Alphabet City gets an ‘A’ from Young Preservationists
The Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh honored City of Asylum this week for preserving a former masonic temple and transforming it into a space for writers and readers, a bookstore and a restaurant.
The building at 40 W. North Ave. was renamed Alphabet City, and its second and third floors hold apartments.
Matthew Craig, executive director of the nonprofit, said association members took a hard-hat tour of the project during construction.
“You just saw the bones of this building and how much work they had to do and the way that they were able to maintain the original historic quality of that building. It really promises to be a very vibrant center for the neighborhood,” Mr. Craig said.
The Young Preservationists Association, founded 15 years ago, met Thursday at Alphabet City and released its annual list of 10 artworks or places that need to be saved.
Topping the list is a Downtown artwork by artist and educator Virgil Cantini, an Italian immigrant who died in 2009. In the mid-1960s Cantini created and installed 36 mosaic panels in a 60-foot long pedestrian tunnel that runs under Bigelow Boulevard, linking Chatham Street to Seventh Avenue. The city plans to create a new park that caps the Crosstown Expressway, and it is considering filling in or burying the pedestrian tunnel, Mr. Craig said.
In Wilkinsburg, the organization backs preservation of the three-story Lohr Building, at 725 Wood St. Built in the early 1890s by Alexander Lohr, the building is now vacant and owned by Wilkinsburg Community Development Corp.
Also on the list are the Atlas Theater, a 100-year-old movie theater at 2603 Perrysville Ave., North Side; and the Regent Square Theater, which opened in 1936. Located on South Braddock Avenue and owned by Pittsburgh Filmmakers/Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, the Regent Square
closed in May after a projector failed. It is to reopen Oct. 27.
In Butler, the young preservationists want to save the Penn Theater, one of the few remaining art deco-style movie houses in the state. The theater, which opened in 1938, has been closed since 2006 and is owned by the Redevelopment Authority of Butler County.
The rest
• The Alcoa Research Facility in New Kensington that once employed 500 people and closed in 1980.
• The five-story Brimstone Building in Connellsville, which is for sale for $325,000. It’s on the site of a general store owned by the Ewings.
• The James Hezlip Tavern in Fayette City, an early 1800s building that was purchased for $400 in 2012. The Federal-style building is abandoned and endangered by neglect, the organization said.
• The John William Manown House, also called Castle Blood, in Monessen. Built in 1905, it’s one of the few structures in town left from that period and is owned by the Castle Blood Theater Group.
• “Farms and farmland across Western Pennsylvania.” The association did not offer any specific examples.