History Sidebar
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Writings on history and the production of history by David. David is a consulting historian doing oral histories, historical research, and historic preservation work.
History Sidebar
2w ago
I began writing about the history of numbers gambling in Pittsburgh in 2020. My earliest articles relied on decades of historical research and writing, much of it focused on the city’s Hill District. After several months of research and doing ..read more
History Sidebar
2M ago
On Wednesday Sept. 6, my article about an African American community event’s displacement appeared in an academic blog. By the end of the day, Decatur, Ga., blogger Dan Whisenhunt’s Decaturish.com website published two updates to a feature about the previous ..read more
History Sidebar
3M ago
The email that I received 11 days before this year’s annual reunion of Black residents in Decatur, Ga. was troubling: “I just wanted to let you know that the City is trying to get rid of Decatur Day.” I have ..read more
History Sidebar
7M ago
In 2003, Decatur, Ga., playwright Valetta Anderson, her partner Cotis Weaver, and several neighbors sued the City of Decatur to prevent the redevelopment of an apartment building into high-end townhomes. The lawsuit and conversation it started could have been a ..read more
History Sidebar
8M ago
Last year the Pittsburgh City Council voted to designate a former bootlegger-turned-brewery executive’s home as a historic landmark. Joe Tito became a booze and gambling kingpin during Prohibition. He built an empire from his 1817 Fifth Avenue home and a ..read more
History Sidebar
8M ago
Louis A.S. Bellinger (1891-1946) was Pittsburgh’s only licensed and practicing Black architect for the entire time that he practiced in the Steel City. My recent NEXTpittsburgh article digs deeper into Bellinger’s biography than the laundry lists of his jobs and ..read more
History Sidebar
8M ago
On February 6, 2023, the Decatur, Ga., City Commission voted to amend the city’s zoning law to allow the construction of “duplex, triplex, and quadruplex residential units” in “single-family residential zoning districts”: so-called “missing middle housing.” The legislation followed on ..read more
History Sidebar
8M ago
The fireworks have started over my recent NEXTpittsburgh op-ed about the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation’s National Register of Historic Places nomination for a house historic preservationists have dubbed the “National Negro Opera Company House.” One local historic preservation group ..read more
History Sidebar
8M ago
“She died in that house,” Dolores Slater told me in a January 2023 interview. I had asked her about Ada B. Harris, beloved Pittsburgh numbers banker William “Woogie” Harris’s widow, and the house at 7101 Apple St. that historic preservationists ..read more