Leaders of Bethel AME, a historic Black church in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, want the Pittsburgh Penguins to return land in the Lower Hill taken from them in the 1950s. Bethel’s pastor, Reverend Dr. Dale Snyder, said at a press conference Friday that the team had agreed to do so in 2021, but talks have since stalled.
“We’re asking the Penguins to do what they said they were going to do … give us our land back,” Snyder said, standing at the front of the church in its present location on Webster Avenue. “Your two attorneys came here two years ago, sat right back in these pews, and said, ‘We believe in reparations.’”
Many faith leaders have joined Snyder to urge action from the Penguins. Erin Jones, a pastor at Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, said on Friday that Pittsburghers pride themselves on being good neighbors.
“What the city and the URA did to Bethel and the entire Lower Hill in the 1950s was not being a good neighbor,” she said. “They robbed a vibrant Black community of its self-investment and hard-earned capital, not caring if it was left for dead.”
Founded in 1803, Bethel is the oldest African American congregation in Pittsburgh. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad, the first school for Black children when they were excluded from public education; it helped newcomers adjust to the city during the Great Migration and played a critical role in the Civil Rights movement.
In the early 1950s, city leaders embarked on a plan to raze and redevelop 100 acres of the Lower Hill, using the power of its new Urban Redevelopment Authority and federal funding for “urban renewal,” a movement that obliterated many predominantly Black communities across the country. Bethel AME tried to negotiate with the city and the URA to save the church, which stood in the path of demolition.
Built in 1906 at the intersection of Wylie Avenue and Elm Street, the mortgage on Bethel was paid off, and served some 3,000 congregants. A stately, Romanesque building, the church could hold 1,900 people at a time. Seniors have told Snyder that the church was “a citadel of hope, that [if] Black people can build a structure like this … there was nothing that was impossible for our people.”
The city rejected efforts to save Bethel. Officials used eminent domain to take the land and tore the church down. The site has sat vacant for nearly 70 years.
A new day
Through a complicated 2007 deal to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh, the NHL team owns the development rights to the 28-acre Lower Hill site, and the Urban Redevelopment Authority and the Sports and Exhibition Authority own the land. When Snyder and his congregants began to petition the Pens to return their land and the development rights, the team’s development arm agreed to form “a historic collaboration.”
In a letter dated May 3, 2021, Pittsburgh Arena Real Estate Redevelopment LP, or PAR, wrote that the collaboration “aspires to correct past mistakes from the 1950s, provide positive social change, and deliver benefits to the Bethel AME congregation and the entire Hill District community.”
The agreement outlined a joint development effort on the former home of Bethel AME, which is “Parcel F” in PAR’s development plan for the Lower Hill, on the newly built Logan Street. But plans and negotiations have stalled. Snyder said the Penguins told the church the land was under a road “and couldn’t be developed.”
Kevin Acklin is president of business operations for the Penguins and is one of two signatories for PAR on the May 3, 2021 letter. He told WESA in a text message Friday that the church’s original location “is partially under the rebuilt road and unable to be developed.”
Snyder doesn’t believe that’s the problem. Instead, he said the Penguins simply have other plans for the former home of Bethel AME: open space.
A change of plans
The overall vision for the Lower Hill is encoded in a preliminary land development plan that PAR had to present to the Planning Commission and have approved by the Department of City Planning. It sets out in broad strokes how the 28 acres will be broken up and developed. The original plan calls for open space on nearby Block E.
Initial plans for Block E, presented in 2019, included a music venue with an open lawn amphitheater, built on an underground parking garage. However, at the November meeting of the URA board, PAR and its lead developer, the Buccini Pollin Group, said economic headwinds and community discussions had led them to change their plans: a larger, above-ground parking garage will take the place of the outdoor theater. And to satisfy the requirement for open space, they want to put it on Block F, where Bethel once stood.
That move is “deja vu,” Snyder said. “They took our church to build the Civic Arena, a playground in the middle of the Black community, so the white people could come and play.”
Snyder said PAR had offered Bethel land opposite Freedom Corner, but that he finds that offer offensive: they don’t want to be “tucked away on the top of the hill … restore the Lower Hill to the community,” he said.
Acklin disputes that: he said when the survey showed the historical site of Bethel partially under the road, Snyder asked PAR to find “another parcel suitable for collaborative development.”
While the Pens didn’t form until a decade after Bethel’s displacement, Acklin said, “we have been working, in good faith, with Bethel AME, the mayor’s office and the public authorities to pursue a historic and restorative development opportunity together.”
He added that PAR is scheduling additional meetings with Snyder and the mayor’s office to continue the discussion and that they want “to collaborate and do something historic.”
The city has no authority to negotiate between the parties, but the mayor’s office has acted as a convenor, said Maria Montaño, press secretary for Mayor Ed Gainey. When asked if the administration would continue to do so, Montaño said it was premature to discuss that at this point.
Snyder said they are willing to entertain ideas for collaboration, but first, they want it in writing that their land will be returned to them.
“Just do what you say you're going to do,” he said. “That's all we're asking.”
