YPA Counts Down the Top Ten: #3 Pittsburgh Brewing Company, Lawrenceville

For the next several days, until May 21, YPA will count down its 2010 list of the Top Ten Best Preservation Opportunities on its blog. On Friday, May 21, YPA will host a Historic Preservation Month Celebration, "Old is the New Green," at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty, starting at 6:00 p.m.

Registration details are on YPA's website, http://www.youngpreservationists.org.

Since 2003, YPA has celebrated historic preservation with its annual list of the Top Ten Best Preservation Opportunities in the Pittsburgh Area. The list, compiled from nominations received from various individuals and organizations, is designed to encourage investment in historic sites throughout the nine-county southwestern Pennsylvania region. The list has been used by property owners to draw positive attention to their properties, raise investment funds, secure grants, and generate political goodwill for their historic sites.

The sites featured on YPA's list come from six different counties and include industrial structures, Main Street commercial buildings, schools, a train station, and a bridge. Main Street features prominently in the list, with four of the Top Ten sites being situated in an existing Main Street commercial district. The remaining six sites are within blocks of an existing Main Street community.

The criteria used to select the Top Ten List include the following:

1. 50-year Threshold (is it 50 years old or older);

2. Historic & Architectural Significance;

3. Threats to the Site;

4. Community Input; and

5. Feasibility of the Solution.

#3 Pittsburgh Brewing Company, Lawrenceville

The Pittsburgh Brewing Company is an icon of Pittsburgh itself: strong, industrious, and elegant.

Iron City Beer was started in 1861. Most of the original Lawrenceville plant was built in the 1860s. The signature building that sits on Liberty Avenue was constructed in 1886, designed by architect Nic Kessler. The brewery is a survivor. While most breweries across the country were shuttered due to Prohibition in the 1920s, Pittsburgh Brewing produced ice cream, soft drinks, and “near beer” until Prohibition was repealed in 1933. In 1962, Pittsburgh Brewing marketed the first pull-ring tab on its aluminum cans, an innovation that would survive for several decades. The brewery later became a proud symbol of the city’s winning sports teams of the 1970s, and again in the 1990s and 2000s.

Amazingly, none of the historic brewery complex had been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, or designated by the city. In 2009, when the brewers announced they were closing the Lawrenceville plant and moving operations to Latrobe, a community-wide effort to nominate the building for city landmark status was begun. Historic designation is but the first step to reprogram this site for use as a community asset for the revival that has steadily chugged along in Lawrenceville.