Chauncey Street, Middle Hill, Pittsburgh took place on October 23, 2022, and was published on November 3, 2022.
As some of you may know, I have a Twitter account, @lzurowski, and despite the blue bird’s nuttiness, I enjoy the platform because stumbling upon interesting discussions is effortless. By sheer algorithmic randomness, I recently came across a conversation involving a group of Pittsburgh baseball historians (@19thCenturyBucs and @PghBallparks) lamenting the lack of photos of Central Amusement Park, a 1920s ballfield in the Middle Hill. Central wasn’t your run-of-the-mill old ballpark, though; it was the first professional baseball field owned, designed, and built by African-Americans in the US. Before the Crawfords and Grays, two legendary Negro League teams, there were the Pittsburgh Keystones, and Central was built for them.
The park was commissioned in 1920 by Keystones’ owner Alexander M. Williams and designed by the prominent African-American architect Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger. Bellinger, one of only 60 African-American architects at the time, would later design what is now known as the New Granada Theatre on Centre Avenue in the heart of the Hill District. While the Keystones didn’t last long, the site remained active through 1925, when it was demolished. Surprisingly, given the neighborhood’s population density at this time, the lot remained empty and is still empty today.
I don’t know much about baseball history, but I know more than the average person about city steps, so when I looked at the 1923 Sandborn Fire Insurance map included in the Twitter thread, the first thing I noticed were those perfectly drawn parallel and perpendicular lines on Chauncey Street. The early 1920s were busy years in Pittsburgh; paving roads, building stairs, and installing sewers, and many of DPW’s photographs from that time have been digitized and archived. So I couldn’t resist inserting myself into the conversation. “Have you searched the City Photographer Collection for infrastructure projects on streets bordering the ballfield?” I let my question fly and waited for a response.
The baseball historians immediately jumped into the City Photographer archives and, in a collection documenting sewer installations, found a beautiful photo of the Chauncey Street stairs from September 18, 1922, with the Central Park grandstand looming high above. A round of clapping and cheers of delight ensued. Not exactly a home run, but a solid base hit. Are there other photos of Central Park out there? I’m sure there are, and maybe this first discovery will help bring all the others to light.
As an endnote, in 2012, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission denied Central Amusement Park a historical marker. The refusal was attributed to the site not having national significance and other markers already commemorating the Negro leagues.
Denial indeed.
Field Notes: Chauncey Street has recently received some updates and repairs from DPW. When I first visited this flight back in 2019, it was usable but in rough shape mainly because of water seepage. In the summer it was muddy and smelly and in the winter frozen and slick. I’m glad this update has finally happened!
Love city steps? Get yourself the latest issue of Mis.Steps: Our Missed Connections with Pittsburgh’s City Steps! Each copy is unique and features 10 randomly selected “trading cards” of Pittsburgh’s 739 public stairways. Visit the Mis.Steps online store to see all issues and place your order.
Want to visit these stairs? You can locate them on the Pittsburgh City Steps Plan website!
Be a good neighbor! Have you visited these stairs and found them in poor condition or that illegal dumping (large items like tires, old furniture, and construction debris) and trash were abundant in the area? There are two things you can do to take action and make our city steps cleaner and safer for everyone! First, grab a photo if you can, and submit a report to Pittsburgh 311. All problems, both broken stairs, and railings, as well as trash and dumping, should be reported to the city. You can easily do this online or by calling.
