Developing the Hill
In the Fall of 2019, I began research for a documentary on Pittsburgh’s Hill District. The concept started as a study of the Teenie Harris archives at the Carnegie Museum of Art. I wanted to juxtapose Harris’ photographs of Pittsburgh’s Hill District from the middle of the 20th century to today, focusing on the demolition of the Lower Hill that displaced thousands of residents. I wrote proposals to a handful of scholarships and was eventually selected by the University of Pittsburgh’s Honors College for their Creative Arts Fellowship. Quickly, however, the focus of the project started to shift.
Currently, I am expanding the scope of the project to include recent history and ongoing developments in the Lower Hill. The homes that were demolished in the 1950s were replaced by the Civic Arena, which was demolished after PPG Paints Arena was built in 2009. For years, the site of those houses and businesses served as a park and ride for UPMC employees and for venue parking. Now, the brand new FNB building and I-579 cap project have filled the space left by those homes. The goal of the film is to synthesize these events using interviews and narratives from local experts and archival materials. I aim to finish the film before the end of 2024.