This was a disaster from concept on, Pittsburgh has tons of places to perform theater, in fact the downtown area has been completely revitalized by a multi-decade effort to create and encourage a theater district downtown.
That has all been successful, but this thing was just a turd from the get go... the issue is simply this, like it or not, african americans don’t in Pittsburgh at least, go to the theater, PERIOD. Go walk Penn Avenue any friday or saturday night and you will find it bustling with theater goers, and symphony goers, and artsy fartsy types doing gallery crawls, and you will also notice that African Americans by and large aren’t among the crowds.
Pittsburgh is still a very segregated city not by law, but by socioeconomy, most of the African American community are not in the middle or upper classes. They work in the service industry and hourly wage jobs overwhelmingly. There was no need for another theater or performing arts center beyond those that the city already had, and there was never financial support among the african american community to have one dedicated primarily for that purpose.
The only reason I think this thing got built in the first place was no one wanted to be labeled a racist by pointing out it wouldn’t work.
They took up a collection at the Kawanza celebration and netted $103
It looks like they should be serving eggs & waffles inside.
Seriously though, this country has way too many museum that honor trivial crap.
To salvage this idiotic building, they should construct a big red sickle behind it and give it to Rich Fitzgerald for a new Agony County headquarters.
All it needs is the sickle, and you have what it really stands for.
That is one ugly building!
Shocking that the building looks just like the soviet hammer, not.
Melanin uber alles has always failed. The only people who visit these centers are school children who are forced to visit.