Duquesne Gardens - Demolition and Legacy

Demolition and Legacy

While the Gardens earned much praise in its early days, the place was outdated by the 1920s. About 15,000 fans could be comfortably seated in Madison Square Garden, Boston Garden, and Montreal Forum. Not even half that number could squeeze into the Gardens. Around this time, the ice-making operation at the Garden was antiquated. In November 1927, the Toronto Star reported that the Pirates had to train at a local gym instead of the Garden, since the Garden’s ice machine had broken down. However while, celebrating it’s 40th anniversary, the Garden still boasted as having one of the highest-regarded ice surfaces in North America, still drawing hockey players from Canada.

The Gardens was demolished in 1956 to make way for an apartment building and a local fixture, Stouffer’s Restaurant. Stouffer’s which became Duranti’s Restaurant in 1979, featured the only remaining evidence of the Gardens, two 11 feet wide sections of exposed redbrick wall, which would have been the back wall of the Gardens’ visiting dressing room. Duranti’s then closed in December 2008 and the apartment building that replaced the Gardens was to be torn down and renovated. Jim Kubus, the editor of pittsburghhockey.net, a local history site, and his brother removed the bricks before the wall could be destroyed and stored them for the next two years. Today a Captain Morgan-sponsored lounge, which is located inside Pittsburgh's current multi-purpose arena, the Consol Energy Center, contains a small section of that particular wall from the Duquesne Gardens. Billy Conn, the famed Pittsburgh boxer who nearly won a match against Joe Louis, fought at the Gardens. On June 18, 1998, the intersection where the Gardens once stood was dedicated as "Bill Conn Blvd."

Demolition of The Gardens brought a temporary end to pro hockey in Pittsburgh, as there was no other suitable arena to replace it. The Rochester Americans replaced the Hornets in the AHL. Construction of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena began in 1958, three miles to the west of the Gardens.