East End Theater

The East End Theatre was a four-story venue that existed within a multi-purpose building additionally housing a hotel and a restaurant. The theatre space was located at the rear of the hotel’s main lobby allowing the auditorium to have its own ceiling height and appears to have survived to the building’s demolition more than 70 years later although unused for the final 35 or so years. The facility barely has any connection to movie exhibition but qualifies because it was a short-lived movie house for African-American audiences at the end of the silent era and mixed some films in with vaudeville during the 1910’s under Harris Amusements.

When Erasmus D. Wilt announced his plan in 1893 to construct a new East End Theatre, there was no question that the East Liberty neighborhood had reached a new level. After all, Wilt was well known for operating the Pittsburgh Opera House turned Grand Theatre in downtown Pittsburgh. For Wilt to put his name behind a legitimate theater in the East End was a sign of progress for the booming East Liberty area of Pittsburgh. “Every street car line” could reach the venue – or so said optimistic advertisements of the day. Certainly, the Penn Avenue and the East Liberty Express cars would do the trick. And with the East Liberty Station nearby bringing the Pennsylvania Line railway passenger traffic, the theater was well situated and poised for success. Unfortunately, success was never quite achieved and the venue scuffled throughout its 35-year existence.

William Miller and Sons built the East End Theater and Hotel from the plans of architects James Madison Wood and Sidney Lovell of Chicago at a cost exceeding $150,000 – a fairly ambitious budget for the late 19th Century. The hotel was designed to give the actors their own entry into the theater space. It featured one of the largest pieces of iron ever forged by Carnegie Steel Company weighing some 19,000 pounds. It had a brownstone front and red brick on its other three exterior walls. The East End auditorium seated 1,700 (although some sources list it at 2,000). Noted Shakespearean actors Frederick Warde and Louis James opened the East End Theatre on October 1, 1894 with “Julius Caesar".

Wilt’s theater seemed to be in the right place at the right time. The Pennsylvania Railroad nearby had opened the East Liberty Station in the 1850’s. Between 1850 and the 1900’s, East Liberty’s population rode the train and Industrial Revolution’s coat-tails growing from fewer than 1,000 residents to more than 46,000. The air quality was a bit better than the North Side and life was less hectic than the Central Business District area. Wilt launched with downtown pricing of seats at $1.50 and $1 and - though lower balcony pricing was available – the prices seemed too dear for residents.

The East End Theatre’s second season saw a drop in pricing across the board and lower seat prices were emphasized at the head of the policy. But that didn’t help business conditions too much and pricing continued to be a concern for the working-class folks of East Liberty. Almost unbelievably, the building was offered at a public sale after just two unsuccessful seasons. Purchased at sale by a new operator, conditions did not improve and the venue closed after the 1898/9 season remaining dark.

Sold off for just $35,000 at a major loss, the East End Theatre was in the hands of John Munhall who leased the venue to Carl Herbert in the Fall of 1900. The venue reopened with a short run as the Penn Avenue Theatre for one season into 1901. The name was a bit confusing as the theatre sat on Collins Street – though near Penn Avenue; so in the summer of 1901, the venue became known as the Empire Theatre under new management. The hotel became the Empire Hotel. The Empire name stuck through World War I although it found new ownership during 1905 in Charles E. Blaney of New York who brightened the dark East Indian interior to liven the space.

It was the sixth theatre for Blaney’s fledgling circuit and installed as manager was N.C. Wagner. Wagner tried to attract patrons to Blaney’s Empire Theatre using free dishware giveaways that most urbane live theatrical operations would not have tried. That too did not meet with public favor and during 1910, Blaney’s run was over and the theatre once again was offered in a forced auction sale.

Mrs. Mary McTighe was the operator and had reportedly paid $1 at the sale (likely faced with paying past liens). When it returned as the Empire Theater minus Blaney’s name, it turned to vaudeville and it showed its first motion pictures in 1911/12. McTighe sold the theatre at a profit in August of 1914. Stock plays returned until new ownership came about with John P. Harris of Harris Amusement taking on the venue in November of 1917. The veteran of other Pittsburgh houses brought films and vaudeville for a short period before shifting gears.

In December of 1918, Harris decided next to call the venue the Pershing Theatre named for the exploits of General John Joseph Pershing aka “Black Jack”. It was said to be the first theatre named for Pershing anywhere in the World. The hotel was also changed to the Pershing Hotel. The theatre tried two different, simultaneous stock companies returning the venue to live plays. But the combination was still not right, especially with the neighborhood in transition.

The East Liberty Station had brought about a group of residents that were a melting pot of working-class folks. An influx of European immigrants and African-American migrants from the South along with a fairly dense Jewish population – once considered a strength for such a neighborhood – took a turn and was seen by some as an area to avoid including the prominent George F. Cram maps and surveys relied upon back in the day. The Pershing Theatre stumbled along a fairly clear path to obsolescence failing to connect with the lower-middle to lower-class audiences. The venue returned to its original East End Theatre moniker on October 4, 1925 and experimented with simulcast baseball and movies. In 1926, it had returned to the Pershing name – likely because the Hotel had stuck with Pershing as another hotel nearby had adopted the “East End” nameplate.

The venue tried live African-American music and shows including Ethel Waters in “Miss Calico.” On September 18, 1926 the live house finally became a full time movie theatre for African-American audiences run by W.E. Harris. Harris said that the 15,000 African-American residents living nearby would be pleased. They weren’t and the venue returned to live productions in 1927 continuing to 1929 as the East End Theatre. The Depression hit and the East End Theatre appears to have gone dark permanently in 1930 with the neighborhood not able to support live shows.

The hotel soldiered on. But passenger traffic at the nearby East Liberty Station had gone from about 11,000 passengers a day in 1930 to just 500 daily passengers in 1960 - a 95% decrease. The hotel struggled and there was no consideration given to relighting the theatre space. The East Liberty Station closed in 1961 and was bulldozed in 1962 - a portent of things to come in East Liberty’s business district.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) which targeted the East Liberty area for a 254-acre renewal zone would attempt to revive the area with its Penn Circle. Project. The hotel and former theatre building offered fixtures for sale in 1965 trying to get any money out of the lot just ahead of the demolition teams hired by the URA project.

Though the URA’s execution of the plan made things far worse for decades according to most reports, the neighborhood had turned around in the 21st Century. The former East Liberty area now had multi-level apartment / condo buildings and modern retailers including a large Target department store. The 6117 Broad Street address is used above in place of the theater’s actual address (226-230 Collins) as that address no longer exists and is part of Centre Street. The location once occupied by the East End Theatre and its hotel is now a single level parking area as of the 21st Century.

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