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Paramount Film Exchange (Pittsburgh)

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Paramount Film Exchange (Pittsburgh) is a building at 1727 Boulevard of the Allies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Currently, the structure is owned by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). In 2009, the Young Preservationists Association (YPA) of Pittsburgh, an organization devoted to historic preservation, nominated the Paramount Film Exchange for official historical designation. In August 2009 the Historic Review Commission approved the nomination, allowing the proposal to move to the Planning Commission and ultimately to City Council.[1] A Nov. 17, 2009 hearing of Pittsburgh's City Council to rule on landmark status for the building had to be postponed as a quorum was not present.

The Paramount Film Exchange was one of several film exchange buildings in the Uptown area, which was at one time known as "Pittsburgh's film row"[2]. The Duquesne University Tamburitzans occupy the former location of the Warner Brothers exchange, and the auction and real-estate firm D.A. Davis is located in the building that once housed 20th Century Fox's exchange. "Film exchanges" were physical locations, always housing a screening room, where a motion-picture studios screened their films for potential exhibitors in a local market. Once videocassettes came into use in the 1970s, it was no longer necessary to screen a film in a screening room, and film exchanges fell out of use.

The Historic Review Commission of the City of Pittsburgh grants landmark designation based on “the importance of a particular place to Pittsburgh’s heritage.”[3] The YPA attributed the site's historical significance to the fact that it is the last remnant of the rich past of Pittsburgh's so-called "film row." Initial attention to the Paramount Film Exchange came in 2008, when 21-year-old Drew Levinson entered and won a video contest sponsored by the YPA with his short film on the Paramount Film Exchange. Levinson's video rallied support behind saving the Film Exchange from sale or demolition by UPMC. UPMC and the Exchange's other large institutional neighbor, Duquesne University, both oppose landmarking the building.


References

  1. ^ Jones, Diana Nelson. "Historical Designation for Uptown building OK'd." Pittsburgh POST-GAZETTE 6 August 2009 [1]
  2. ^ Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh. "Historic Landmark Nomination Goes before City Council, Nov. 17" [2].
  3. ^ City of Pittsburgh. "Pittsburgh City Planning Historic Review Commission FAQ" [3]
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