Avenue Cinema, Art Cinema | |
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Address | 809 Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania United States |
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Operator | Pittsburgh Cultural Trust |
Type | Cinema |
Capacity | 200 |
Screens | 1 |
Construction | |
Opened | September 14, 1931 |
Reopened | November 9, 1995 |
Tenants | |
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust | |
Website | |
trustarts.org |
The Harris Theater is a landmark building which is located at 809 Liberty Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Cultural District. The 200-seat theater is owned and operated by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust.
Built as Art Cinema, it was the first Pittsburgh venue to show only "art movies". During the 1960s, it featured pornographic films at a time when Liberty Avenue was a red-light district. The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust purchased and refurbished the theater as part of its plan for the Cultural District.
In 1995, it was renamed The Harris, using a gift from the Buhl Foundation, in honor of John P. Harris, who was a co-founder of the Nickelodeon—the first theater solely dedicated to the showing of motion pictures—and a Pennsylvania State Senator. The name "Nickelodeon" was coined by Harry Davis and John P. Harris, who opened their small, storefront theatre under that name on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh in June 1905. Davis and Harris found such great success that their concept of a five cent theatre running movies continuously was soon imitated by other entrepreneurs, as was the name of the theatre itself. [1]
The Nickelodeon was the first type of indoor exhibition space dedicated to showing projected motion pictures in the United States and Canada. Usually set up in converted storefronts, these small, simple theaters charged five cents for admission and flourished from about 1905 to 1915.
Squirrel Hill is a residential neighborhood in the East End of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The city officially divides it into two neighborhoods, Squirrel Hill North and Squirrel Hill South, but it is almost universally treated as a single neighborhood.
The Hill District is a grouping of historically African American neighborhoods in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in the years leading up to World War I, "the Hill" was the cultural center of black life in the city and a major center of jazz. Despite its cultural and economic vibrancy, in the mid-1950s a substantial area was slated for redevelopment, displacing about 8,000 individuals.
The Culture of Pittsburgh stems from the city's long history as a center for cultural philanthropy, as well as its rich ethnic traditions. In the 19th and 20th centuries, wealthy businessmen such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, and nonprofit organizations such as the Carnegie Foundation donated millions of dollars to create educational and cultural institutions.
The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (PCT) is a nonprofit arts organization formed in 1984 to promote economic and cultural development in Downtown Pittsburgh. The "Trust" has focused its work on a 14-square block section called the Cultural District, which comprises numerous entertainment and cultural venues, restaurants, and residential buildings. All together, the organization claims to oversee more than one million square feet of real estate, including commercial and residential buildings, making it one of the largest landowners downtown. In recent years the organization has had a contentious relationship with the city of Pittsburgh concerning the tax status for many of its properties, resulting in a case being heard by the state Supreme Court in 2011.
The Cultural District is a fourteen-square block area in Downtown Pittsburgh, USA bordered by the Allegheny River on the north, Tenth Street on the east, Stanwix Street on the west, and Liberty Avenue on the south.
The Byham Theater is a landmark building at 101 Sixth Street in the Cultural District of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally built in 1903 as The Gayety Theater, the former vaudeville house was renovated and reopened as The Byham Theater in 1990.
Liberty Avenue is a major thoroughfare starting in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, just outside Point State Park. Liberty Ave. runs through Downtown Pittsburgh, the Strip District, Bloomfield, and ends in the neighborhood of Shadyside at its intersection with Centre Avenue and Aiken Avenue. Liberty Avenue is about 4.3 miles long.
Penn Avenue is a major arterial street in Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg, in Pennsylvania. Its western terminus lies at Gateway Center in downtown Pittsburgh. For its westernmost ten blocks it serves as the core of the Cultural District with such attractions as Heinz Hall, the Benedum Center and the Byham Theater as well as the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and the Heinz History Center bordering it. Exiting downtown it is the major route through the city's Strip District, Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Garfield and East Liberty neighborhoods. Its eastern portion exits the city at Wilkinsburg where it continues to exist as Penn Avenue with a numbering system that begins anew using small numbers as it approaches Interstate 376 the "Parkway East". Penn Avenue is about 8.7 miles (14.0 km) long.
The Greensburg Downtown Historic District of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is bounded approximately by Tunnel Street, Main Street, Third Street, and Harrison Avenue. It consists of 62 buildings on 21.8 acres (8.8 ha), with the most notable buildings from the years 1872-1930. The district's oldest structure (1872) is the former Masonic Temple at 132 South Main Street. The Academy Hill Historic District is directly to the north of downtown Greensburg.
The Three Rivers Film Festival is an annual film festival, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is presented by Film Pittsburgh.
ToonSeum: Pittsburgh Museum of Cartoon Art is a museum devoted exclusively to the cartoon arts, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ToonSeum is one of three museums dedicated to cartoon art in the United States. ToonSeum moved to its own gallery space on Liberty Avenue in Pittsburgh's downtown Cultural District on November 8, 2009, aided by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. It is currently led by John Kelly.
John Paul Harris was a Pittsburgh businessman and politician who opened the world's first theater devoted entirely to showing Motion pictures.
Louis Magaziner was the senior partner of a series of architectural firms based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Born in Hungary, he came to the U.S. with his parents and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania as an architect in 1900.
The Lovelace Theatre was a puppet theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US.
Ellsworth Avenue is located in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is mostly a commercial street that has locally owned businesses, galleries, restaurants, and bars. It runs southwest-northeast, parallel to Walnut Street, another commercial street, and is bounded by Shady Avenue to the east and South Neville Street to the west. Ellsworth Avenue is one of Shadyside's three business districts, along with South Highland Avenue and Walnut Street.
The Anco Cinema was a former Broadway theatre turned cinema at 254 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues in Manhattan, New York City. It opened in 1904 and was originally named the Lew Fields Theatre. It continued to operate as a playhouse under various names until it was converted into a movie theatre in 1930. Its block was famous for its concentration of Broadway theatres turned cinemas. After World War II, the street declined and the Anco Cinema eventually became a pornography venue. It closed as a cinema in 1988 and was gutted for retail use. The building was demolished in 1997.
Row House Cinema is a small, independent cinema in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The theater opened in a historic row house building on Butler Street in Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood in 2014. The theater is known for its festivals, events, and its connected taproom and bottle shop Bierport. It is owned by Brian Mendelssohn.