How do we maintain cultural continuity in changing neighborhoods? It’s an issue we explore in our preview video about the transformation of the August Wilson House from a stripped down shell to a community resource in Pittsburgh’s Hill District.
Famed playwright August Wilson is best known for his Century Cycle, 10 plays about the Black experience, each representing a decade in time. Nine of the plays are set on the Hill.
We filmed extensively in Pittsburgh for the Saving the City documentary series about how to make cities better places.
Pittsburgh’s Hill District, whose population peaked at 55,000 in the early 1950s but is now only around 9,000, has been wrestling with how to preserve its largely Black heritage. Despite a central location between downtown and the University of Pittsburgh’s sprawling campus and mammoth medical center, the neighborhood has been ravaged by 1950s redevelopment, 1960s race riots and minimal real estate investment for decades.
Even with much of the area vacant, three touchstones of a once vibrant cultural scene remained, but all in disrepair. Now August Wilson’s boyhood home has been remade into a cultural center and the New Granada Theater is to be renovated starting in 2024, although the Crawford Grill 2 is still awaiting an action plan.
It’s important when neighborhoods change, and cities are always changing, to recognize their cultural heritage. Pittsburgh’s Hill District will never be what it was — first stop for European immigrants and Blacks migrating to the city — but now, at least, people will be able to learn about and experience some of what came before them.
Meet Kimberly Ellis, founder of the Historic Hill Institute and August Wilson’s niece. Watch more videos.
Check out our August Wilson House preview video. Contact us — Check out our work and let us know what you think.