Duking it out at the Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall
The Carnegie Library of Homestead Music Hall has welcomed hundreds of concerts, plays and community events in its 119-year history.
But on Friday night, the 1,000seat venue will stage something it’s never done before: a night of boxing.
The event, called “Bringing Pittsburgh a Night of Fights,” will feature eight fights, with pro boxers from around the Pittsburgh area and beyond facing off in a boxing ring on center stage.
“We’re trying to get back to old-school boxing because Pittsburgh is an old-school town,” said Caitlin McKelvey, one of the event’s organizers. “The hall is historical. It’s beautiful.”
It also offers the rare combination of ample capacity and affordability that Ms. McKelvey and event co-organizer Mike McSorley wanted. Finding an affordable venue that can hold more than 500 fans isn’t easy, Mr. McSorley said.
Friday night’s venue checks both of those boxes and, just as importantly to Mr. McSorley, boasts an unorthodox environment for boxing.
“The architecture, the high ceilings, the ornate carvings throughout the whole theater … those are just things that the boxing community is not really used to,” Mr. McSorley said. “It has much more of a classic feel to it than anything.”
Tickets for the event start at $25 and can be purchased at the door. Doors open at 6 p.m.
The music hall is a part of the bigger Carnegie Library of Homestead facility, which houses a library of more than 34,000 volumes and an athletic club, complete with a gym.
That gym played host to a few boxing matches two decades ago, according to Carol Shrieve, the library’s director of administration.
So when Ms. McKelvey and Mr. McSorley reached out to Ms. Shrieve about having the library hold a boxing event, she naturally suggested the gym as a typical boxing locale, with a ring in the center and fans on all four sides of the ring.
That standard configuration — described as “cookiecutter” by Mr. McSorley — is adequate, but sight lines in a smaller gym are often poor. Fans stand in front of each other and a lack of elevation change between rows of seats sometimes leads to blocked views.
The music hall will eliminate those poor sight lines and will even offer a one-of-akind view from its upper level, Ms. Shrieve said.
“Fans will feel like they’re almost on top of the ring in the balcony,” she said. “There’s a bird’s-eye view unlike any other up there. You can’t get that in normal boxing venues.”
Something else you usually don’t get in normal boxing venues? Non-boxing fans, Ms. McKelvey said. She believes having the event in a space like the music hall will attract people who haven’t been to a boxing event before and, she hopes, lead to the sport’s rejuvenation in the area.
Pittsburgh has a rich boxing tradition, one that peaked in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when fight shows occurred as often as six nights a week. That reality, plus the fact that Western Pennsylvania was a breeding ground for boxing talent, made it one of the most respected areas in the sport during the first half of the 20th century.
Event organizers know that getting Pittsburgh back to anywhere near its glory days will be tough, but they believe Friday’s unconventional event is a step in that direction.
“We have some great venues here, and as long as we have 34 feet by 34 feet of floor space, we can make it work anywhere,” Ms. McKelvey said.
“Our plan is to have boxing catch back on in Pittsburgh. There’s no reason we can’t bring big shows here, and this is where we start.”