Charlotte Shields-Rossi | a&e editor

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Hill District was a hub for jazz and blues, with live music venues lining Wylie Avenue. In the 1950s, a city redevelopment plan led to the displacement of Hill District residents, and the erasure of the once booming music scene, according to Steel City History.

This October, a new music venue — Citizens Live at the Wylie — will open in the Lower Hill District. The Live Nation venue will have a capacity of 4,000 people and expect 80 to 110 events each year. A $2 surcharge will be included on the price of tickets that will go toward revitalizing the Hill District.

This comes after the Pittsburgh Penguins lost the exclusive rights to develop the Lower Hill District site that formerly housed the Civic Arena. The venue will officially open with Wiz Khalifa performing on Oct. 2.

The renderings of the venue give an idea of what the interior will look like when construction is completed. The venue will include a photo display representing the Hill District’s history, including a mirrored piano similar to the one at the famous Crawford Grill, a rooftop lounge and a room open for listening to vinyl records.

Before breaking ground on the development area, Live Nation spoke with Hill District community leaders and residents.

Kirk Holbrook, project manager for the Greater Hill District Reinvestment Fund, said his family has been Hill District residents for generations. He is in support of the venue citing that the $2 surcharge will support the reinvestment fund.
 

“[The venue will] invest in a historically disinvested community,” Holbrook said. “It will inject money into the reinvestment fund.”

Holbrook said he hopes that Hill District residents and the people that work for Citizens Live can form a symbiotic relationship. He said that the decision to name the venue based off of Wylie Avenue showed respect for the history of the Hill.

“It was a strong acknowledgement,” he said.

Annette Piper, chief executive officer at the Center for Family Excellence in the Hill District, said that the venue did a good job of communicating with community groups in the neighborhood.

“They are reaching out, they are doing the right thing,” Piper said.

Looking toward the future, she said she hopes that the venue will pay homage to the long-standing musical history of the Hill.

“Hopefully, they will honor what used to be,” she said.

Gibson Musisko, the lead singer of the Pittsburgh-based band PosterChild, said that the venue took a lot of visual cues from the old Hill District jazz clubs, but fell short on recreating the atmosphere of the historical neighborhood.

“I don’t think it’s continuing the actual spirit of what it used to be like, where it was small venues and there were a bunch of them on a street, and it was a local scene of local guys who were there every weekend,” Musisko said.

He said that the venue will likely be used for big, national acts, instead of Pittsburgh-based artists.

“Nobody we know is gonna be getting any shows there,” he said.

Still, he said that the opening will likely help the music ecosystem in Pittsburgh.

“I think that Pittsburgh often isn’t really a stop on tours,” he said. “It’s just good that we have kind of a medium-sized, bigger venue coming out, like one of these in the thousands capacity.”

Jesse Naus, assistant professor of music technology at Duquesne University, said that the capacity of the new venue will be particularly beneficial for the music ecosystem in Pittsburgh.

“That’s a size Pittsburgh doesn’t have a huge offering in, especially 4,000 indoors,” Naus said. “It brings more avenues to get people’s artwork out, and it kind of puts Pittsburgh’s name on the map a little bit more.”

He said that the opening could also be very beneficial to Duquesne students, both because of proximity and the possibility for future partnerships.

“Having another music venue that is walkable from Duquesne, just as an arts and culture outlet for the students will be great,” he said. “But I hope that there’s at least potential for some partnerships.”

Charlotte Shields-Rossi can be reached at shieldsrossic@duq.edu