be de­ployed for ren­o­vat­ing the Craw­ford Grill if the pri­vate own­ers wish to do so and I think they do,” Mr. Meeder said in a tele­phone in­ter­view, add­ing that the cost of the grill proj­ect is roughly $2 mil­lion. Mr. Har­ris serves on the board of di­rec­tors for Pitts­burgh Gate­ways Corp.

Hill Dis­trict res­i­dents and jazz fans love to re­count sto­ries about the per­form­ers they heard at the night­club, and prom­i­nent in their cu­li­nary mem­o­ries is the suc­cu­lent fried chicken served at 2141 Wylie Ave. U-shaped red booths gave pa­trons a great view of the 10-by-12-foot stage up above, Mr. Pfaff­mann said.

Lo­cated in a three-story com­mer­cial build­ing erected in 1917, the prop­erty needs ba­sic ame­ni­ties like an el­e­va­tor, mod­ern stair­cases and larger, up­dated rest­rooms. Also es­sen­tial are new win­dows and a stron­ger sup­port sys­tem for in­stall­ing a new roof to pro­tect the struc­ture, Mr. Pfaff­mann said.

On the build­ing’s two up­per floors are four, 800-square-foot apart­ments, two on each level.

 

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“That’s where a lot of the jazz play­ers stayed,” Mr. Pfaff­mann said, add­ing that they could be­come af­ford­able hous­ing for art­ists or mu­si­cians.

Once the build­ing is sta­bi­lized and its in­te­rior re­stored, Mr. Pfaff­mann said, in­ves­tors will have to “de­velop a busi­ness plan for a jazz club that only has a few dozen seats.”

“The chal­lenge is to cre­ate ad­di­tional space in the fu­ture on that ad­ja­cent lot. Most jazz clubs to­day can’t gen­er­ate enough in­come to sus­tain them­selves,” Mr. Pfaff­mann said.

A planned new el­e­va­tor and stair­case would con­nect to an ad­di­tion that could hold a flex­i­ble space with a large stage and seat­ing for 200 peo­ple.

“You could af­ford to bring a na­tional jazz act into that venue. You could have a kitchen, a first-class restau­rant,” Mr. Pfaff­mann said, add­ing that the more in­ti­mate Craw­ford Grill space would be one part of a larger com­plex.

“Imag­ine this new ad­di­tion has ga­rage doors across the front,” Mr. Pfaff­mann said. “The idea is to con­nect it out to the street.”

Patrons could ei­ther sit in the same booth Au­gust Wil­son oc­cu­pied to hear John Col­trane or at­tend a con­cert in the larger venue. The con­cept is sim­i­lar to a Chi­cago blues club, King­ston Mines, which has two ven­ues, Mr. Pfaff­mann said.

“Good food and good drink — that’s what drives the in­come to pay the band,” the ar­chi­tect added.

Marylynne Pitz at [e-mail], 412-263-1648 or on Twitter:@mpitzpg.

First Published October 5, 2019, 11:25am