Pythian Temple Roller Rink 2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA. Source:
Pythian Temple Roller Rink 2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA. As it appeared toward final days or had its final days due to automobiles you can tell which were Source:
Pythian Temple Roller Rink 2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA. Seen here a man walking toward the Savory to dance as another just left. Automobile appeared to be late 1950s. Source: Google search.
Pythian Temple Roller Rink 2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA. See beautiful colorful Art Deco? This theme showing real colors of Art Deco of its day plus the forms. It did not match to the rest of the building which was Medieval in style with castle like Crenellated Parapet on roofline. Source: Google.
Pythian Temple Roller Rink 2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA. Source: Google.
Pythian Temple Roller Rink
2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA
2007-2013 Centre Ave., Hill District, Pittsburgh, PA
For a time this roller rink called Pythian Temple Roller Rink which was located at 2007-2013 Centre Avenue in Hill District, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a much storied historical place where it was of different venues. A club for a group of people, dance hall, a roller rink, and of course, even a movie theater and stage theater. This was common in early 20th Century for city rinks opposed to modern suburban roller rinks that were in towns, and even villages from 1950s and on. Before 1950s, rinks were quite different and functioned with ballrooms or dance halls. City rinks were basically part of every venue you can think of like this one or the Savory Ballroom which was located for the two roller rink businesses there including the Godfrey Roller Rink and the Belmont Palace Roller Rink or I think Roseland in New York City function as such, among other rinks of its day.
Speaking of the Savory Ballroom, it was the same owner for the Pythian Temple Roller Rink that he operated for a time. It was Harry Hendel who owned for a time in 1930s after he bought it from the Knights of Pythias, hence the name of the temple. Like the Freemasons has their temples, the Knights had theirs.
From the PDF, this is the shortened version here, to read more about it, please read the report in source section below.
The History:
In 1927, A group of African-American construction workers belonging to Union Local 111 commissioned Pittsburgh's first prominent African-American architect, Louis A. Belinger designed The New Granada Theater. Originally it was for a local African-American Knights of Pythias lodge. It was the Knights of the Pythias Temple. Then in 1930s, they converted the temple into the New Granada Theater with the addition of a striking Polychromatic Art Deco ground floor. Both the theater and its Savoy Ballroom were major entertainment institutions for The Hill neighborhood but the riots in the 1960s ended that venue of entertainment. The Savory Ballroom was actually relocated from where the Godfrey Roller Rink was located.
Originally, the knight used as a lodge hall, they had the building housed a dining hall on the first floor, as ballroom on the second floor, and on the third floor, their offices.
Since the Great Depression during the 1930s, trying times forced the Knights of Pythias to sell the building to local theater operator-owner Harry Hendel. He named the building the New Granada after one of his previous theaters. Harry Hendel converted the dining hall on the ground floor into a movie theater showing Yiddish movies. He also opened the Savoy Ballroom on the second floor.
The roller rink was later added on the second floor.
The New Granada Theater played an important role in both locally, the Hill neighborhood and entertainment, hosting nationally recognized jazz musicians including Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, and Lena Home.
The theater closed after 1960s but currently the Hill community is attempting to revivized the New Granada Theater to its former glory as part of Granada Square, a project intended to be a hub of
educational, social, and artistic activities for the neighborhood.
The Interior.
Knights Hall: The building housed a dining hall on the first floor, as ballroom on the second floor, and on the third floor, their offices.
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom: They heavily renovated into a theater and ballroom and perhaps on third floor, offices kept that way. The
Pythian Temple Roller Rink: Likely they modified a little bit to accommodate as a roller rink and ballroom on the second floor. Nothing in that article stated where the rink but usually it was ON ballroom hall or dance hall like this one, Godfrey, Roseland in New York, and many more rinks of its time in early 20th Century. Even Empire Roller Rink in Brooklyn was once for a very brief time in the beginning before it's long stay as a roller rink.
The Exterior.
Knights Hall: Most people today thought the building was entirely in Art Deco theme. However, it was not the case. They had more plain all brick front and all wrapped around façade and in fact, on the front side of the building, it had a huge Segmental Arch as a décor of the architecture theme on the exterior brick wall. It should have kept originally but I love the Art Deco of the New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom décor and I believe they are trying to preserve that although more recently, Google Maps showed they are not there.
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom: This building was a three story structure with yellow brick on its two street facades on both ends --Front and rear and on the sides, they had red bricks on the sides. The Centre Avenue front side façade has a Crenellated Parapet (Interesting word meaning to you, castle walls for defense purposes that I found from an article in Pittsburgh Music History) at the Flatted roofline with decorative Terra Cotta panels. In 1937, architect Alfred M. Marks designed The polychrome Art Deco ground floor front façade which was added.
The elevation is divided into three large vertical bays with groups of four window openings in each. A belt course of smaller decorative terra cotta panels is located between the second floor ballroom
and its mezzanine level. The Art Deco ground floor features rounded corners at the openings, a streamlined marquee at each corner, and red, blue, and yellow glazed enamel panels. The secondary street façade is plain yellow brick with a simple arched opening at the ground floor of the center bay. The primary elevation appears a story higher due a change in street level on the other side of the block. -- Pittsburgh Music History - Pythian Temple - Savory Ballroom
Pythian Temple Roller Rink: The exterior clearly was the same as the The New Granada Theater.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: Non-painted Maple wood. Floor Layout: N/A.
Building Size: N/A. Built: 1927. Renovations: 1937 and around 2020s (current)
Demolished: Still standing
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Trusses Brick - Walled Multi-story Building.
Roof: Fatted with Crenellated Parapet.
Acres: N/A.
Organ: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Knights Hall:
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom:
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Knights Hall:
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom:
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos/articles. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you. You can also use this form.
Sources:
U.S. Library of Congress - two PDF links are on that page. Links are listed here also
U.S. Library of Congress report 1. Photo captions report.
U.S. Library of Congress report 2. Report.
U.S. Library of Congress photos library.
Pittsburgh Music History - Pythian Temple - Savory Ballroom
Cinemas Treasure - New Granada Theater
Picryl - historic photos including former temple.
Buildings of Pittsburgh - by Franklin Toker, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
Historian: Lisa Pfueller Davidson, HABS Historian, 2006.
Date of issue: 27 June 2022.
For office use only: 5.
Worth to visit:
None. It is boarded up until they reopens. Please respect and do not enter! Please read disclaimer. Thank you.
DISCLAIMER:
Dead-Rinks and Mark Falso are not responsible for your physical and legal injuries you may have caused. Please always obey laws and regulations and property owner's signs. Some states allow purple paint on fence which means they even have guns on their property and have rights to shoot you. Please DO NOT attempt to enter property without permission!
For abandoned rinks, after you receive permission, do WEAR safety OSHA equipment including a safety glasses, pair of safety gloves, an orange vest or a jacket, and a construction helmet.
Thank you for understanding.
Second of all: The contents including words and photos above on this page and/or on any pages are purely educational entertainment purposes only. I provide what information from other websites, skaters, and operators and it may end up with different results between two (or more) sources. It is not our responsible for errors we caused. All sources are shown on each page. All opinions and statements of mine are also stated and are for purely educational entertainment only.
Rinks that are closed are considered dead. Rinks that are/were sold and with new management names new name(s), the former are considered dead. Previous operating rink that closed but came back years later, are considered dead because the reopening is considered rebooted, nothing to do with the former.
As for “For Office Only” is for my reasoning and private legal reason for that.
All photos you submitted or we retrieved becomes property of Dead-Rinks and are watermarked but they are credited to you (or where the source is from). Thank you for understanding. To understand more about this, please go to this page: Dead-Rinks List.
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 to 16. Deut. 32:7.
Speaking of the Savory Ballroom, it was the same owner for the Pythian Temple Roller Rink that he operated for a time. It was Harry Hendel who owned for a time in 1930s after he bought it from the Knights of Pythias, hence the name of the temple. Like the Freemasons has their temples, the Knights had theirs.
From the PDF, this is the shortened version here, to read more about it, please read the report in source section below.
The History:
In 1927, A group of African-American construction workers belonging to Union Local 111 commissioned Pittsburgh's first prominent African-American architect, Louis A. Belinger designed The New Granada Theater. Originally it was for a local African-American Knights of Pythias lodge. It was the Knights of the Pythias Temple. Then in 1930s, they converted the temple into the New Granada Theater with the addition of a striking Polychromatic Art Deco ground floor. Both the theater and its Savoy Ballroom were major entertainment institutions for The Hill neighborhood but the riots in the 1960s ended that venue of entertainment. The Savory Ballroom was actually relocated from where the Godfrey Roller Rink was located.
Originally, the knight used as a lodge hall, they had the building housed a dining hall on the first floor, as ballroom on the second floor, and on the third floor, their offices.
Since the Great Depression during the 1930s, trying times forced the Knights of Pythias to sell the building to local theater operator-owner Harry Hendel. He named the building the New Granada after one of his previous theaters. Harry Hendel converted the dining hall on the ground floor into a movie theater showing Yiddish movies. He also opened the Savoy Ballroom on the second floor.
The roller rink was later added on the second floor.
The New Granada Theater played an important role in both locally, the Hill neighborhood and entertainment, hosting nationally recognized jazz musicians including Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, and Lena Home.
The theater closed after 1960s but currently the Hill community is attempting to revivized the New Granada Theater to its former glory as part of Granada Square, a project intended to be a hub of
educational, social, and artistic activities for the neighborhood.
The Interior.
Knights Hall: The building housed a dining hall on the first floor, as ballroom on the second floor, and on the third floor, their offices.
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom: They heavily renovated into a theater and ballroom and perhaps on third floor, offices kept that way. The
Pythian Temple Roller Rink: Likely they modified a little bit to accommodate as a roller rink and ballroom on the second floor. Nothing in that article stated where the rink but usually it was ON ballroom hall or dance hall like this one, Godfrey, Roseland in New York, and many more rinks of its time in early 20th Century. Even Empire Roller Rink in Brooklyn was once for a very brief time in the beginning before it's long stay as a roller rink.
The Exterior.
Knights Hall: Most people today thought the building was entirely in Art Deco theme. However, it was not the case. They had more plain all brick front and all wrapped around façade and in fact, on the front side of the building, it had a huge Segmental Arch as a décor of the architecture theme on the exterior brick wall. It should have kept originally but I love the Art Deco of the New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom décor and I believe they are trying to preserve that although more recently, Google Maps showed they are not there.
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom: This building was a three story structure with yellow brick on its two street facades on both ends --Front and rear and on the sides, they had red bricks on the sides. The Centre Avenue front side façade has a Crenellated Parapet (Interesting word meaning to you, castle walls for defense purposes that I found from an article in Pittsburgh Music History) at the Flatted roofline with decorative Terra Cotta panels. In 1937, architect Alfred M. Marks designed The polychrome Art Deco ground floor front façade which was added.
The elevation is divided into three large vertical bays with groups of four window openings in each. A belt course of smaller decorative terra cotta panels is located between the second floor ballroom
and its mezzanine level. The Art Deco ground floor features rounded corners at the openings, a streamlined marquee at each corner, and red, blue, and yellow glazed enamel panels. The secondary street façade is plain yellow brick with a simple arched opening at the ground floor of the center bay. The primary elevation appears a story higher due a change in street level on the other side of the block. -- Pittsburgh Music History - Pythian Temple - Savory Ballroom
Pythian Temple Roller Rink: The exterior clearly was the same as the The New Granada Theater.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: Non-painted Maple wood. Floor Layout: N/A.
Building Size: N/A. Built: 1927. Renovations: 1937 and around 2020s (current)
Demolished: Still standing
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Trusses Brick - Walled Multi-story Building.
Roof: Fatted with Crenellated Parapet.
Acres: N/A.
Organ: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Knights Hall:
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom:
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Knights Hall:
New Granada Theater/Savory Ballroom:
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos/articles. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you. You can also use this form.
Sources:
U.S. Library of Congress - two PDF links are on that page. Links are listed here also
U.S. Library of Congress report 1. Photo captions report.
U.S. Library of Congress report 2. Report.
U.S. Library of Congress photos library.
Pittsburgh Music History - Pythian Temple - Savory Ballroom
Cinemas Treasure - New Granada Theater
Picryl - historic photos including former temple.
Buildings of Pittsburgh - by Franklin Toker, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007.
Historian: Lisa Pfueller Davidson, HABS Historian, 2006.
Date of issue: 27 June 2022.
For office use only: 5.
Worth to visit:
None. It is boarded up until they reopens. Please respect and do not enter! Please read disclaimer. Thank you.
DISCLAIMER:
Dead-Rinks and Mark Falso are not responsible for your physical and legal injuries you may have caused. Please always obey laws and regulations and property owner's signs. Some states allow purple paint on fence which means they even have guns on their property and have rights to shoot you. Please DO NOT attempt to enter property without permission!
For abandoned rinks, after you receive permission, do WEAR safety OSHA equipment including a safety glasses, pair of safety gloves, an orange vest or a jacket, and a construction helmet.
Thank you for understanding.
Second of all: The contents including words and photos above on this page and/or on any pages are purely educational entertainment purposes only. I provide what information from other websites, skaters, and operators and it may end up with different results between two (or more) sources. It is not our responsible for errors we caused. All sources are shown on each page. All opinions and statements of mine are also stated and are for purely educational entertainment only.
Rinks that are closed are considered dead. Rinks that are/were sold and with new management names new name(s), the former are considered dead. Previous operating rink that closed but came back years later, are considered dead because the reopening is considered rebooted, nothing to do with the former.
As for “For Office Only” is for my reasoning and private legal reason for that.
All photos you submitted or we retrieved becomes property of Dead-Rinks and are watermarked but they are credited to you (or where the source is from). Thank you for understanding. To understand more about this, please go to this page: Dead-Rinks List.
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 to 16. Deut. 32:7.