David Rotenstein: Preserving Pittsburgh’s history isn’t a morals test

Pittsburgh, like any major city, has its share of historical heroes and villains. Our heroes include Andrew Carnegie, Fred Rogers and August Wilson. The bad guys (and women) include racketeer Tony Grosso and jailbreak accomplice Kate Soffel.

Historic preservation is one way that we tell our city’s stories using the buildings where these folks lived and worked.

Preserving the past should not be tied to some morals test: Only good people get remembered and the bad ones are erased. Pittsburgh’s Historic Review Commission (HRC) sought to erase an important part of the city and nation’s history this year when it voted to not recommend landmark designation to bootlegger, gambler and beer industry entrepreneur Joe Tito’s former Uptown home. Pittsburgh City Council ignored the recommendation and voted 6-2 to make the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House Pittsburgh’s newest historic landmark.

There is no question that Joe Tito was an important historical figure. Many histories published long before I wrote the landmark nomination for his former home and beer distributorship in 2021 clearly say so. As a bootlegger and numbers banker, he played an important role in local organized crime. But he also was a co-owner and officer in the Pittsburgh Crawfords Negro Leagues baseball team. And he and his brothers, through the Latrobe brewery they bought at the end of Prohibition, introduced Rolling Rock beer. In fact, one Pittsburgh newspaper in 1984 described the former Tito home as the brand’s birthplace.

Tito’s former home is no less significant than any other Pittsburgher’s home who made consequential and enduring contributions to the city’s history. In fact, the HRC didn’t have to take my word for the property’s significance. World-renowned scholars in Black history, Italian-American culture and history, sports history, and Pittsburgh history all weighed in and agreed: Tito’s former home is incredibly significant.

Yet the HRC couldn’t get past Tito’s ties to organized crime.

“I personally have an issue about glorifying gangsters and people who were involved in organized crime,” Commissioner Richard Snipe said in a November 2021 meeting. “To me, that’s not something to celebrate.”

Commissioner Matthew Falcone also objected to designating a property for its associations with a racketeer. “The way that it’s being described seems to be very gingerly approaching what was very real crime and had an impact on the community, which was not always positive,” Falcone said in the February HRC hearing just before voting to deny the landmark designation.

Several people who testified in the HRC hearing and before City Council also argued that the property shouldn’t be landmarked because of its ties to criminal history. Uptown property owner Francois Bitz testified at both the HRC and council hearings. “I strongly oppose glorifying a mobster and murderer or whatever, allegedly, just for historical designation purposes,” he told City Council.

Pittsburgh’s historic preservation law has 10 criteria that the HRC uses to determine if a property should become a city landmark. They include architectural qualities and social history: Are the building or the people who built it and lived or worked there important? There are no morals exclusions to landmarking properties in Pittsburgh or anywhere else.

Pittsburgh’s HRC failed to uphold the law when it debated and voted on the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House. They let personal prejudices and opinion get in the way of objectively evaluating the property under the city’s 10 legal criteria for designation. Personal opinions are no substitute for legal criteria.

Fortunately for Pittsburgh, City Council ignored the naysayers and took the City Planning Commission’s unanimous recommendation to designate the property. The Tito-Mecca-Zizza House, with its potential to teach and entertain city residents and visitors, can become a valuable asset in Pittsburgh heritage tourism.

Like it or not, mob history sells. Las Vegas has lucrative organized crime tours. There are mob museums in Hot Springs, Ark., New York and Las Vegas. Landmarked brothels are popular tourist destinations in Butte, Mont. Why shouldn’t Pittsburgh get in on that action with Joe Tito’s former home?

Landmarking Tito’s former home isn’t celebrating crime; it’s telling a complete and colorful story about Pittsburgh’s past, warts and all. We cannot and should not erase significant parts of our history simply because they make some people uncomfortable. The past decade’s current events are a proof enough of that.

David Rotenstein is a public historian who is documenting the social history of numbers gambling in Pittsburgh. He was a paid consultant to Uptown Partners of Pittsburgh, the community group that nominated the Tito-Mecca-Zizza House as a City of Pittsburgh historic site.