Pittsburgh’s Negro Opera House makes national list of endangered places

[Dr. Nelson Harrison]

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Pittsburgh’s Negro Opera House makes national list of endangered places

 

JEREMY REYNOLDS

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[e-mail]

 

SEP 24, 2020

 

9:00 AM

A Pitts­burgh build­ing has caught the eye of the Na­tional Trust for His­toric Pres­er­va­tion.

On Thurs­day, the Na­tional Ne­gro Opera Com­pany House in Home­wood was named one of the trust’s 11 Most En­dan­gered Places. It was the first Black op­era com­pany in the U.S.

The house where the op­era com­pany had its head­quar­ters was built in 1894 at 7101 Ap­ple St. In 1941, im­pre­sa­rio Mary Card­well Daw­son founded the op­era com­pany there to train sing­ers and mount per­for­mances in Pitts­burgh, New York, Chi­cago and Wash­ing­ton, D.C.

 

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The large Queen Anne-style house, which has a ball­room on the third floor, was owned by Wil­liam “Woo­gie” Har­ris, a num­bers banker with part­ner Gus Green­lee and brother of Pitts­burgh Cou­rier pho­tog­ra­pher Char­les “Tee­nie” Har­ris. Har­ris held dances and other events there and rented rooms to Pitts­burgh Pirates Hall of Famer Roberto Cle­mente, en­ter­tainer Lena Horne and sev­eral Pitts­burgh Steel­ers.

The op­era com­pany even­tu­ally moved to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and dis­banded when Daw­son died in 1962. The house fell into dis­re­pair and its grand in­te­rior was stripped by thieves. The Penn­syl­va­nia His­tor­i­cal and Mu­seum Com­mis­sion des­ig­nated the house a his­toric struc­ture in 1994. In 2008, it was named a Pitts­burgh His­toric Land­mark.

The Young Pres­er­va­tion­ists As­so­ci­a­tion of Pitts­burgh is cur­rently spear­head­ing ef­forts to pre­serve the house, which is owned by Jon­net Sol­o­mon and the fam­ily of Mir­iam White. The non­profit has spent the last year lob­by­ing for its in­clu­sion on the trust’s en­dan­gered places list.

“The house is in re­ally bad shape,” said Mat­thew Craig, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Young Pres­er­va­tion­ists As­so­ci­a­tion. “This might be its last chance.”

Mr. Craig said na­tional ex­po­sure on the list and the trust’s re­sources and ex­per­tise can help the Young Pres­er­va­tion­ists As­so­ci­a­tion to bring to­gether a co­a­li­tion of peo­ple and or­ga­ni­za­tions to sta­bi­lize the his­toric build­ing. Pitts­burgh His­tory & Land­marks Foun­da­tion is also in­volved.

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“We want to re­fresh the story so peo­ple will say, ‘We’ve got some­thing spe­cial here and we re­ally should save this trea­sure.’”

Kath­er­ine Malone-France, chief preser­va­tion of­fi­cer for the Na­tional Trust for His­toric Pres­er­va­tion, said the or­ga­ni­za­tion was drawn to the op­era com­pany’s story and Daw­son’s per­se­ver­ance.

“This com­pany op­er­ated for 20 years, but its sto­ries and con­tri­bu­tions to lo­cal and na­tional cul­ture are rel­a­tively un­known,” she said.

Inclusion on the list doesn’t come with any fund­ing. Ms. Malone-France said the pur­pose of the list is to pro­vide ex­po­sure and spark in­ter­est in his­toric places that are at risk. Many of the sites on past lists have been suc­cess­fully pre­served, she said. The last time Pitts­burgh made the en­dan­gered places list was in 2000 with the Fifth and For­bes av­e­nues busi­ness dis­trict.

“Pres­er­va­tion to me isn’t about try­ing to freeze time, but stew­ard­ing the leg­acy of these spaces and car­ry­ing those leg­a­cies for­ward,” she said.