City preservationists scored a victory Wednesday when the Historic Review Commission of Pittsburgh voted to recommend that buildings housing the former National Negro Opera Company and the Workingman's Savings Bank receive historical designation that would spare them from the wrecking ball.

"I think its fantastic," said Gia Tatone, a representative of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, whose director, Dan Holland, nominated the old opera school building in Lincoln-Lemington for landmark status in October.

The nominations must be approved by the city planning commission and then by Pittsburgh City Council for the buildings to receive local historical status.
The mansion built in 1894 on Apple Street once housed the first black opera training school in the country. It had been owned once by William "Woogie" Harris, brother of famed Pittsburgh photographer Charles "Teeny" Harris.

Mary Caldwell Dawson opened the opera house in 1941. It also functioned as a rooming house because blacks could not stay in Downtown hotels. A who's who of famous Americans passed through its rooms, including Lena Horne, Cab Calloway and Roberto Clemente.

"It's a slam dunk as far as I'm concerned," said Paul Tellers, vice chairman of the review commission, said of the former mansion.

The East Allegheny Community Council and the Allegheny City Society requested historic status for the Workingman's Savings Bank on East Ohio Street, which had been the ARC House.

Criteria for landmark status includes a building or location where a historic event occurred, or a design by an architect who culturally impacted Pittsburgh, the commonwealth or the country.

The Historic Review Commission concurred that a 1920 addition to the building was worked on by an engineer and architect from the firm of D.H. Burnham, who designed the Frick and Oliver buildings Downtown and Union Station in Washington.

The commission's decision to recommend historic status cast doubt on plans by the building's owner, Lou Lamana, to raze it and build a $5 million retail development. Lamana bought the building for $266,000 at a sheriff's sale in November.

"The building is remarkably intact," Tellers said.

Lamana could not be reached for comment yesterday.

"The issue is saving the building because it's a beautiful building. You don't make a decision without discourse," said David McMunn, president of the Mexican War Streets Association, who attended the hearing.

The commission heard arguments for sparing the former Malta Temple building at 100 W. North Ave. in the North Side from demolition. The building is owned by the Salvation Army. An attorney representing the organization argued the building lacks architectural significance and should be torn down so the site can be developed.