Historic Crawford Grill silent monument to a glorious culture

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

Crawford Grill

Images courtesy of Dan Holland, Darrell Sapp and Charles "Teenie" Harris

The Crawford Grill was a renowned jazz club, founded in the 1930′s by Gus Greenlee, an African American businessman and Negro League baseball team owner. 

The original Crawford Grill was located on Centre Avenue and closed in 1952 after a fire. Crawford Grill #2, a companion to the original, opened its doors in 1943.

According to Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay, The Crawford Grill was one of dozens of nightclubs that helped make the Hill District the “crossroads of the world” in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50′s.

During the “Golden Era of Jazz”, music lovers flocked to the Crawford Grill to hear Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughn, Erroll Garner, Dizzy Gillespie, and other jazz legends perform. White musicians who played downtown venues would often go uptown to “The Grill” after their gigs to jam into the night with black musicians.

Crawford Grill #2 was nearly a full city block in length. In the main room on the second floor, the audience surrounded a revolving stage and bought their drinks at a glass-topped bar. The third floor, however, was where the real action took place, for this was home to ‘Club Crawford’, a spot for “insiders only.”

Crawford Grill #2 is located at 2141 Wylie Ave in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. It received a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission on April 07, 2001.

Marker Text

CRAWFORD GRILL
A center of Black social life where musicians such as Art Blakey, Mary Lou Williams, John Coltrane drew a racially mixed, international clientele. Here, Crawford Grill # 2, the second of three clubs opened 1943; was owned by William (Gus) Greenlee, later by Joseph Robinson.

In February 2010, a group, consisting of four private investors and... The group plans to restore and preserve the building’s interior space and to expand into a vacant lot next door, which the group also purchased for a new restaurant and nightclub space. There are also plans for an educational component that would convert the current building’s upper floors into studio, workshop, educational and meeting space.

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

No hole-in-the-wall, this blues-jazz club uses its somewhat off-the-beaten-path location to preserve its charm. – The Scene
The Crawford is arranged in shotgun fashion, with everything on either side of the one aisle. Just past the bar is the stage, with about as much floor space as a walk-in closet. If the drummer gets vigorous, he could fall backwards behind the bar. There is no room for dancing unless you want to dance in the aisle, or the tables.

The Music
The place is no secret to the many jazz greats who have darkened its door, including John Coltrane, George Benson, Stanley Turrentine. My first time at the Crawford Grill, there was a feisty blues singer who peppered his songs with stories about the women he had known. When I returned recently, there was a modern jazz band with an electric fiddle player who had so much jump that I wondered whether he had a power cord running up his leg.

The Food
If you come to the Crawford Grill hungry, you don't have to settle for chips and pretzels, or anything that tastes like it came from a frozen cardboard box. The fried chicken is juicy without being greasy. The yams are sweet and the collard greens, often overlooked in other places, look and taste like someone has paid attention to them.

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

Mouse over for marker text

Name:
Crawford Grill

Region:
Pittsburgh Region

County:
Allegheny

Marker Location:
2141 Wylie Avenue, Pittsburgh

Dedication Date:
April 7, 2001

Behind the Marker

William "Gus" Greenlee was a towering figure in Pittsburgh's African-American community. He owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the city's powerhouse Negro League baseball team, which was named after his night club, The Crawford Grill. Greenlee also controlled various nightclubs, sponsored professional boxers, and generally dominated the city's African-American sports and entertainment scene. The source of his wealth was the stuff of legend. According to local gossip, he made his money hijacking beer trucks and running an illegal gambling syndicate called a numbers racket.

Numbers bankers were important figures in the black neighborhoods of American cities. They employed dozens of numbers "runners" who picked up the bets and often financed black businessmen and women to whom white banks refused to make loans. The bankers could use their armies of numbers "runners" to bring out the vote on Election Day. This gave them clout with the white political bosses and could keep their gambling syndicates - and other businesses - protected. They also used their money to finance local sports teams, and to operate nightclubs that attracted the musicians from all over the country.

For many clubs, Pittsburgh's somewhat unusual economy was a boon. In the 1940s and 1950s, Pittsburgh's steel mills ran twenty-four hours a day, as did the city. Steel workers were shift workers, and their days off were rotated so that 'weekends' often came in the middle of the week.

This was good for the local businesses, especially restaurants and nightclubs like the Crawford Grill. Workers would often go out mid-week, dressed up and looking for dinner and entertainment. The Crawford provided both.

Crawford Grill owner "Woogie" Harris, Pittsburgh, PA, circa 1950....

The original Crawford Grill on Wylie Avenue in the Hill District of Pittsburgh was nearly a full city block in length. In the main room on the second floor, the audience surrounded a revolving stage and bought their drinks at a glass-topped bar. The third floor, however, was where the real action took place, for this was home to 'Club Crawford', a spot for "insiders only."

The Grill catered to a mixed clientele, as owner Keith Farris remembered in 2002.

There was never any nonsense about having great black artists come in by the back door like they did at The Cotton Club in New York. The Crawford Grill was part of the social, cultural and political landscape of Pittsburgh. Its presence was felt throughout the city. All politicians, black and white, would stop in at the Crawford Grill to have meetings and make themselves known. Not only people from Pittsburgh visited: so did Ethel Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Whenever celebrities came to town, they stopped in to the Crawford Grill.

 

Beyond the Marker

David Hadju, Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux), 1996.