Frank Curto

Josh Gibson Field is a baseball venue located in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The field was known as Ammon Field or sometimes Ammons Field until 2008, when it was renamed for Baseball Hall of Fame player Josh Gibson. Gibson began his career at Ammon Field in 1929 while playing with the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and continued playing there, as the Crawfords and Homestead Grays regularly played at Ammon. Known as the "black Babe Ruth," Gibson was a leading home run hitter until his death from a stroke in 1947 at age 35. In 1972, he became the second Negro leagues player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Originally a youth semi-pro team, the Crawfords eventually played at Ammon Field, earned a strong reputation and attracted games with many white teams. W.O.W., the defending champions of the white Greater Pittsburgh Semipro Tournament, played the Crawfords at Ammon on June 15, 1930. Although usually covering on the fully professional Homestead Grays, the Pittsburgh Courier reported the 9–8 Crawfords victory. Grays owner and manager Cum Posey recognized the Crawfords competition with his own team and sought to undermine their appeal. In 1929, he persuaded Crawfords manager Hooks Tinker to take on his older brother Seward "See" Posey as a part-time assistant and booker. While admission to the Crawfords amateur games were free by law, at one tournament in 1930, See Posey closed all but one gate to the park and required fans to make contribution, with two police officers stationed at the gate. After the game, he brought Tinker a burlap bag with $2000 in small bills. The Posey brothers were also able to lure Gibson to play with the Grays. Displaced by a low-cost housing project, Ammon Field was moved in the 1940s a block west from its original location. It was ultimately configured as two smaller fields suitable for youth leagues. In 1996, a historical marker commemorating Josh Gibson's career was erected at the newer park site, 2217 Bedford Avenue. It reads: "Hailed as Negro Leagues' greatest slugger, he hit some 800 home runs in a baseball career that began here at Ammons [sic] Field in 1929. Played for Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, 1930-46. Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, '72." The original name of the park honored Edith Darlington Ammon, a pioneer in establishing playgrounds in the city.

The Pittsburgh–Weirton–Steubenville, PA–OH–WV Combined Statistical Area is a 13-county combined statistical (CSA) in the United States. The largest and principal in the area is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but the CSA includes population centers from three states: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. The statistical area was officially defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2013 and revised in 2023. The estimated population of the area was 2,635,228 in mid-2016.

Pittsburgh Opera is an American opera company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh Opera gives performances in several venues, primarily at the Benedum Center, with other performances at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA) Theater. Pittsburgh Opera headquarters is located in the former George Westinghouse Air Brake Factory, 2425 Liberty Avenue, in the Strip District. Pittsburgh Opera has been awarded LEED Silver Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council and is the first "green" opera company in the U.S. in the Operations and Maintenance Category. Pittsburgh Opera's headquarters is also the oldest green building in Pittsburgh.

Greenlee Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, was one of few black-built and black-owned major league baseball field in the United States.The field was the dream of Gus Greenlee, owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords. In 1931, construction started on Bedford Avenue between Chauncey and Duff in Pittsburgh's Hill District. The park opened on April 29, 1932, and reportedly cost $100,000. The first game was the next day, April 30, 1932, and had future hall of famers Satchel Paige pitching to catcher Josh Gibson as City Council members, the Allegheny County commissioners, and Mayor Kline watched from the stands. Greenlee Field held 7,500 spectators and it was the home field for the Crawfords throughout the Great Depression era. The Homestead Grays also played there for a time. Greenlee Field was located a few blocks up Bedford Avenue from Ammon Field, home to the Pittsburgh Keystones. Contemporary city directories list the ballpark's address as 2501 Bedford Avenue. Greenlee was forced to shut out blacks from ballpark jobs during the 1938 season. This angered the team's fans, and attendance lagged as a result. After the season, the Crawfords disbanded and Greenlee Field was torn down. The Bedford Dwellings housing project was later developed on the property. The Pittsburgh Steelers used the field for in-season practices during the 1930s.

Liberty Avenue is a major thoroughfare starting in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, just outside Point State Park. Liberty Ave. runs through Downtown Pittsburgh, the Strip District, Bloomfield, and ends in the neighborhood of Shadyside at its intersection with Centre Avenue and Aiken Avenue. Liberty Avenue is about 4.3 miles (6.9 km) long. A survey of Pittsburgh in 1784 already shows a Liberty Street in its present location. It is also called Liberty Street in a map from 1860.

Pittsburgh Public Market is a public market in the Strip District of Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Public Market focuses on locally sourced fare. It is managed by an organization called the Market Council, which was created by Neighbors in the Strip.Its origin traces back to 2003, when a community organization called Neighbors in the Strip began plans to revive a public market in the Strip District, which once was home to a number of different public markets. By 2005, the project was attracting investment from Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development, PNC Bank, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Direct Farm Sales Program. The original location was a 10,000-square-foot space in a Strip District produce terminal.In October 2013, it moved to a 25,000-square-foot location at 2401 Penn Avenue. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the new location as a "bunker." In 2014, the Pittsburgh Public Market opened the Market Kitchen, a shared commercial cooking space, at its Strip District location; its $600,000 startup cost was Mary Hillman Jennings Foundation, the Allegheny County Development Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Community Services and a Kickstarter.

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.

Bar Marco is a restaurant and bar located in the Strip District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was named one of the Top 50 Best New Restaurants by Bon Appétit Magazine, and was added to Thrillist’s Top 33 Cocktails Bars in the USA.Bar Marco was founded in 2011 by Kevin Cox, Justin Steel, Michael Kreha, and Bobby Fry. Bar Marco received extensive media coverage when it announced the decision to eliminate tipping and instead pay its employees a $35,000 yearly salary.

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.

Central Park was a baseball venue located in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1921–1925. The stadium was the first black-owned, controlled and managed baseball park in the city. The ballpark served as the home of the Pittsburgh Keystones of the Negro National League. Officially named Central Amusement Park, the field's construction was commissioned in 1920 by Keystones' owner Alexander M. Williams and was designed by the prominent African-American architect Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger, who would later design Greenlee Field for the Pittsburgh Crawfords.The ballpark was on a block bounded by Humber Way (north/northwest, third base); buildings and Junilla Street (northeast/east, left field); Hallett Street (southeast/south, right field); and Chauncey Street (southwest/west, first base). Across Humber were buildings and then Wylie Avenue. Well south of Hallett was a larger thoroughfare named Centre Avenue. Newspapers often gave the location as Wylie, Chauncey and Centre. After the Keystones folded after their 1922 season, Williams lost his savings, and by 1924 he had sold the park to Sell Hall. Central Park was sold again and turned into a “summer dancing pavilion.”In 2012, Central Park was denied an historical marker by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. According to the Commission, the venue was seen as a local or regional interest rather than a national and the state already had several other markers commemorating the Negro leagues.The ballpark site is now occupied by a public park.

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.

Pamela's Diner is a prominent chain of diners in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Its specialties are crêpe-style pancakes, omelets and Lyonnaise potatoes. It is "treasured" and is considered to be in the "pantheon of pancake purveyors". In 2013, Pamela's Diner was featured by the Wall Street Journal in a "What to Do in Pittsburgh" feature story.Pamela's Diner is owned by Gail Klingensmith and Pam Cohen. Both educated as teachers, the business partners handle different tasks, Klingensmith with the more business end and Cohen as "the culinary artist". The first Pamela's Diner location, in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, opened in 1979. Subsequent locations have opened in Shadyside, the Strip District, Millvale, Oakland and Mt. Lebanon.During the 2008 United States presidential election, Barack Obama visited Pamela's Diner for a campaign visit. Once elected, President Obama invited Klingensmith and Cohen to the White House for a Memorial Day breakfast with the Obama family and 80 veterans. Later that year, during the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, President Obama expressed dismay that he was unable to return to Pamela's Diner during that trip, but First Lady Michelle Obama did visit. Incidentally, the Oakland storefront received damage during the protests that accompanied the G-20 summit. Pamela's Diner announced in December 2021 that their original Squirrel Hill location will be closing largely due to COVID-19. With the loss of several long-time employees, the location decided to shut its doors. As the first Pamela's Diner location, it has been around 42 years. The other diner locations will stay open, however. The owners hinted that they are open to another, smaller Squirrel Hill location in the future.