Black Fives Exhibit @ NY Historical Society shines light on Pittsburgh Basketball History

Who knew there was a Homestead Grays- basketball team?

A small but tightly packed show I saw at the NY Historical Society shows off an era few people know about.

From The New Pittsburgh Courier

"Due to segregation in the early 1900s, Black athletes formed their own professional leagues. Because teams have five starting players, they were called “fives.” Some of the most famous Black Five teams were the New York Renaissance, or the Rens, the Washington Bears, and the most famous remnant of that era, the Harlem Globetrotters.

But Pittsburgh, and Duquesne University feature prominently in the exhibit because Cumberland Posey also starred for Duquesne during the Black Fives Era."

Also prominent was the Monticello Athletic Association which played in the Hill District- defeating Howard University for the 2011-2012 World Colored basketball championship.

From The Black Fives history website

"The Monticello lineup featured Walter Clark, Sell Hall, Israel Lee, Jim Dorsey, Cum’s brother Seward, and Cum Posey himself.

Cum Posey and Sell Hall also played baseball for the professional Homestead Grays, a Negro Leagues team that Posey eventually owned. (Posey was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 2006.)"

Cumberland Posey, son of the Pittsburgh Courier owner- starred on Duquesne University's team under an assumed name- not because he was black but because he also played "pro ball" on the side. (Some players made $100 dollars a week!!)

The show is crammed with enough photos, clippings, ticket stubs and memorabilia to support several books.



The Black Fives Exhibit ends July 20th

New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West, 
New York City, NY

Tuesday – Thursday	10 am – 6 pm
Friday	10 am – 8 pm
Saturday	10 am – 6 pm
Sunday	11 am – 5 pm

Restitution: Two Entities That Should Help Save The August Wilson Center

Can't say I didn't see the sad August Wilson Center Train wreck coming. Built on tax dollars and a few large (Including one from the RK Mellon Foundation) grants, just big enough to get it to the ribbon cutting ceremony and very little grass roots groundwork, in a city that has lost (forced out) most of its middle class black community, the Center seemed on shaky ground

See a brief grim synopsis here (Notice the flawed study by the same URA which thought tearing down The Hill was a great idea)

 I'm not usually one for bailouts, but in this case two entities, The Richard King Mellon Foundation & The Pittsburgh Penguins stand out as owing something to Pittsburgh's black community for the crimes committed against it.

From The Post Gazette- Look For The Name Richard King Mellon

 Mellon's heft allowed his deputies, Richards and Van Buskirk, to spread their fingers everywhere, creating a shadow Mellon government. In 1945, they lobbied the state to approve the Urban Redevelopment Authority, a powerful tool that allowed Pittsburgh to seize private properties through eminent domain.............yada yada 

 Lawrence eventually settled on the Lower Hill District, a popular neighborhood for Italians, Jews, Eastern Europeans and blacks. Politically, it was a better choice. "There was not a lot of opposition," Weber said, in an interview. "Was that easier? Absolutely."

It was a lively neighborhood, bulging with shops, nightclubs, restaurants and small businesses. But it had problems, too. There were more than 1,000 tuberculosis cases reported in 1933. A 1953 building's inspector's report, cited in Weber's book, rated 681 of the 901 homes as "substandard....

"The URA's demolition, which began in 1956, forced out 1,239 black families. About 800 relocated to the nearby Third, Fourth and Fifth wards -- predominantly black neighborhoods. And the relocation did not go well.

The federal government, at the time, did not provide displaced homeowners with relocation money, as it does today. Also, homeowners had no contact with the city until the acquisition had been made. They got a notice in the mail. "Chaos. It was absolute chaos," URA official Irving Rubinstein told an interviewer in 1974. "We didn't know what to do."

Mellon looms so large in the Hill district's fate, he plays a big part in August Wilson's play, Two Trains Running. ( $$$$ mysteriously critical entries about him are hard to find online)

Well.. anyway, he left a large foundation behind to help out the city. What better way than by supporting a potentally important cultural center for a community you "accidentally" damaged?

As for The Penguins who happily sit on the grave of that community and then helped themselves to another slice... pay up.

As for the city taxpayers, I don't believe in collective guilt. But, if you worked in any capacity or supported in any way the policies named here, please pay up.

New Street Art: Benjamin Banneker Sign In The Hill District

I really like this raw folk art/ street art piece I saw in The Hill District. I think it's on Centre Ave but I'm not sure.



One thing street art can do is make people more aware of their regional or cultural history. My guess is that was the main intent of the creator of this work I saw in the hill. Sad to say, I had only a very vague idea of who Benjamin Banneker was-but I looked him up after seeing this.



From the Wikipedia

"The title page of an edition of Banneker's 1792 Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris stated that the publication contained:


the Motions of the Sun and Moon, the True Places and Aspects of the Planets, the Rising and Setting of the Sun, Place and Age of the Moon, &c.—The Lunations, Conjunctions, Eclipses, Judgment of the Weather, Festivals, and other remarkable Days; Days for holding the Supreme and Circuit Courts of the United States, as also the useful Courts in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Also—several useful Tables, and valuable Receipts.—Various Selections from the Commonplace–Book of the Kentucky Philosopher, an American Sage; with interesting and entertaining Essays, in Prose and Verse—the whole comprising a greater, more pleasing, and useful Variety than any Work of the Kind and Price in North America.

The 1792 almanac included the times for the rising and setting of the sun and moon. Weather forecasts and dates for yearly feasts were also included. Readers also saw a tide table for the Chesapeake Bay and home treatments for illnesses. In his 1793 almanac, Banneker included letters sent between Thomas Jefferson and himself.[17] The title page of a Baltimore edition of his 1795 almanac had a woodcut portrait of him as he may have appeared, but which a writer later concluded was more likely a portrayal of an idealized African American youth."

I liked this work a lot.

New Grocery Solution Points to Larger City Woes (Or, Our Right to Grocery Stores at the Center of Sustainable Communities)

Yesterday, I read the surprising news that the Strip District grocery store, Right By Nature, has started a delivery service in order to address the lack of grocery stores available to Downtown and Hill District residents. Don't get me wrong, I find the action by Right By Nature very kind, in a very Pittsburgh way--they're stepping up to provide a service to help their neighbors. But as a city, aren't we all sufficiently ashamed of the Hill District's situation (as Vanessa German quipped in her show "Testify," "If you live in a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh, you have to get on a bus to find a grocery store"), and as a city, isn't this a very outdated solution to an embarrassingly long-running problem (the Hill has gone decades without a real grocery store)?

When I say outdated, I'm talking about delivery service. I'm talking about individual cars on the road, and the oil we use to power those vehicles, and how that oil is getting more and more costly. I believe, and I'm not the only one, that the writing is on the wall for the car. No amount of electric power or corn oil is going to do; the car thing is just not sustainable for too much longer. We've got to start turning our cities into places of walkers and bikers and public transit riders.

The humane and green solution to this grocery problem is to provide grocery stores in neighborhoods. Period. Places we can each get to on foot, if we choose. But for that, we need to create and sustain neighborhoods that can support grocery stores, which brings me to my real fear for Pittsburgh: density. Will the city of Pittsburgh ever re-acquire enough density to do what cities do best--concentrate living and working and services in areas connected by real sidewalks, safe bike paths, and viable public transit? Just because we lost population in the steel industry downturn, doesn't mean we can afford to turn our city into a suburban carland indefinitely. Paul Krugman writes of a middle-class Berlin full of trains, bikes, and close local shopping, versus an "America stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas." What would it take to fill many more of Pittsburgh's beautiful old houses with residents, to make frequent, appealing light rail service reach many more outlying areas, to convince Southwestern Pa. to put less effort into maintaining the lifestyle of its suburbs and spend more effort to populate the energetic city those 'burbs revolve around?

Again, kudos to Right by Nature for their neighborly action. But in the larger picture, grocery delivery must be seen as a stop-gap solution to a problem of low-density, which threatens the long-term future of our city.

Root Shock Book Review Coming Soon

I finally got around to reading, Mindy Fullilove's amazing book, Root Shock and I promise to get on here with a review.

My reaction to the book, was much like the one I had when I first came across The Death & Life of Great American Cities, in that the author has come across a concept and way of thinking that is both eye opening and so obviously correct.

At the same time, one thirsts for more knowledge and detail. There should be a library on this subject alone. Why hasn't it been studied more?

To paraphrase Robert A. Caro, To really understand power, one must study it's effect on the powerless.

Hill House Soars

We had made kites over the month of March in preparation for a flight festival. We had something like forty blanks, and somehow that wasn't enough! We were at Kennard and Ammens fields and Arcena, which was the designated flight space for adults.

We met in the Hill House lobby, where Bourbon Street Catering had set up a wonderful array of cookies, cheeses and meats. Seriously good cookies. I particularly liked these little butter cookies with raspberry and almonds. Can you tell that I am completely at the mercy of my stomach?



The weather was sunny and warm. The Frustrationless Flyer kites that we used for the project are good in light wind, which is great because we had gusty, light wind in the afternoon. I tested this kite and it goes up really easily, I was able to launch mine with no assistance. I was at Kennard field and I am in love! It was a great place to fly and I can't wait to go back. Next time, I hope there's enough wind to launch my stunt kite.

Images from Kennard Field --



Here are some of the kites that were made during the Community Gallery Project

Hill House Soars

We have been making kites over the month of March in preparation for a flight festival. Sites have been chosen for the day. We'll have kites available for decoration at the sites, so even if you don't already have one, you can pick one up there. Part of the project was conducted with the Community Gallery project although there were additional workshops for kids and adults.

We'll be meeting in the Hill House lobby, where you can pick up kites, snacks and a map to the sites.

I'll bet you're wondering when and where this extravaganza will take place ...

The Hill House Association lobby
1835 Centre Ave
April 21st,
Check in between 11:30am and 12:30pm

The weather forecast is good; sunny and 52, wind at 8mph. I tested this kite and it goes up really easily, I was able to launch mine with no assistance. But hey, if you have your own kite, bring that too!

Community Gallery project in the Hill District reception

We had the reception for the Community Gallery project on March 31. The projects were on display in the lobby. It was a lovely afternoon, with children and artists popping in and out. Terri Baltimore was there, along with Lissa Rosenthal from Pittsburgh Celebrates. The post from the kick off is here.

Kites from the project with Deanna Mance. For all of you kite enthusiasts out there, join us for the Soars event on April 21. I'll be making an announcement about this soon, but...
April 21
Hill House Association
1835 Centre Ave

Check in: 11:30am - 12:30pm
pick up kites and maps to the flight sites. Refreshments provided

We have three sites in the Hill district that we have designated as flight zones. And if you don't already have a kite, we will have some available for you at the Hill House.
These are from the assemblage project that Christine Bethea did with the students.
Some of the visitors enjoying the display.
A very crowded lobby! Everybody loves those giant puppets

Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project

Celebrate Kids Art, Performances and Fun Hands-on Activities
March 2007 in Pittsburgh Neighborhoods

Saturday, March 3, 12:00 noon-1:00pm.
Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project Kick-Off Reception
Join community leaders and neighborhood kids and families as we kick-off the Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project. (Media is invited.)

Northside, South Side, Hill District, East End and all around the town, navigate your way through youth arts programs with the Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project!

From March 1 – 31, 2007, Pittsburgh children and families will experience and explore dynamic after school and youth programs that engage kids grades K-12 in Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

Visual, performing and written artwork of Pittsburgh youth will be presented through neighborhood community gallery sites. Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project locations will collaborate with numerous after school programs and businesses in their respective neighborhoods.

The neighborhood sites will showcase the impact that each program makes by presenting exhibitions that include special weekend performances and fun hands-on activities by and for kids K-12 and their families. In addition, each branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will have special Community Gallery Project programming.

Together, We All Form a Community of Neighbors! In addition to the programs and activities at each Community Gallery Project site (East Side, Hill District, Northside and South Side,) be sure to visit your neighborhood Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh during the month of March for family stories and group activities that celebrate individuals and families. For more details, check out the events listings on Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh website at http://www.carnegielibrary.org/.

Each neighborhood exhibit and related programming will be free and open to the public.

The Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project began through the collaborative spirit of Pittsburgh Roars and will culminate with a catalog that showcases the creativity from each neighborhood and serve as a resource guide of the innovative after school art programs available to K-12 students in Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Community Gallery Project is made possible through the generous support of The Grable Foundation. Special thanks to Southside Works for donating space for the South Side community gallery site and to Whole Foods Market for supporting East End activities.

Schedule of Activities
by Neighborhood

• EAST END
  
  
• HILL DISTRICT
  
  
• NORTH SIDE
  
  
• SOUTH SIDE
  
  
• CARNEGIE LIBRARIES O