The ToonSeum first opened its doors in 2007 and moved to Pittsburgh's Cultural District in 2009 with assistance from the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.&nbsp; In addition to the display of original cartoon art, the ToonSeum also offers hands-on workshops, community outreach, family events, and summer classes and workshops for kids.&nbsp; It also has created its NEMO Award which is awarded for excellence in the cartoon arts.Past rotating exhibits have included "From MLK to March: Civil Rights in Comics and Cartoons," and&nbsp;"Draw Me!: The Art of the Cartooning Schools and 'How-to Cartoon' Culture in America," as well as one that celebrated 75 years of Captain America.&nbsp; While super hero art plays a significant role at the ToonSeum, especially after the success of Marvel and DC heroes on the big screen, it also delves into the serious side of cartooning, to include its artistic&nbsp; and cultural value.&nbsp; Thus, it is much more than simply a children's museum.

Children taking advantage of one of the ToonSeum's workshops.

Official site of the ToonSeum with event and exhibit info.

Website

ToonSeum's Facebook page with more pics and info.

More Info

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This small museum located in downtown Pittsburgh includes exhibits that present the history of comics. The museum has over 100 pieces of art on display at a time and features different exhibits every few months. The museum also serves as an independent art venue and is one of only a few cartoon-oriented museums in the country. In addition to exhibits of cartoon art, the organization also offers a variety of workshops and educational programs. 

ToonSeum 

This short walking tour begins at downtown Pittsburgh's Heinz Center and makes its way to several of the city's leading museums with brief stops at numerous historical buildings along the way. Highlights of the tour include the Fulton Building, Heinz History Center, and the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

Pittsburgh Cultural District Walking Tour

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From 1880-1925 the Hotel Anderson occupied the space now taken by Heinz Hall.&nbsp; It was replaced by what became Heinz Hall, the Loew's Penn Theatre, in 1927.&nbsp; This grand movie palace, with its marble staircase and 50-foot vaulted Venetian ceiling, remained in operation until 1964 when financial difficulties forced it to close its doors.&nbsp; The Loew's Penn was scheduled to be demolished to make way for a parking lot, but was saved by Henry Heinz and others who saw it as the future home for the Pittsburgh Symphony.The theater then went through a multi-year, $10 million renovation where much was changed except the basic architecture.&nbsp; The two, one-ton chandeliers were rebuilt, the acoustics were improved, 24-carat gold leaf was added, and the back of the building was extended to expand the stage and add dressing rooms.&nbsp; Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts experienced its grand opening in 1971 and became the premier concert hall and showplace in the Pittsburgh area.The 2,675-seat theater&nbsp;underwent further renovations in 1982, when the Heinz Hall Plaza was added, 1995, when a new orchestra shell was built, and again in 2015.&nbsp; It now hosts over 200 performances a year and is still home to the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as the Youth Symphony, the Pittsburgh Broadway Series, and the Pittsburgh Speakers Series.&nbsp;

Centered in downtown Pittsburgh, Heinz Hall is the city’s prime performing arts center and is home to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.  Owned and operated by the Pittsburgh Symphony, Inc., the hall was dedicated in 1971 and was remodeled to its current condition in 1995.  This concert hall has 2,661 seats and hosts several events, in addition to the Pittsburgh Symphony. Heinz Hall has helped foster economic and cultural growth in the downtown Pittsburgh area

Heinz Hall

The Fulton
Building served originally as an office building after its completion in 1906
and has housed various businesses since then.&nbsp;
Those businesses include a World War II veteran’s hospital, and a trade
school.&nbsp; However, its most (in)famous
former occupant was a 1980s nightclub called Heaven that specialized in glitter
and drugs.&nbsp; After Heaven closed in 1984,
the Fulton Building hosted a number of nightclubs from the Cotton Club to the Troubadour
and back to Heaven again in 1993. &nbsp;&nbsp;

The Fulton
features a 30-foot, 20-ton rotunda which was covered with a rubber material during
World War II as buildings were “Blacked-out.”&nbsp;
That material remained in place for almost 60 years.&nbsp; When the building was renovated at the turn
of the century 300-pounds of coal dust was&nbsp;
removed from the rotunda and all the floors above the lobby were gutted.&nbsp; The workers also removed 300-pound lead
panels from the former hospital’s x-ray lab on the sixth floor. 

Today, as in
years past, the Fulton is best known for a unique architectural feature called
a light well, the seven-story arch carved out of the middle of the
building.&nbsp; It was designed to allow light
and cool river air to reach the interior rooms.&nbsp;
Now, it serves to make the Fulton one of the most recognizable buildings
in Pittsburgh, especially for those sitting in PNC Park just across the
Allegheny River via the Roberto Clemente Bridge.&nbsp;

Located in downtown Pittsburgh, the historic Fulton Building was completed in 1906 and is currently home to the Renaissance Hotel and serves as the entrance to the Byham Theater.  The 13-story building was designed by well-known Pittsburgh architect, Grosvenor Atterbury in a Renaissance Revival style, and funded by prominent industrialist Henry Phipps.  It is named after steam boat inventor Robert Fulton and went through a $45 million renovation prior to the opening of the hotel in 2001.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Fulton Building

As
Pittsburgh progressed and expanded into the 20th century its
business district began to transform from a manufacturing and warehouse center
to that of the headquarters and office space for the various companies than
called the city home.&nbsp; To that end,
office buildings became the structure de jour for the times and the Century
Building was no different.&nbsp; The Century
Land Company was headquartered there and opened up the rest of the 68,000
square feet within their building to other tenants.&nbsp; 

The architects
decided upon a Beaux Arts design that was quite popular in the U.S. at the turn
of the century.&nbsp; Derived from the École
des Beaux-Arts school in Paris, the design of the Century Building includes
many of the style’s mainstays, to include ornate cornices, a flat roof,
pilasters, arched windows, and classical details.&nbsp; The narrow building also features a Pompeian
brick and terra-cotta façade and floors four through ten are sandwiched between
its two deep and rich cornices and its numerous windows are separated by four
tall, thin, external pilasters.&nbsp; 

Over the
past 100 years the Century Building saw the cultural district spring up around
it and it eventually became an almost totally free-standing structure with only
a theater complex at its rear.&nbsp; Unfortunately,
the building also fell into a state of disrepair as the 20th century
turned into the 21st.&nbsp; Help
arrived in the form of the collaboration of over 30 corporations, foundations
and individuals who reimaged the venerable building into residential,
commercial and office space.&nbsp; Headed by
the Trek Development Group with designs from Julie Eizenberg and Hank Koning, the Century
Building underwent an $18 million renovation in 2009 which included a total
restoration of the façade and floor-to-ceiling windows with unique copper window
bays.&nbsp; 

The primary
goal of the new Century Building was to provide mixed-income housing for 
Pittsburgh’s working classes and the 61 affordable and workforce units included
in the renovations do just that.&nbsp; The building
now features an open-loop geothermal heating and cooling system, a 2,000
square-foot green roof deck, a fitness facility, community center, and a bright
green bike commuter center created from recycled shipping containers that
affords the building’s residents year-round bicycle storage.&nbsp; The
renovated building has also won numerous awards to include the American
Institute of Architects Pittsburgh Award of Excellence for Historical
Preservation in 2010, the Jack Kemp Workforce Housing Model of Excellence Award
in 2012 and LEED Gold accreditation.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Pittsburgh’s twelve-story Century Building was constructed in 1907 by the Century Land Company, hence, its name.  Located in the city’s central business and cultural districts, it served as an office building for the vast majority of its life.  At the time, the Beaux Arts building was one of the taller structures in the city, but as the age of steel dawned, it would soon be dwarfed by buildings around it.  Today, the building houses a first-floor restaurant, two floors of office space and 61 affordable residential lofts.  It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.  

Century Building

Although Czech and Slovak immigration to what became the United States began in the earliest years of the European colonization of North America, it would not hit its stride until roughly half a century prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The first wave of Czech immigrants to the United States during this period arrived in the immediate aftermath of the failed Revolutions of 1848, but subsequent and larger waves reached American shores with the lure of cheap land and industrial employment. Slovak immigrants, meanwhile, sought to escape the overpopulation and unemployment at home starting in the 1870s. Concurrently, both ethnic groups (like many in Europe over the course of the nineteenth century) began to embrace a growing sense of national identity at odds with the political aims of their overlords within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Slovaks in Hungary faced an aggressive policy of “Magyarization,” by which government authorities sought to erase their culture and force their adoption of a Hungarian identity that might secure their loyalty to the Empire. Czechs in Bohemia similarly faced Germanization, albeit to a less systematic extent. In response, immigrants from both areas clung more fiercely than ever to their ethnic identities as time went on and, as a result, arrived in the United States as firm nationalists with a drive to oppose Austro-Hungarian rule from afar.This drive coalesced in the early twentieth century with the creation of two separate organizations devoted to the creation of independent nations for Czechs and Slovaks living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The first stemmed from a meeting of Slovakian community organizations and newspapers in Pittsburgh on April 4, 1907, which called for a National Slovak Congress and prompted a similar gathering in Cleveland on May 26 that resulted in the foundation of the Slovak League. Secularist Czechs in Chicago formed the second, the Bohemian National Alliance, on September 2, 1914. Although working towards similar ends, the question of how closely they might align themselves with one another remained up for debate. Some in both camps perceived their shared Slavic roots as cause for joining forces in the fight against Austro-Hungarian rule, a fight neither might be capable of winning without the other. Others expressed concern that such a union might threaten the cultural and ethnic independence for which they fought. This was particularly true of many Slovaks, who faced the possibility of minority status in a combined nation with fears born from generations of living under the threat of Magyarization. Any alliance between the two groups would thus hinge upon an agreement by the Czechs to respect Slovak autonomy in any future Czechoslovakian nation. Support for an alliance between the Bohemian National Alliance and Slovak League reached their zenith with the outbreak of World War I. The assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist Gavirlo Princip not only struck a blow for ethnic nationalism in the Empire, it pulled European Czechs and Slovaks into a military conflict neither group had chosen. With those events in mind, representatives from the Bohemian National Alliance and Slovak League met on October 22-23, 1915 at Bohemian National Hall in Cleveland, Ohio to sign a document that has since come to be known as the Cleveland Agreement. In it the supporters of Czech and Slovakian independence swore to join forces in the struggle for a nation separate from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a nation ruled by democratically elected leaders that would respect Slovak autonomy and culture. The Cleveland Agreement met with widespread approval among Czech and Slovak leaders outside of the United States, chief among them Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (a prominent Czech nationalist and politician with a Slovak mother). Although short on specifics, the Cleveland Agreement provided enough of a foundation for a combined Czechoslovakian independence movement to rise in leaps and bounds as the war progressed. The need for a more detailed agreement between Czech and Slovak nationalist became more and more pressing as it became increasingly apparent that the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its Central Power allies might lose the war. Masaryk in particular had spent much of the war seeking to convince the Entente Powers in Great Britain, France, Russia, and later the United States to support Czechoslovakian independence. He had even gone so far as to aid the Russians in recruiting a Czechoslovakian military unit known as the Czechoslovakian Legion, a unit that would eventually include over 40,000 recruits. Many Czech and Slovak nationalists, including Masaryk, believed that Entente leaders could be convinced to make Czechoslovakian independence a stipulation of any potential peace with the Central Powers as a means of weakening Austro-Hungary in any future conflict. With this thought in mind, a convention between representatives of the Bohemian National Alliance and the Slovak League was called in Pittsburgh to coincide with a visit by Masaryk to that city on Labor Day 1918. After Masaryk’s procession through the city on May 30, 1918 for an estimated crowd of 10,000, the Czech and Slovak representatives met the following day under the auspices of the Czecho-Slovak National Council in America (meant as a US counterpart to a similarly named organization in Europe). Their goal was to create a detailed blueprint for the governing of a combined Czechoslovakian state. If they thought that task would be easy, however, they were quickly disabused of that notion by the activities of Slovak journalist and activist Jozef Hušek. As editor of the Catholic Slovak newspaper Jednota, Hušek had long opposed unity with Czech nationalists since so many were avowed secularists. With Czechoslovakian independence seeming increasingly likely in 1918, however, he had agreed to at least attend the negotiations taking place at Pittsburgh with the understanding that Slovak autonomy would be formally recognized in any final document. Many of those attending, including Masaryk, considered it unwise to enumerate specific Slovak rights in that document and consequently made early drafts deliberately vague when addressing the exact nature of the future relationship between Slovaks and the Czechoslovakian government. When Hušek threatened to withdraw from the proceedings and publicly proclaim his opposition to any agreement that resulted from them, Masaryk agreed to the inclusion of stipulations for a separate government administration, legislative assembly, and courts system in Slovakia as well as acknowledging Slovak as an official language of the future nation. Having reached an accommodation, Hušek and Masaryk both affixed their signatures along with over twenty others that day to a document that has come to be known as the Pittsburgh Agreement. The Pittsburgh Agreement would go on to form the basis for Masaryk’s declaration of Czechoslovakian independence with the support of the Entente Powers in October of 1918. It also formed the basis for the provisional Czechoslovakian Constitution of 1918. Unfortunately for the cause of Czech-Slovak unity, Masaryk renounced the provisions of the Pittsburgh Agreement shortly after his election as the first president of Czechoslovakia in November of 1918. Over the course of his four-term presidency between 1918 and 1935, Masaryk continued to undermine Slovak autonomy. His policies ensured that the nation he helped create would remain united in name only. Slovak opposition to the national Czechoslovakian government only increased as the twentieth century progressed. The Slovak Republic declared its independence from Czechoslovakia with support from Nazi Germany in 1939 and, despite Czechoslovakia’s reunification by the Allied Powers in 1945, support for an independent Slovakian state remained high throughout the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 provided that support with an outlet. After a peaceful series of negotiations between Czech and Slovak leaders over the course of several years, Czechoslovakia was dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

The historical marker here commemorates the signing of a document known as the “Pittsburgh Agreement” that described the government of a potential Czechoslovakian state should the Czechs and Slovaks achieve independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Signed on May 31, 1918, the Pittsburgh Agreement was the result of decades of resistance to Austro-Hungarian rule in what became Czechoslovakia that culminated after the empire’s defeat in the First World War. The most notable signatory to the document, Czech politician Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, became president of an independent Czechoslovakia shortly thereafter and receives much of the credit for the Pittsburgh Agreement, but it would not have been possible without the cooperation of Slovak activists in the United States like Jozef Hušek as well. Regardless the Pittsburgh Agreement was a foundational document guaranteeing the rights of the Slovak minority in the union with their Czech neighbors and, when those guarantees were not upheld, later became a justification for a division of Czechoslovakia. The historical marker commemorating this event is open to the public twenty-four hours a day.

The Pittsburgh Agreement, May 31, 1918

Between 1926-1927, James Bly Clark, the vice-president of the Stanley-Clark Motion Picture Company and the founder of the Pittsburgh branch of the firm, financed three million dollars toward the the construction project of the Stanley Theater and Clark Building. Clark contracted Hoffman-Henon, the nation's most predominant architecture firm during the twentieth-century that specialized in constructing movie theaters. In 1928, the construction for both the Stanley Theater and Clark Building were completed and opened for business. The Stanley Theater was operated by both Metro-Goldwyn Mayer and Stanley Warner Theater, a circuit division of Warner Bros. Theaters. The theater was the first Pittsburgh theater to release Warner Bros. films. The Stanley Theater and Clark Building were proven as a revolutionary design because it was one of the first theaters to utilize a more "modernistic" or Art-Deco style. In addition, the design included an office space (the Clark Building), which was a new feature for movie palaces during the time period. In the design, a grand auditorium and lobby, 90 chandeliers, torchieres, and sconces, and 3,800 seats were all incorporated for the theater.During the Great Depression, the theater lifted the spirits of people of Western Pennsylvania because it had a special deal. If moviegoers came before noon, the tickets were only 25 cents instead of the regular price of 65 cents. In addition to movies, the Stanley Theater also featured vaudeville shows and live musical numbers and performances. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the theater hosted some of the biggest names of swing and jazz, such as Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, the Andrew Sisters, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Lawrence Welk. However, in 1946, the Stanley Theater ended its stage shows around 1946. The Stanley Theater kept operating as a movie palace, until the theater was purchased and remolded by Cinemette Corporation in 1976. In 1977, DiCesare Engler Productions bought the theater and began hosting rock 'n' roll performances and concerts. Some of the biggest names of rock that performed at the theater include Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, KISS, Queen, the Clash, Prince, the Grateful Dead and Journey.During the DiCesare Engler years, the Stanley Theater was listed by Billboard Magazines as the "Number One Auditorium in the U.S." several times. In 1985, both the Stanley Theater and the Clark Building were listed in the National Register for Historic Places for their Art-Deco design and leading forces of bringing quality entertainment to the Pittsburgh area. In 1987, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust financed $43 million dollars for restoring the theater, converting it into the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts. The Benedum Center was purposed to serve as a performing art center where musicals performances are hosted.Today, the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts continues to hold numerous musicals performed by the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera (CLO) and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. Some of the shows that were hosted at the Benedum Center included Grease, Legally Blonde: The Musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cats, The Nutcracker, The Lion King, The Great Gatsby, and Wicked. In addition, The Benedum Center also held some numerous concert performances since its inception, such as David Bowie, Jackson Browne, and Pink Floyd. The Benedum Center for the Performing Arts is the sole surviving theater design of Hoffman-Henon, and it is a symbol of both its twentieth-century Art-Deco design and its contributions to Pittsburgh's entertainment history.

Constructed in 1928, the Stanley Theater (later renamed the Benedum Theater) was once the largest movie palace and music hall in Western Pennsylvania. The building was designed by Hoffman-Henon of Philadelphia, one of the nation's leading architectural firms specializing in the design and construction of theaters during the twentieth-century. The Art-Deco design of the Stanley Theater was designed to complement the adjacent Clark Building. This office tower was named in honor of James Bly Clark, a vice-president of the Stanley-Clark Motion Picture Company and the founder of the Pittsburgh branch of the firm. Numerous musical acts performed at the Stanley Theater including Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, the Andrew Sisters, Frank Zappa, the Clash, Prince, and Journey. In 1985, the Stanley Theater and Clark Building were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as some of the earliest buildings to utilize the Art-Deco design in the region, as well as their significance in the history of Pittsburg. In 1987, renovations were made by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, and the building became the Benedum Center for Performing Arts. Today, the Benedum Center holds musicals hosted by the Pittsburgh Civic Live Opera and the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater Company. 

Benedum Center for Performing Arts (Stanley Theater and Clark Building), Pittsburgh

The Ewart
Building is built on a section of the original Fort Fayette which was built in
1792 as a replacement for Fort Pitt and served to defend Pittsburgh from the
threat posed by Native Americans.&nbsp; Fort
Fayette is perhaps best known as the staging area for the 1803 Lewis and Clark
expedition.&nbsp; It was eventually abandoned
by the army in 1814, near the conclusion of the War of 1812.&nbsp; As the city expanded, lots from the former
fort were sold to local businesses and Sam Ewart purchased several in 1891 and
built his company headquarters at the corner of Liberty Avenue and 7th
Street.&nbsp; The multi-story building, which
was the first to use electricity in the area, is considered by many to be the
earliest example of a modern office building in the city.

The Ewart
Building features many elements of the Richardson Romanesque style, which is
named after one of the most famous architects in American history, Henry Hobson
Richardson, and combines classical and romantic styles.&nbsp; Richardson was born in Louisiana in 1838 and is
responsible for designing some of the nest significant buildings in the country
to include Boston’s Trinity Church and Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Courthouse.&nbsp; He died in 1886, five years before the Ewart
Building was built.&nbsp; Ewart’s façade is
constructed of rusticated, or rough-hewn, granite and three five-story arches extend
from its two-story base that are capped with a Romanesque arch as are the
individual triple windows on the ninth floor.&nbsp;
Its articulated cornice supports a triangular pediment in its center bay
on which “EWART” is prominently carved.&nbsp; 

The Ewart
family owned the building until 1969.&nbsp; It
was eventually purchased by Matthew and Marion Weisberg sometime during the
following decade and then sat vacant for twenty years, until 1998.&nbsp; During these years of abandonment, it
suffered from neglect until it was purchased by the Rugby Realty Company from
the Byzantine Catholic Archdiocese of Pittsburgh.&nbsp; Rugby Realty, in conjunction with the
Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, renovated the old building, which included
removing the heavy layer of soot that had accumulated over the decades while it
stood in the Steel City.&nbsp; They also
modernized the interior to make it more attractive to potential tenants.&nbsp; They were quite successful in that endeavor
as the restored office building was fully occupied by 2000 and is today an
enduring example of a unique, 19th century office building within Pittsburgh’s
downtown and cultural district.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

When the Ewart Building was completed in Pittsburgh in 1891, the nine-story building was one of the tallest in the city.  This office building was constructed by wholesale grocer, Samuel Ewart, along Liberty Avenue and is now squarely in the heart of the city’s cultural district which sprang up around it.  Designed in the Richardson Romanesque architectural style, the building served as the headquarters for Samuel Ewart and Company and was owned by the family until 1969.  Today, it still serves its original purpose as an office building and retail space and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979.

Ewart Building

The African American Cultural Center’s namesake August Wilson is one of the most well-known artists to come out of Pittsburgh. Born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. in the Hill District on April 27, 1945, the playwright honored his mother’s role in raising him by assuming her maiden name after his father’s death in 1965. Wilson was an undeniable product of Pittsburgh’s complex and often fraught racial history. When they moved from the Hill District (the primary destination for Black families during the Great Migration) to the predominantly white Hazelwood, Wilson’s family faced racial hostility and were ultimately driven from the neighborhood. In the tenth grade a teacher at Gladstone High School accused Wilson of plagiarizing a paper on Napoleon Bonaparte, prompting him to drop out. While he worked various odd jobs Wilson sought to continue his education on his own, utilizing the Carnegie Library so extensively that it would later grant him an honorary high school diploma. He was also heavily influenced by the vibrant Black cultural scene of the Hill District at the time, an artistic movement that fed into the Black Arts Movement that inspired so much of Wilson’s work as a playwright. His most famous work, a ten-play series known as the Pittsburgh (or Century) Cycle that explores Black stories over the twentieth century, is largely a product of these experiences. The dynamic African American cultural entrepot of Pittsburgh that produced August Wilson also prompted efforts to open a museum celebrating the city’s Black artists. For decades, Pittsburgh witnessed a number of failed plans to open a museum for the display and preservation of African American culture and art. The Selma Burke Art Center operated in East Liberty until its closure in 1981. Emma Slaughter and Melvin Campbell co-founded the Homewood Art Museum and purchased land on Frankstown Avenue in Homewood shortly thereafter but were unable to raise the funds to build on the site. The plans for the museum that became the August Wilson Center began as early as 1996 and were pitched by Pittsburgh's NAACP President Tim Stevens in a document titled “Plans for Progress” meant to convince NAACP’s national organization to hold its annual conference in the city (which it did in 1997). The document called on then Mayor Tom Murphy to provide funding for a museum African American arts and culture in Pittsburgh, which Murphy subsequently did. From 1998 to 2002, funds were raised from the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Pittsburgh Foundation, State of Pennsylvania, Heinz Endowments, and various other sources. In 2006, August Wilson was chosen as the namesake of the center following his death the previous year. A short time later, the design of the center began to proceed under architect Allison G. Williams and San Francisco firm Perkins+Will. The 65,000 square foot center opened for patrons on September 17 and 19 of 2009. Unfortunately, the museum began suffering financially in 2012 and in January 2014 a federal court ruled that its debts could be resolved by its liquidation. A sheriff’s sale in November of that year resulted in its mortgage holder Dollar Bank purchasing the site for $1,912.50. Originally, Dollar Bank planned to sell the site to a developer so that a hotel could be constructed on top of the center. When Mayor Bill Peduto, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority fought the move, however, Dollar Bank agreed to sell to a nonprofit consortium that included the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, and the Thomas Tull Family Foundation. The sale necessitate a name change for the center, which initially became the August Wilson Cultural Center before switching to the August Wilson African American Cultural Center after an online petition protesting the removal of “African American” from the name. Since its sale the center has shown promising signs of financial recovery. It finished 2018 with a budget surplus and increased its operating budget sevenfold from 2015 to 2020. The center’s salvation in 2014 preserved a unique and essential contributor to Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania’s cultural community. Since its opening, the museum has worked to fulfill "its mission of preserving, presenting, interpreting, celebrating and shaping the art, culture and history of African Americans utilizing the rich history, legacy and culture of African Americans from Western Pennsylvania as a foundation." It has housed a variety of art forms, from traditional visual artwork to the performing arts. Among its recently featured artists have been Romare Bearden, Vanessa German, Peju Alatise, Tarish Pipkins, Latoya Ruby Frazier, and Hebru Brantley. It also offers programs throughout the year dedicated to the celebration of theater, dance, music, and film and hosts various festivals including the Black Bottom Film Festival, the TRUTHSayers speaker series, and the Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival. Through such programs and exhibits, the center servs as a fundamental pillar of the artistic and cultural community in Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania and of African American experiences in the region. For these reasons the August Wilson African American Cultural Center represents an invaluable resource for its community. The African American communities of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania have histories that are both long and vital to the city and region at large. The August Wilson Center celebrates those histories and offers its patrons an incomparable opportunity to appreciate the cultural and artistic experiences and contributions of creators like its namesake playwright. Without such experiences and contributions Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania would be less vibrant and dynamic places to live and without the August Wilson African American Cultural Center the area’s residents would be unable to fully appreciate that fact.

The August Wilson African American Cultural Center on Liberty Avenue is dedicated to housing and celebrating the creative work of western Pennsylvania’s African American community. Plans to open such a center began as early as 1996 but were not realized until 2009. The center is named for August Wilson, a playwright from Pittsburgh who won two Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. Honoring his legacy, the August Wilson Center has become a premier site for the commemoration of African American arts and culture in the region. The center presents performances, visual arts programs, rotating exhibits, and special events, and features galleries, classrooms, a 500-seat theater, gift shop, and a café. It is open from 11 AM to 6 PM Wednesday and Thursday, 11 AM to 8 PM Friday and Saturday, and 11 AM to 5 PM on Sunday.

August Wilson African American Cultural Center

As the 1920s
progressed and the population of the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County continued
to grow, it became readily apparent that the U.S. District Court for Western
Pennsylvania, which had been created in 1818, required a new and more modern
home.&nbsp; As a result, Pittsburgh native and
Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, lobbied for the new courthouse to be
built in his hometown.&nbsp; Once the U.S.
government decided to build a new federal courthouse in Pittsburgh, it also
made the decision to combine it with a large U.S. postal distribution center.&nbsp; Construction on the new courthouse and postal
center began in 1931, shortly after the onset of the Great Depression.&nbsp; However, a labor dispute soon thereafter
delayed construction, which resumed in June of 1932.&nbsp; The building was completed in 1934 and the
first court session was gaveled on November 7 of that year.

Under the
control of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department, James Wetmore,
the architectural firm of Trowbridge and Livingston built the steel, granite
and limestone structure over a set of railroad tracks to expedite mail
distribution.&nbsp; The building was divided
into two distinct sections, the four-story postal facility and the 11-floor
U.S. Courthouse.&nbsp; Their design is
intentionally devoid of any unnecessary ornamentation as they adhered to the “form
follows function” school of architecture.&nbsp;
The exterior features arched entryways with large, sculpted eagles above
each, as well as arched windows and bronze and aluminum were used in the doors
and window frames.&nbsp; 

Inside, the
two-story Grant Street lobby was constructed with pink Alabama marble, floors
of gray marble and still contains its original, custom glass light
fixtures.&nbsp; The courthouse houses five
ceremonial, two-story courtrooms on the 6th and 8th
floors that feature wood paneled walls, decorative plaster ceilings and
ornamental lighting.&nbsp; They also contained
Depression Era murals by artists Howard Norton Cook, Stuyvesant van Veen and
Kindred McLeary.&nbsp; However, the McLeary
piece, entitled “Modern Justice” has been either stolen or misplaced.&nbsp; New works of art have since been added by
artists Brian Shure and Lia Cook.

The postal
facility ended its distribution operations in 1983 and the building was
acquired by the federal government’s General Services Administration the
following year.&nbsp; It maintained a post
office until services were gradually phased out by 2014.&nbsp; The building underwent a major renovation in
2002-2003 when existing courtrooms were modernized and six new courtrooms and
judge’s chambers were added. &nbsp;The
exterior was also cleaned of decades of soot and the masonry joints were
repointed.&nbsp; The building was renamed the Joseph F. Weis Jr. United States Courthouse to honor Pittsburgh native and decorated World War II veteran, Joseph Weis, in 2105.

The federal building that sits on downtown Pittsburgh’s Grant Street still serves as the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.  However, its postal services have since relocated.  The massive Stripped Classical building opened in 1934 and occupies an entire city block.  The staid and stable design came from the architectural firm of Trowbridge and Livingston which created a building befitting the federal government.  It is part of the larger Pittsburgh Central Downtown Historic District, which was created in 1985, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.

Joseph F. Weis Jr. United States Courthouse

The 5-story Byrnes and Kiefer Building is located in Pittsburgh's historic Strip District which is just to the northeast of downtown.&nbsp; Its influences are Victorian and Romanesque and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places due to its association with the broad pattern of commerce in food and food-related business.&nbsp; Another reason for this designation was due to its innovative architectural design and the fact that it was one of the more important commercial buildings in Pittsburgh.The ground floor of the building is now occupied by Next Architecture which, during renovations in 2014, discovered that it had suffered extensive fire damage at some point in its past.&nbsp; The fire exposed the building steel columnns and beams and the company further enhanced this industrial look by revealing the buildings brick walls.&nbsp;

This building, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, was built in 1892. Its name derives from a former tenant, bakery supplier Byrnes & Kiefer. In 1902, E. C. Byrnes left his job with the National Biscuit Company and began selling flour, molasses, milk powder and other baking supplies throughout the Pittsburgh area. He teamed with Mr. Kiefer, an accountant who sold his shares in 1908.  His business is now operated by his great-grandson. 

Byrnes & Kiefer Building

The push to create a museum that could serve as the centerpiece of Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania’s historical community originated with a conference on November 16, 1985 hosted by the Committee of Pittsburgh Archaeology and History titled “Salvaging Pittsburgh’s Past: A City History Museum.” The conference highlighted the urgency of establishing a more formal infrastructure for preserving the region’s past, particularly artifacts from its rapidly vanishing industrial heritage. The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania took up the mantle of this project the following year under the leadership of society president William C. King, who hired John Herbst as executive director (expressly for the purposes of creating an industrial museum) and initiated a $21,000 study to determine the best means of moving forward. The study considered twenty buildings in the Pittsburgh area as potential locations for the new museum, including the Greyhound Terminal on Liberty Avenue, the Armstrong Cork building in the Strip District, and the Lawrence Paint Company building on West Carson street, before settling on the former Chautauqua Ice Company warehouse on Smallman Street in 1989.The warehouse, constructed in the 1880s, was owned at the time by BT Corporation, a private firm operated by descendants of the original owners, and occupied by the Adelman Lumber Company. Together with two adjacent four-story buildings, the seven-story former Chautauqua complex the historical society sought to purchase occupied the entire block on Smallman between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets. Through a grant from Allegheny County, the society was able to purchase the buildings on Smallman for $3.1 million and begin moving forward with its plans to renovate and combine the buildings into a single complex for a projected cost of $11-20 million. With Pittsburgh native David McCullough as honorary head of its fundraising campaign, the historical society was able to pull together over $30 million in donations and grants from the state of Pennsylvania and National Endowment for the Humanities. These funds paid for the renovations that architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Notter Finegold &amp; Alexander Incorporated oversaw beginning in 1992. The historical society held its groundbreaking ceremony on March 9, 1994 and announced two months later that the museum would be named in honor of Senator John Heinz (who had died unexpectedly three years earlier). The Senator John Heinz History Center opened for visitors on April 29, 1996.The history center has expanded its operations considerably since its opening in 1996. In 1999, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania announced its intention as part of a five-year plan to absorb the Meadowcroft Museum of Rural Life in Avella, Pennsylvania fully into the Heinz History Center system, an intention that culminated with the opening of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village Site. The following year the Heinz History Center officially became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. This agreement granted the center access to Smithsonian artifacts related to the history of the region and resulted in the construction of a $27 million five-story Smithsonian wing in 2004 that includes a two-floor Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. Five years after the Smithsonian expansion, the Heinz History Center system grew once more with the acquisition of the Fort Pitt Museum in Point State Park, a response to budget shortfalls that threatened the Fort Pitt Museum’s closure. In conjunction with its operation of the Detre Library &amp; Archives, the Heinz History Center’s expansion efforts have ensured its status as a premier museum in Pennsylvania and undisputed centerpiece of the regional historical community.Over the course of its operation, exhibits in the Heinz History Center have included “We Can Do It! WWII,” an examination of Pittsburgh during the Second World War, the city’s influence on the war, and the war’s effect on the city; “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood” in the Special Collections Gallery, displaying artifacts from the show and set; the Heinz exhibition, illustrating the 145 year history of the company; “Pittsburgh: A Tradition for Innovation”; “From Slavery to Freedom”; “Clash of Empires: The British, French, and Indian War 1754-1763”; “Close Up: Photographs from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2014”; and “Glass: Shattering Notions,” which looks at glass making and its history in the Steel City. The center’s major collections include H.J. Heinz, Westinghouse, Alcoa, and Gulf, but the history center also displays items from everyday life depicting the history and culture of Pittsburgh, such as letters, photos, paintings, uniforms, and records. The history center’s programs include the African American Program, the Italian American Program, the Rauh Jewish Achieves, and the Westinghouse Collection.Such exhibitions have offered visitors to the Heinz History Center an unparalleled opportunity to understand the deep and complex histories of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, and class in Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. The opening of the center in 1996 represents a major turning point in the story of both the regional historical community and the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania itself. What began in 1879 as an organization known as the Old Residents of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania that limited its membership to men who had lived in the region for at least fifty years has become the foremost purveyor of a more equitable, inclusive, and authentic view of the past. As the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania’s operations continue to expand in the coming years, the Heinz History Center will no doubt only further augment its reputation for scholarly excellence.

Located along Smallman Street in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, the Heinz History Center includes 275,000 square feet of exhibits and archives devoted to the study of western Pennsylvania’s history. The center opened for visitors in 1996 in the former Chautauqua Lake Ice Company building after ten years of fundraising and renovations and added a Smithsonian wing eight years later after becoming a Smithsonian Institution affiliate in 2000. Operated by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, the center is named for the noted politician and philanthropist Senator John Heinz. Since its inception, the Heinz History Center has become Pennsylvania’s largest history museum, with over 40,000 artifacts throughout six floors of exhibition space and satellite museums at the Fort Pitt site and the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village. The Heinz History Center is open from 10 AM to 5 PM daily.

Pittsburgh Cultural District Walking Tour

ToonSeum

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information