In the 1920s and ’30s, Joe Tito and his four brothers were literally filling pillowcases with cash from bootlegging and numbers, an illegal lottery. They had enough money to buy a brewery and help finance the construction of Greenlee Field, one of the first stadiums in the nation constructed for a Negro Leagues baseball team, the Pittsburgh Crawfords.
Do those accomplishments merit listing Tito’s house and the garage where Rolling Rock beer was born as city historic landmarks?
On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh Planning Commission said it did. But the buildings’ owners and some of their Uptown neighbors say no. The owners are ready to sell to developers who would tear down the dilapidated structures and build a retail center and 260-unit apartment complex there.
At a recent hearing before the city’s Historic Review Commission, Rona L. Peckich, a great-grandniece of the Titos who lives in Mendocino, Calif., said the properties are worth saving because they are tangible evidence of a prominent Italian family, the era of Prohibition and Rolling Rock beer. Allowing developers to tear them down, she added, would be “a win-win, for them only.”
The buildings’ owners, meanwhile, say historic landmark status is not appropriate considering the Titos’ checkered history.
Nicole Maguire and her brother, James, inherited the Tito family home when their mother died in 2019. They oppose historic designation “because of the criminal background of the Tito family,” she said.
Tom Castello, a lawyer for the family that owns the garage and 18 other Uptown properties, said his clients oppose the nomination and believe that “Mr. Tito is not the kind of individual that should be glorified.”
“As an Italian myself,” Castello added, he objects to preserving the Tito property “while removing statues of Christopher Columbus.”
Ethnic history
The two properties also contribute to the city’s African American history because of Joe Tito’s partnership with a powerful Black businessman and numbers banker, William “Gus” Greenlee, who owned the Pittsburgh Crawfords in their 1930s heyday, when Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige and other hall of famers played for the team.
Construction of Greenlee Field in the Hill District took six months in 1931-32. The field cost $100,000 and used 75 tons of steel and 14 railroad cars of concrete, according to “Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh,” a book by local historian Rob Ruck. The Crawfords played their first game there on April 29, 1932. The stadium was torn down six years later to make way for Bedford Dwellings, a public housing project.
Joe Tito’s house is much older. It was built in 1884 at 1817 Fifth Ave., and the garage directly behind it at 1818 Colwell St., was built in 1922. Uptown Partners, a neighborhood community group, nominated the house and garage for designation as city historic landmarks last year.
The garage, according to a 120-page nomination written by historian David S. Rotenstein, was where the Tito brothers first sold Rolling Rock beer and where they stored illegal liquor during Prohibition. The home doubled as their business office.
Joe Tito was one of this city’s “most consequential organized crime figures and entrepreneurs,” Rotenstein told the city’s planning commission last Tuesday. Afterward, the planning commission voted unanimously in favor of designating the properties as historic landmarks. Their recommendation will go to Pittsburgh City Council, which has the final say.
The city’s Historic Review Commission has voted against designation. Only its chairwoman, Lucia Aguirre, supported the nomination along with the city’s preservation planner, Sarah Quinn.
Neighborhood divided
Uptown Partners has faced opposition for seeking to preserve the Tito house and garage. The house “is the last structure of its kind in the entire neighborhood,” said Brittany McDonald, the group’s executive director.
“The history that David Rotenstein was able to provide on this property has been very compelling and I think that’s really worthwhile,” she said, adding that she was unaware of the buildings’ significance until she began leading walking tours of the neighborhood last summer.
McDonald, who lives nearby, said the house and garage were neglected for so long that Uptown Partners sought a conservatorship in Allegheny Common Pleas Court to remediate the blight.
“As a direct result of this nomination, I have been subjected to intimidation tactics,” she said, adding that she has endured racial slurs, disrupted Zoom meetings, a burglary at her home and threatening phone calls from people who oppose historic designation.
“I advocate for responsible and equitable development, not gentrification or displacement,” McDonald told the planning commission.
Sabreena Miller, real estate development and program manager for Uptown Partners, told the planning commission that the properties meet seven of the 10 criteria required for historic designation (properties must meet at least one to become a landmark). Local and nationally known scholars of Italian-American and African-American culture support the nomination, Miller said.
For decades, the Cowell Street garage was owned by Salvatore Williams, a Scott Township man who died in November. One of 11 children who grew up in the Hill District, he pleaded guilty in federal court in the mid-1990s to running an illegal gambling operation and served time in federal prison. His conviction was upheld in 1997 by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The property was inherited by Williams’ family members who also own 18 other Uptown properties. They want to sell the properties to Fountain Residential Partners, a Texas developer who would build a 260-unit apartment complex on a two-acre parcel bounded by Fifth Avenue and Dinwiddie and Colwell streets. The Hill at Fifth and Dinwiddie would have efficiency, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments geared toward users of “alternative transportation options” such as bicycles and the Bus Rapid Transit line. In its proposal, the developer says 5% of the apartments would be for people making at or below 80% of the area median income.
The Tito house is owned by siblings Nicole and James Maguire. Their lawyer, Patrick J. Rega, told the planning commission that his clients and other property owners in the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Fifth Avenue have signed a sales agreement with a developer who plans an 11,000-square-foot commercial development with a grocery store.
Brewing history
Joe McAllister, founder of Brew: The Museum of Beer, is working to establish the museum in Pittsburgh and supports saving both structures because of Rolling Rock’s local significance.
“A lot of people consider it to have been a craft beer before there was craft beer,” McAllister said.
Dick Tito, of Mars, said his late father, James B. Tito, lived in the Uptown house from the late 1920s until he got married in 1937. In 1932, James Tito was attending Carnegie Technical Institute. That was the same year Pittsburgh homicide detectives questioned Joe Tito about the fatal shootings of Johnny, Arthur and Jim Volpe in a Wylie Avenue coffee shop. Joe Tito’s name appeared in local newspaper articles about the case, but he was never charged in the murders.
“Joe Tito’s name is in the papers every day in the summer of 1932. Imagine going to college and everybody is asking you, ‘Are you related to Joe Tito?’” Dick Tito said.
So, his father transferred to Columbia University, returned to Pittsburgh in 1934 and became a bookkeeper for Latrobe Brewing Co., the maker of Rolling Rock beer. He eventually became the brewery’s chairman and CEO.
Historic or not?
Aguirre, the Historic Review Commission’s chairman, called the properties’ histories colorful and complex. “It is fascinating. It was new to me,” she said.
“I just don’t think the buildings are historically important,” said Karen Loysen, an architect and fellow member of the commission. “I’m not familiar with the neighborhood,” she added later.
Jeanne McNutt, who lives on Fifth Avenue in Uptown, is the former executive director of Uptown Partners. She noted that city officials spent $2 million to plan an eco-innovation district in Uptown and adopted the plan into law in December 2017, with the community’s support.
“One of the key pillars of this plan is preserving and strengthening the existing community. Preserving or retaining and rehabbing this building helps to maintain what historic character we have left. We have lost so much of our architectural fabric,” McNutt said.
“We want families. We want young professionals. We want affordable housing. We don’t want transitory housing.”
Marylynne Pitz (mlpitz27@gmail.com) is a Pittsburgh-based arts journalist.
First Published: February 11, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
Updated: February 11, 2022, 11:04 a.m.
