LEGACY OF THE HISTORIC CRAWFORD GRILL #2 - Part 1

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

“The world awaits the next great story.”---Aquos

Whereas hurricanes, floods and earthquakes can destroy human cultural centers, they cannot destroy the memories. These can be lost only through neglect of interest and attention withheld by those of us who might be in a position to preserve the value of our cultural treasures. From the 1920s Pittsburgh’s Hill District was the Mecca of night life in the city. There were more than 50 venues of live entertainment operating under various names over the years in this community that boasted almost 3 miles of retail establishments from Herron Avenue to the Allegheny County Courthouse that were open 24 hours a day. By today’s standards most of these venues would be considered humble establishments but they acquired a nobility and notoriety by presenting the highest representations of art, music and entertainment available in the city, up close and personal. The Crawford Grill #1 and #2 were at the pinnacle of this entertainment pyramid from 1930 until 2003. There was no formulaic or generic entertainment at these historic venues… only the real thing from artists practicing their craft at their highest level of creativity whether local, national or international. The levels of user friendliness and sophistication were unsurpassed by anything since those times. Though most of the Hill has been demolished or renovated, the memories of the earlier time live on in the minds of those lucky to have experienced those times. Young musicians and music lovers today would benefit from being able to experience the same delights as we did. To that end a new Limited Partnership is planning the reopening of the Crawford Grill #2, restoring it to its rightful place as the home club for jazz and marketing the Crawford Grill Experience to the global jazz community.

The Neighborhood
“The Hill District, a 1.4-square-mile cluster of neighborhoods perched above the downtown area between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, became the cultural center of black Pittsburgh. In “the district” one could find the offices of the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation’s most influential black weekly newspapers. The Hill was also home base for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, the Negro National League baseball team that fielded Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell and won the black National League championship in 1922, 1935 and 1936. Referring to its heyday fro 1930 to 1950, the Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay called the District “the crossroads of the world since African Americans, Jews and Italians lined the streets with mom-and-
pop stores.

Current urban renewal has replaced the retail corridors with residential units throughout most of the area. New houses extend east on Wylie Avenue into the 2100 block where the Crawford Grill is located.

“Wylie Avenue, ‘The Street of 1,000 Sighs,’ according to a thoughtful city cop on the night beat, acted as the commercial center of jazz in black Pittsburgh... Just after World War I clubs such as the Leader house, the Collins Inn, the Humming Bird, Derby Dan’s, the Fullerton Inn and the Paradise Inn took the lead. Jam sessions continued all night long. As described in 1940, the two preceding decades had seen the rise of such haunts as the Crawford Grills No. 1 and No. 2, the Hurricane Lounge, the Green Front, the Coobus Club, the Bamboola Club, the Centre Avenue Elks, the Perry Bar, the Granada Bar and the American Federation of Musicians Local 471 musicians Club dotted the avenue. A hole-in-the-wall called the Subway also served as the hangout for networking musicians. In addition to the local musicians who got a start in these clubs, national stars played in them after their gigs downtown had ended.”

“A rich, quickly evolving jazz culture arose in the bright light districts of cities across the nation and, in Pittsburgh, the Wylie Avenue clubs were no exception.” (1) “Perched on the bluff overlooking downtown Pittsburgh, the Hill District was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the early twentieth century.”(5) The Hill District became the famous center of black jazz (even though) it housed many Italian, Polish, Russian, Syrian, Hungarian, German, Irish and Jewish residents when African Americans moved in.” (1)
“Later, the Hill District became one of the most energetic and powerful African American neighborhoods in America from the 1930s to the 1950s. Nicknamed ‘the crossroads of the world’ Pittsburgh's Hill District flourished as a center for business and art, and drew bustling crowds both day and night. The music scene this environment fostered rivaled that of the most groundbreaking cities in America as "The Hill" became the definitive center for music and nightlife between New York City and Chicago. In the1940s and 1950s, Jazz led the way, and all roads led to the Crawford Grill. The Grill - like its music - didn't discriminate either. Dressed in their most stylish clothes, people from all over Pittsburgh took buses or street cars to the Hill. Fashionable couples from Fox Chapel mingled with steelworkers from Homestead, and urbanites from East Liberty, as both African-American and white customers were equally attracted to the scene. White musicians who played in clubs in downtown Pittsburgh often came to the Grill on the Hill when they finished their gigs, and jammed until the wee hours of the morning. On weekend nights in the Hill District, the muted sounds of jazz riffs and conversation from the Crawford Grill drifted through windows and down alleys until the early morning.”

 “Men and women, dressed in the most stylish suits and hats flocked to the Crawford Grill. By night, the Hill District transformed into what was dubbed as "Fun City". The club scene came alive where legends of jazz played at The Crawford Grill or the Hurricane Lounge. Revelers would end their long nights eating breakfast at such eateries as Nesbit's, world renowned for its homemade-style sweet potato pies.” (5)

Pittsburgh was a natural stopping-off point for jazz musicians on their way to New York City during the height of the jazz age. Top entertainers, many with Pittsburgh roots, found their way back home to the Hill District and such hot spots as the Crawford Grill, the Aragon Ballroom and the Hurricane Music Bar.
History of the Building
“The Crawford Grill #2 opened in 1943 and, like Birdland and Smalls Paradise in New York, Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and the Lighthouse in San Francisco, was the center of the jazz experience for its city residents. Owned by William A. (Gus) Greenlee, also the owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords baseball team, and later by Joe Robinson Sr. and his son, William "Buzzy" Robinson, it was a significant part of Pittsburgh's and the nation's jazz history, as well as a major center for black social and cultural life in the Hill District.”(6) The Robinson family hosted the high brow and the grass roots there after the death of Greenlee in 1952. William “Buzzy” Robinson still owns the structure that was built in 1917 as the Socharoff Building but he leased the business to several impresarios from 1999 to its close in December, 2003.

“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 on the tables.”

 The front façade was changed in 1995 and the adjoining building was raised in 2004. The Crawford Grill ceased doing business in December, 2003 following a plumbing failure during a severe cold snap. The management subsequently was forced to seek bankruptcy.. The interior of the building will need renovation of utilities and some remodeling to restore its total functionality.

On April 7, 2001 a historical Site marker was installed with great ceremony on the sidewalk in front of 2141 Wylie Avenue.


If the world is awaiting the next great story, the Crawford Grill alone is the house where thousands of great stories took place. The greatest jazz stories never told occurred within its walls. The few of those stories that reached the world market through the pen of playwright August Wilson, who wrote many of his ideas and gleaned many of his stories right there in his favorite booth, prove beyond doubt that such stories are rich in asset value and market appeal. The mention of the Crawford Grill in several of his award-winning plays was August’s acknowledged tribute to the storytellers he listened to while hanging out at the Grill.

"Black Pittsburgh produced its own exceptionally strong and creative jazz scene, one stimulated by protean initiatives in drama, journalism, nightclub and sports enterprises, and a broad range of small business activities. Pittsburgh’s contributions to jazz began just after World War I when the Hill District assumed in a minor way some of the aspects of Harlem. Night spots, most of them small clubs where black musicians performed, sprang up. Whites frequented some of these clubs, including Derby Dan’s, the Paradise Inn, and the Devil’s Cave. Visits to these clubs were thought to offer a chance to see “Negro life’ or “life on the Hill.” The Hill District lasted well beyond the roaring Twenties and contributed many of the major national stars of the years following World War II. World War II brought further black outrage at the hypocritical way in which the United States treated its black fighting men and military nurses who risked their lives in the war against European fascism only to suffer from racial discrimination back home. African Americans who played jazz in the U.S. Navy at its Great Lakes Training Station, for example, experienced rigid racial segregation and abuse from their white officers as they learned about military music." (1)

In many cities there were personalities whose activities determined the direction and quality of life in historically and culturally significant ways whether consciously intended or not. Pittsburgh was no exception and there was a group of early “entrepreneurs” who set the course in the Black community while also giving benefit to the general population like legendary Robin Hoods. William Augustus “Gus” Greenlee “and William "Woogie" Harris, are credited with introducing the numbers racket to Pittsburgh in 1926 (Pittsburgh Press, February 10, 1936) and ran one of the largest and most complex gambling networks of the period. They controlled almost a hundred numbers banks, each with its specified territory (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, July 8, 1982). In total the Harris-Greenlee operation employed about 5,000 people.” (7) Among them was Teddy Horne who moved here from New York with his young daughter Lena. Woogie Harris’ younger brother, Charles had organized a sandlot baseball team and was a talented second baseman. His brother and Gus Greenlee had bought them uniforms and equipment and Charles played until 1930 when, “Greenlee took over the baseball club and named them the Pittsburgh Crawfords and they entered Negro League competition... That same year, Greenlee organized the first East-West All-Star Classic at Comiskey Park in Chicago.”(4) Woogie bought his brother a camera in 1929 and Charles began a career as a photographer of
local and visiting celebrities for Flash magazine. In 1936 he became a freelance photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the largest nationally circulating Black newspapers. He soon blossomed as a photographer to become known as Teenie “One Shot” Harris. “Teenie” Harris chats with patron at the Crawford Grill #2 in 1994 As owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1931 to 1939, Greenlee helped organize the new
National Negro League in 1933. In addition to the Crawfords, he also owned his own ballpark, founded the famous nightclub (the Crawford Bar & Grill), and owned a stable of boxers including light-heavyweight champion John Henry Lewis. (7) 

“William Augustus "Gus" Greenlee was many things to many people. He was a heavy power broker in black Pittsburgh's racketeering and politics during the 1920's. He was known throughout the sporting circles in Pittsburgh as ‘Big Red’. “Depending on which side of the track you were on, he could be looked upon as a shrewd businessman or a ruthless racketeer. He began bootlegging liquor and opened up his own speakeasy, the Crawford Grille. Among some his most influential friends was Art Rooney, who would go on to own a football team called the Pittsburgh Steelers… A WWI veteran, Gus Greenlee loved The Hill, and the community loved him. Gus was always there when someone needed him, and he was soon known by nearly everyone as, "The King of the Hill."(4) “No matter how often and enthusiastically celebrated, jazz careers could not, in themselves, provide a solution to the spiritual and psychological consequences of enduring racial discrimination and white dominance in the jazz world.(1)

“The life histories of Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn and Erroll Garner reveal that even musicians of their stature could have made at best only a modest living playing in Pittsburgh. Too many local clubs paid only in drinks and meals. One reason that all of them left Pittsburgh had to do with the musician’s local, which reserved all of the more lucrative professional performance opportunities for white musicians. Although the Courier, the city’s famous newspaper, provided a wonderful array of news from around the nation and dutifully reported the arrivals and departures of major jazz stars in Pittsburgh, the paper tended to report little on the activities of local musicians.(1)

“The Courier, however, did illuminate the plight of the city’s unionized black musicians. It
reported that Local 471 of the American Federation of musicians was not permitted to broadcast
from a certain local radio station unless payment for their services moved through the office of the
white local before getting to the black musicians… the Courier sharply criticized the local as ‘Jim
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Crow’ and as ‘run by those who follow the will of the white local’s President.’ Consequently, in
Pittsburgh, blacks played mostly for black affairs. An inner circle of local African American
musicians obtained just enough of the higher-paying jobs to entice a general compliance by
blacks with a discriminatory system. (1)
“The newspaper, moreover, concluded that the problem was regional in scope because in
Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Cleveland and Dayton white musicians on the Columbia burlesque
circuit refused to perform with traveling black musicians. Unionized white musicians wanted to
retain control of the theater pit bands and therefore insisted that they had the right to grant
permission to black orchestras to play in the pits of vaudeville theaters. As usual, the national
organization of the A.F.M. refused to do anything to help its own (black) members. (1)
“Relations between the segregated locals of the A.F.M. formed just one facet of a racially
discriminatory musical world that also included white domination in the band-booking business,
the recording business, radio broadcasting, and music publication. No matter how far or often
they moved within the United States, African American jazz musicians discovered only more of
the deeply painful and frustrating limitations that had set them in motion northward from the South
after World War I. This maddening reality made a mockery of the Great migration and ultimately
provoked many jazz musicians to new forms of social, political, and psychological rebellion that
would reveal the vulnerability of jazz as a form of interracial enterprise and communication. (1)
“The ambivalence of the jazz experience in general and within the lives of Pittsburgh’s great
piano improvisers often found expression in their strained relations with the Jewish promoter and
booker Joe Glaser. The breathtaking professional careers of many jazz stars stemmed as much
from this promoter’s influence as from a spontaneous popular recognition of the musicians’
keyboard manipulations into opening its ears and its pocketbooks. Glaser knew how to make
popular stars out of great black musicians, but he, and he alone, decided which ones would
receive the necessary promotion. (1)
“A comparison of the careers of Erroll Garner and Mary Lou Williams makes the point: Garner,
like Louis Armstrong, got Glaser’s star treatment and went on to national and international fame;
Williams did not and went on to a bitter and unavailing struggle with Glaser. Williams’ frustration
with the man’s absolute power led her into some of the more radical black political movements of
the 1940s and 1950s. Garner’s good fortune led him into an exhausting touring schedule, relative
wealth and enormous popularity. (1)
Legacy in Pittsburgh’s Jazz History
“The history of jazz on the inland waterways before World War II arose in New Orleans and
culminated in Pittsburgh, where innovative, sophisticated, leading-edge jazz graced Wylie
Avenue in the hill District overlooking the headwaters of the Ohio. Owing to the shallow river
water at Pittsburgh and the Streckfus line’s close association with New Orleans and St. Louis,
only a few Pittsburgh jazz musicians –Lois Deppe, Earl Hines and Erroll Garner—ever looked to
the river to build their lives and musical careers. The exceptional depth and creativity of the Wylie
Avenue jazz scene during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, particularly its outstanding school of jazz
piano, offered fresh styles for taking riverboat jazz into postwar America. “ p 142 …A series of
locks and dams along the Ohio… completed in 1929… created a nine-foot depth of slack water
over the 981 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo… thus Ohio river traffic… began a long and
impressive growth in 1933. In 1811, Robert Fulton’s steamboat the New Orleans was built in
Pittsburgh and steamed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. It was the first
steamboat to travel western waters. (1)
“According to the Pittsburgh Courier, Lois P. Deppe of Pittsburgh was the only local black leader
of an all-black riverboat band on the Ohio River… The steamer J.S. with Fate Marable and his
orchestra on board, docked in Pittsburgh before that vessel burned to the waterline in 1910.
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Historians of the Ohio River scene consider Marable, who played during the winters in Paducah,
Louisville and Pittsburgh, a major influence in bringing ragtime and jazz to Pittsburgh. (1)
“The musicianly sophistication of black jazz in Pittsburgh surpassed that of any other river city
including New Orleans.” In some important regards, this impressive musical achievement took
inspiration from riverboat without becoming especially reliant on it. The list of exceptionally
accomplished jazz musicians who went on to build national and international reputations “is
legion. “The piano had not played a major role in the birth of New Orleans jazz. Most of the early
African American jazz band pianists had been women from more northerly cities. Pittsburgh
rivaled New York City in its development of the piano in jazz…” (1)
Kathy Billie-keyboard, Claudia Recchio-vocals and Janelle Burdell-drums,
proved worthy of the stage and their trio was held-over for a month in 1991.
“A stopping place for many famous Black musicians, Pittsburgh's Crawford Grill will once again host
some of the greatest ever. Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald are scheduled to play there Friday night,
and the tickets are flying out faster than they can print them. Although each has performed at the Crawford
Grill before, this date marks the first time they will perform together in the Pittsburgh area. This duo is
sure to be a winner. Bring your steady for an evening of fun (The Birmingham Pittsburgh Traveler, 1940)!
The Birmingham Pittsburgh Traveler. (1940). Louie Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald return to Pittsburgh's Crawford Grill.
Retrieved September 20, 2004 from http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/2000/Intro/Main%20Page.htm (2)(4)


Among many headliners that played at the Crawford Grill #1 were Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Earl “Fatha” Hines, Mary Lou Williams, Erroll Garner, Artie Shaw, Cab Calloway, Lena Horne,
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Roy Eldridge, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Strayhorn. From its
opening in 1943 until its closing in 2003 the Crawford Grill #2 featured an immense array of local
and national luminaries like Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, George Benson, Ahmad Jamal, Sarah
Vaughan, John Coltrane, Horace Silver, Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, J. J.
Johnson, Eric Dolphy, Elvin Jones, Slide Hampton, the Three Sounds, Leroy Brown, Walt Harper,
Harold Betters, Dakota Staton, Ray Brown, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jon Hendricks, Freddie
Hubbard, George Benson, Stanley and Tommy Turrentine. Benson visited the Grill on every trip
to his hometown and often sang or played with the local band currently appearing there.
Alphonso Lawson and George Benson hanging out on the corner outside the Grill in September 2003. Lawson,
former manager of the Grill in the 50s and 60s lives in the front apartment on the 2nd floor of 2141 Wylie Avenue.

“Pittsburgh’s jazz movement opened with some very promising riverboat jazz. During the 1920s
the singer, Lois P. Deppe led his ten-piece dance band for moonlight cruises on the relatively
small steamer East St. Louis, promoted as ‘The palace of the rivers,’ which left on Monday
evenings from the foot of Federal Street not far from ‘the Point’ where the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers met to form the Ohio. The cruises on the East St. Louis were ‘strictly
invitational,’ after the manner of black cruises on the Streckfus Line. Deppe’s Serenaders also
played ‘jazz as it should be played,’ that is, for dancing, at Duquesne Garden’ at Fifth Avenue and
Craig Street in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh. (1)
“As he turned to organizing his nightclub act, Deppe recognized the originality and professional
versatility of pianist Earl Hines. Hines could accompany Deppe but also fascinate audiences with
his own piano solos… Hines, a native of Pittsburgh, became the key instrumentalist in Deppe’s
orchestras. He made an extraordinary place for himself as the first and arguably the greatest of a
long line of fine pianists who began long national and international careers there. He was the first
in the Pittsburgh school of jazz piano to establish that a solid foundation in traditional European
and American musical concepts and techniques should be mixed with elements of African
American vernacular to make authentically creative jazz music. Fate Marable had brought a
similar confidence in musical knowledge and keyboard mastery to the city as early as 1907 and
ultimately settled his family there while he steamed the inland waterways. Marable first arrived in
Pittsburgh during the ragtime era and came back yearly throughout the initial rise of jazz and the
evolution of swing. (1)
In this 1992 photo Fate Marable Jr. recalls when he used to come to Pittsburgh with his father on the
Streckfus Line and young Erroll Garner would get on the boat and amaze the musicians with his piano
playing. Fate Sr. made a home for his family in Pittsburgh and Fate Jr. live there still.
“When in Pittsburgh he performed regularly in the Crawford Grill, in he Bailey Hotel and in a
number of clubs along Wylie Avenue. To the author of “The Negro in Pittsburgh,’ Marable was
the founding father of the city’s school of jazz piano… Beginning with Marable and continuing with
Hines, Williams, Strayhorn, Garner and Jamal, black Pittsburgh’s involvement with the piano was
a major cultural phenomenon stimulated by the Great Migration’s thirst for cultural advancement
and the traditional respect accorded harmonium and pianos in southern black life… The Great
Migration, according to Hines, stimulated increased racial prejudice that he had not experienced
as a younger child. Hines’ father headed the Eureka Brass Band and organized summer picnics
for people from McKeesport, Braddock, Duquesne and Homestead. Earl Hines acutely observed
that Pittsburghers of his acquaintance highly valued piano lessons for their children. Throughout
his own youth, Hines took piano lessons from a series of teachers, including one very
authoritarian German American by the name of Von Holtz, who led Hines through the literature of
the major European composers. The young pianist played in a series of piano competitions
organized by Von Holtz in the surrounding towns. All the while, however, Hines played the
popular songs of his day by ear, earning a reputation as a party pianist among his peers. (1)
“When Hines reached fifteen years of age, one of older friends took him to Wylie Avenue… Hines
describes the power of the bright-light district in bringing him to jazz for the first time: ‘We were
sitting in a restaurant eating big steaks like I’d never had before, and I was reacting to the
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glamour of the waitresses, when I heard this music upstairs. It had a great and a rhythm to it that
I’d never heard before, and everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves. Oh’, I said, ’if only I
could just get upstairs and see what they’re doing—see what kind of music that is… Not long
thereafter, Lois Deppe asked Hines to join his band at the Leader House (which eventually
became the Crawford Grill #1) on Wylie Avenue and Hines soon rented a room on Wylie Avenue
in order to stay close to the action at such nightclubs as the Leader and the Collins Inn. (1)
“For Pittsburgh pianists Mary Lou Williams, Billy Strayhorn as with Earl Hines before them,
Pittsburgh’s raging racism and sexism made careers in the leading theater pit bands or the
symphony orchestra out of the question. Both had to first perform in the joints of the Hill district,
East Liberty and Homewood, seeking contacts with passing musicians and bands that needed a
pianist who could compose and arrange.(1)
“In Marable, Hines, Williams, Strayhorn and Garner, as in so many other black musicians, the
experience of the Great Migration involved a thrust for keyboard virtuosity. Why wouldn’t a
northeastern industrial city with relatively high wages available for black laborers produce such an
aesthetic? In a psychological sense, the combination of technical ability, growing awareness of
music theory, intensive experimentation in arranging and composing, and creative exploration of
improvisation expressed the spirit of the Great migration’s drive for greater freedom and
opportunity, a chance to build careers in music and the hope for a fuller involvement in American
musical life. (1)
“Most jazz writers have assumed, and one can still argue, that Pittsburgh’s famous jazz pianists
became so accomplished, so artful in their playing, that their experiences at the keyboard far
surpassed the relatively simple, repetitive hammering of juke joint piano laborers. Performing
nationally and internationally brought a greater measure of pride and control over performances.
This drive for artistic growth and major careers surely helped create and maintain the impulse to
create jazz in the first place.” (1)