You Can’t Build That Here - August Wilson House

For our thirteenth entry in our “You Can’t Build That Here!” series, we hop on the 71A/B and then take the 81/21 into the Hill District.

It’s harder to get into the Hill District now than it used to be.  For the first half of the 20th century, Pittsburgh Railways’ Streetcar Line 85 would have taken us right where we needed to go. Or, if we were feeling a bit more adventurous, we could have taken the Penn Incline up from the Strip District. If we were coming from downtown, we could have walked through the neighborhood of the lower Hill District, now Crawford Roberts. But the Penn Incline was closed in 1953. The Lower Hill was demolished to make way for the Civic Arena, displacing 8,000 residents and 400 businesses between 1955 and 1960. And the 85 was closed in 1966. Without population density, we cannot support high quality mass transit.

Each entry in this series highlights a currently existing building that would be illegal to build under the existing zoning code. The purpose is to highlight how flawed our zoning code is.

Today, we are looking at 1727 Bedford Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 - the August Wilson House - the childhood home of famed Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson (1945-2005).   August Wilson is renowned for his “Pittsburgh Cycle” of plays, which celebrate the experience of the Black community in the Hill District throughout the 20th century. They were heavily informed by his own experience growing up as a Black child in the Hill District.  “Fences” (1985) and “The Piano Lesson” (1987), two of his plays from the “Pittsburgh Cycle” both won Pulitzer Prizes for Drama, and “Fences” was adapted into a film starring Denzel Washington in 2016.

August Wilson lived at 1727 Bedford Ave for the first 12 years of his life, from 1945 to 1957. Today, it is an Arts Center in his memory.

The August Wilson House, shortly before it reopened as an Arts Center.

At the time August was growing up there in the 40s and 50s, it was a 3 story mixed-use building, with a grocery store on the ground floor in front, and apartments above and behind the grocery store.  August grew up in a two bedroom apartment behind the grocery store.

It was built of brick sometime between 1882 and 1890, and we can see from the historical maps that it was originally on a 24’ by 115.3’ lot (or 2,767 square feet), with no setbacks from the front or side.

The brick building now known as the “August Wilson House” is number 63 Bedford Ave, lot owned by J. F. E. Dorow in this 1890 map.

The buildings that used to exist on either side have since been demolished, and the lot has been expanded to include their lots - so now the current lot is  9,732 square feet.

Zoning map of Pittsburgh showing parcel 9-S-36, location of the August Wilson House. The parcel has been expanded to include neighboring, the buildings that used to be in those lots have been demolished.

The current parcel is 9-S-36 and the zoning is RM-M (Residential Multi-unit - Moderate Density).

RM-M requires minimum lot sizes of 3,200 square feet, front setbacks of 25 feet, and interior side yard setbacks of 10 feet. Further, grocery stores are not a permitted use in RM-M districts.   Trying to build this housing today would require 1,800 square feet per unit and at least one off street parking lot per unit. On the 1890 dimensions of that lot, no building could be built under the current zoning code at all. So the building as it existed when it was built and when August Wilson was growing up there would not have been permitted. 

Without it, and the housing it provided, Wilson’s low income, single mother likely would not have been able to afford to live in the Hill District. Like many low income, Black families today, the Wilsons would have been forced out of the city to seek cheaper housing.  By preventing these homes and these communities, our zoning code impoverishes us. Not just economically - though it does that,by forcing people to live far away from jobs and community, but culturally and socially, too.  How many August Wilsons have we lost, are we continuing to lose, by forcing them out of the city?

To allow the communities that Wilson celebrated, to restore the city of Pittsburgh its heart and soul, we need to allow these sorts of buildings to be built. We need to get rid of minimum lot sizes and parking minimums.

We need to stop shouting at everyone “You can’t build that here!”

By Jack Billings with contributions by Vlad Kaplun and Amy Zaiss.