Walk Down Pittsburgh Movie Memory Lane
The city’s movie history is on display in downtown Pittsburgh. The Vibrancy Initiative, conceived by the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, is one way the city seeks to transform vacant spaces into colorful celebrations of the region’s history. One such means of renewing the downtown landscape is the Storefront Art area of investment. Empty windows have now come alive, thanks to a wide array of artists.
In the windows of the LiveWell Apartments on 550 Wood Street there’s a celebration of three decades of work by the Pittsburgh Film Office. As the door artwork on display explains, since 1990 the Pittsburgh Film Office has “expanded Pittsburgh’s film industry.” While the office may have only been around since the ’90s, the movie history of the Steel City goes all the way back to the early 1900s.
The window display moves along a timeline that begins in 1905, when Harry Davis and John P. Harris opened a 100-seat theater on June 19 of that year. This would be the first storefront wholly dedicated to movies and would host upward of 7,000 people daily. That’s a far cry from what many modern movie theaters see on a regular basis.
The timeline continues to 1907 with the Warner Brothers (yes, those Warner Bros) discovering that there was real money in renting movie prints rather than merely screening them at a theater. By the 1940s, Pittsburgh was becoming a destination for filmmakers to shoot their movies. And of course it wouldn’t be a reflection on the history of Pittsburgh film if there wasn’t space dedicated to George A. Romero and the zombie movies of yesteryear.
These windows were made to coincide with the release of the Pittsburgh Film Trails app. Funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, this app features location information, behind-the-scenes filmmaking stories, and details about the economic impact of movies at sixty different nearby locations.
A sign at the bottom of one of the displays includes the names of the sixteen individuals who created these windows. All are members of IATSE Local 489, the local branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union. They’re a mere fraction of the 588 members of the union of workers who call Western Pennsylvania home. The sign ends with a reminder of the legacy of those who came before and the importance of building an industry for those who come after.
“We celebrate the careers of the many who came before us and paved the way.”
For more information about the Vibrancy Initiative, visit here. To see a list of all the artists and their window locations, visit here.
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