Mellon Jazz Festival

Pittsburgh ( PITS-burg) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the second-most populous city in Pennsylvania, behind Philadelphia, and 68th-largest city proper in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 27th-largest in the U.S. Furthermore, it is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pittsburgh is located in southwest Pennsylvania at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River, which combine to form the Ohio River. Pittsburgh is known both as "the Steel City" for its more than 300 steel-related businesses and as the "City of Bridges" for its 446 bridges. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclined railways, a pre-revolutionary fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. The city developed as a vital link of the Atlantic coast and Midwest, as the mineral-rich Allegheny Mountains led to the region being contested by the French and British empires, Virginians, Whiskey Rebels, and Civil War raiders.Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in the manufacturing of other important materials—aluminum and glass—and in the petroleum industry. Additionally, it is a leader in computing, electronics, and the automotive industry. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York City and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment; it had the most U.S. stockholders per capita. Deindustrialization in the 1970s and 1980s laid off area blue-collar workers as steel and other heavy industries declined, and thousands of downtown white-collar workers also lost jobs when several Pittsburgh-based companies moved out. The population dropped from a peak of 675,000 in 1950 to 370,000 in 1990. However, this rich industrial history left the area with renowned museums, medical centers, parks, research centers, and a diverse cultural district.After 1990, Pittsburgh transformed into a hub for the health care, education, and technology industries. Pittsburgh is home to large medical providers, including the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Google, Apple Inc., Bosch, Facebook, Nokia, Autodesk, Amazon, Microsoft and IBM are among 1,600 technology firms generating $20.7 billion in annual Pittsburgh payrolls. Federal money has supported the research agenda. The area has served as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research and the nuclear navy. The nation's fifth-largest bank, eight Fortune 500 companies, and six of the top 300 U.S. law firms make their global headquarters in the area, while RAND Corporation (RAND), BNY Mellon, Nova, FedEx, Bayer, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have regional bases that helped Pittsburgh become the sixth-best area for U.S. job growth.In 2015, Pittsburgh was listed among the "eleven most livable cities in the world". The Economist's Global Liveability Ranking placed Pittsburgh as the most or second-most livable city in the United States in 2005, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2018. The region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and energy extraction.

Mercer's Fort was a temporary fort built by Colonel Hugh Mercer during the winter of 1758–1759, to secure the "forks of the Ohio," at the confluence of the Monongahela River and the Allegheny River, where Mercer was preparing to build Fort Pitt.: 7–14  At the time it was loosely known as "the fort at Pittsburgh," and when work on Fort Pitt had progressed, it was sometimes referred to as "the first Fort Pitt." Only later did people call it "Mercer's Fort," leading to confusion with Fort Mercer in New Jersey. The fort initially served to defend the site, but as Fort Pitt neared completion, it was used mostly to lodge workers and to store supplies. In mid-1760 it was partially dismantled, with some buildings converted into a hospital.

The Western Female Collegiate Institute was a school of higher learning for young ladies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that operated from 1833 until 1837. The institute operated from a nine-room brick house on the Erin Hill farm grounds. This was east of the city limits in the 1830s, and the Monongahela River passed the property. Today, the location borders Centre Avenue on the north and Devilliers Street on the west. Rev. William B. Lacey, DD opened the institute and was the president, and his wife, Elizabeth, was the governess. The school offered boarding, and advertisements stated 30 as the maximum number of pupils. The institute's design was to "impart an accurate and thorough knowledge of all the solid and polite branches of female education." The institute closed in 1837 after damaging reports circulated about Lacey, and enrollment declined. Notable instructors included the Rev. George Upfold, DD and William E. A. Aikin.

Fifth Avenue High School is a defunct school located at 1800 Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Bluff neighborhood, United States. Built in 1894 as a large Romanesque/Gothic Revival building, it served the Pittsburgh Public Schools until its closure in 1976. For over thirty years, the building sat empty, boarded up, and fenced off until it was eventually converted into other uses. Fifth Avenue was the first fireproof school in Pennsylvania and was home to the Alpha chapter of the National Honor Society. Its colors were red and white, and the mascot was the Archer, so chosen because of the school's architecture and hallways filled with Gothic and Victorian arches lined with red and white tile. Fifth Avenue was a dominant force in city sports, winning the state title in its last year open for basketball. The school served the Lower Hill District, while its main rival, Schenley High School, served the upper and middle Hill. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 and was listed as a Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation landmark in 1998 and a City of Pittsburgh landmark in 1999.Beginning in 2009, it was converted into loft apartments by a Pittsburgh-based investor group. Construction on the project was completed in 2012. Numerous components of the structure, such as plaster ceilings in common areas, were saved, preserved, or reused in the renovations.Among the school's notable alumni are former Mayor of Pittsburgh Sophie Masloff, Dapper Dan Charities founder and former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams, and forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, who served as Coroner (later Medical Examiner) and a Commissioner of Allegheny County.

The New Granada Theater at 2007 Centre Avenue in the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was built in 1927 and 1928. This Art Deco theater was designed by architect Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger, and originally was a Pythian Temple, a meeting place for the Knights of Pythias (a fraternal order and secret society). In this case, it was a lodge for a group of African American construction workers known as the Knights of the Pythian. In the 1930s, the building was sold to Harry Hendel, who moved two blocks from his old Granada Theater to this New Granada Theater. The building was remodeled in 1937 and 1938 by Alfred M. Marks, and it became a movie theater as well as a place for live entertainment, music and dancing. Jazz legends such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie and Cab Calloway performed at this location.It was added to the List of City of Pittsburgh historic designations on October 8, 2004, the List of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmarks in 2007, and the National Register of Historic Places on December 27, 2010.

The Crawford Grill was a renowned jazz club that operated in two locations in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During its heyday in the 1950s and 60s, the second Crawford Grill venue hosted local and nationally-recognized acts, including jazz legends Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and Kenny Burrell. The club, an important social gathering spot for Pittsburgh's African-American communities, drew devoted listeners from the region's ethnically and racially diverse population making it a rare site of interracial socializing during the civil rights period. The Crawford Grill was one of many black-owned neighborhood clubs in the Eastern United States that supported a tour circuit for small jazz ensembles during the genre's "golden age." Despite the riots of 1968, which severely damaged the neighborhood's economic infrastructure, the club continued to operate until 2003, when it was shuttered. In 2010, a group of local investors purchased the property with the goal of restoring and reopening the location as a venue and restaurant.

Irene Kaufmann Settlement (IKS), known as the Columbian School and Settlement from 1895 to 1910, was a settlement house located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, at 1835 Center Avenue. It was the idea of Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg and established by the Columbian Council (now known as the National Council of Jewish Women - Pittsburgh Section) for moral, educational, and religious training. "The special purposes of the Settlement is the advancement of the civic, intellectual and social welfare of the surrounding community. It aims to do this (1) by guiding the foreign-born to American conditions, (2) encouraging self-improvement, (3) stimulating healthy pleasures, (4) broadening civic interests, (5) creating ideals of conduct. The place is a home in the life of its residents, an institution in the service of its friends, a school in the work of its teachers, a club house in the social uses of its neighbors, a civic organization in the interests of the community, a Settlement in the choice of its location". At the geographical center of the Lower Hill District (Pittsburgh's most populous district at that time), the IKS made its service available to anyone who needed its aid. It coordinated services with the Jewish Federated Philanthropies, the Municipal Safety and Health Departments, the Labor Bureau of the Council of Jewish Women, the public schools, the Associated Charities, the Juvenile Court, the Housing Commission, and the Emma Farm. The IKS housed under its roof 17 outside organizations, including various trade unions and socialist groups. It maintained a public bath and public laundry, and a summer camp. It had a resident staff of seven; additionally, 170 volunteers gave one or more hours each week to some form of social service in the district. The property of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement covered an area of 200 by 60 feet (61 m × 18 m). The settlement building was erected in 1910. It was of steel frame construction with yellow brick, and five stories high. There were 67 rooms in the main building, and a gymnasium and public bath in the rear, that building being known as the Peacock Public Bath. The settlement building was dedicated March 29, 1911. It was a monument to the memory of Irene Kaufmann, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Kaufmann, owners of Kaufmann's Department Store, one of the largest stores in Pittsburgh. Miss Kaufmann died in 1907.

The Hill District is a grouping of historically African American neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, "the Hill" was the cultural center of black life in the city and a major center of jazz. Despite its cultural and economic vibrancy, in the mid-1950s a substantial area was slated for redevelopment, displacing about 8,000 individuals.

Paramount Film Exchange is a building at 1727 Boulevard of the Allies in the Uptown or Bluff neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, designed in 1926 by R. E. Hall Co. architects from New York City. In 2010, the building was bought by arts-oriented local entrepreneurs who founded the Paramount Film Exchange (PFEX), Inc., to redevelop the then-abandoned building in a historically sensitive manner. In the words of film historian Max Alvarez, film exchanges were "agencies engaging in the practice of renting or trading motion pictures", which, in the early part of the 20th century, served as "full-service stores for theater owner/managers." Motion-picture studios owned exchanges and used them to screen their films for potential exhibitors in a local market. Once videocassettes came into use in the 1970s, it was no longer necessary to screen a film in a screening room, and film exchanges fell out of use. The Paramount Film Exchange, which belonged to Paramount Pictures, was one of several film exchange buildings in the area. The Duquesne University Tamburitzans occupy the former location of the Warner Bros. exchange at 1801 Boulevard of the Allies, and the auction and real-estate firm Harry Davis & Co. is located next door, at 1725 Boulevard of the Allies, in the building that once housed 20th Century Fox's exchange.The Paramount Film Exchange was the subject of a contentious battle over historic preservation in Pittsburgh, which is redeveloping many of the older neighborhoods in its urban core. Initial attention to the Paramount Film Exchange came in 2008, when 21-year-old Drew Levinson entered and won a video contest sponsored by the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh (YPA) with his short film on the Paramount Film Exchange. Levinson's video rallied support behind saving the Film Exchange from sale or demolition by then-owner University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). In 2009, YPA proposed the Paramount Film Exchange for official historical designation by the City of Pittsburgh. The Historic Review Commission of the City of Pittsburgh granted landmark designation in early 2010 based on "the importance of a particular place to Pittsburgh's heritage." The YPA attributed the site's historical significance to its status as the last remnant of Pittsburgh's "film row". UPMC and the Exchange's other large institutional neighbor, Duquesne University, both opposed landmarking the building, while Rick Schweikert and his co-investors in PFEX, Inc. did not. The proposal moved to City Council, which in a preliminary vote on Jan. 20, 2010, approved historic designation for the Exchange by an 8-1 margin.

The Brady Street Bridge, also known as the South 22nd Street Bridge, was a steel bowstring arch bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which crossed over the Monongahela River at South 22nd Street. Its main span was a tied arch with a suspended road deck, with two through-truss side spans, carrying two traffic lanes between Brady Street on the Pittsburgh side and South 22nd Street on the south side. Approach viaducts were built at either end. The bridge was built by the Schultz Bridge and Iron Company.The Brady Street Bridge closed on May 3, 1976, but the new Birmingham Bridge was still being constructed and would not be open for another 14 months. Over two years later on May 29, 1978, the old bridge span was blasted into the Monongahela River. During the cleanup process that followed, railings from its remains were rescued by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and utilized in the construction of the Station Square station.

The Birmingham Bridge (known during construction as the Brady Street Bridge) is a bowstring arch bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which crosses over the Monongahela River. The bridge connects East Carson Street on the South Side with Fifth and Forbes Avenues going to Uptown, Oakland, and the Hill District. It is named in honor of the English city of Birmingham and also for the neighborhood it connects to, which was once called Birmingham, now a part of the South Side. Many locals also may refer to it with its unofficial name, the 22nd Street bridge.

The Great Fire of Pittsburgh occurred on April 10, 1845, destroying a third of the city and causing between $6 million and $12 million in damage. While having little effect on the culture of the city except to spur further growth, it would provide a temporal reference point for the remainder of the century and beyond.