Ace Hotel (120 S Whitfield St)

The Ace Hotel, located in the former YMCA building, reflects the latest phase of change in East Liberty. Currently, this neighborhood is experiencing extensive development. In the past twenty years $900 million in new investment has come to East Liberty, including retail and grocery chains, high-end restaurants, tech companies and luxury apartments.

Before being repurposed as an Ace Hotel, this building housed the East Liberty YMCA, which was first organized in 1874. This 1910 building was built when the organization outgrew their previous home. YMCA’s usually build their facilities in urban downtowns in order to give youth an alternative to life on the streets. Building a new YMCA in East Liberty indicates the neighborhood’s status in the early twentieth century as Pittsburgh’s “second downtown.”

In the 1950s, the East Liberty YMCA was a special place for the local youth, because it had an integrated swimming pool. This was during a time when most public swimming pools in Pittsburgh were segregated in practice.

In 2015, the Ace Hotel purchased and restored the building as a boutique hotel with a trendy restaurant and cocktail bar. The marble staircase now doubles as a gallery space for neighborhood photos by Charles “Teenie” Harris, an African-American Pittsburgh native who documented the black experience in Pittsburgh from 1935 to 1975. A few of the photos feature lifeguards in training at the swimming pool.

Sources:

Harrell, Courtney. “Pittsburgh’s Ace Hotel Markets the City’s Past to its Future.” Belt Magazine, April 12, 2016. Accessed at https://beltmag.com/pittsburghs-ace-hotel-markets-the-citys-past-to-its-future/

McAvey, Maureen, Tom Murphy and Bridget Lane. “East Liberty: A Pittsburgh Neighborhood.” in Reaching for the Future: Creative Finance for Smaller Communities. Washington, DC: Urban Land Institute, 2016. Accessed at http://1rpdxl3vt3c61pdenf9k5xom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/ULI-Documents/Creative-Finance-for-Smaller-Communities.pdf

Wiltse, Jeff. “Swimming against segregation: The struggle to desegregate.” Pennsylvania Legacies, vol. 10, No. 2 (November 2010), pp. 12-17.