History & local legend
Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena replaced part of the Lower Hill District, where homes, businesses and streets had supported a busy neighborhood. In oral history, a former resident remembered its bright lights and activity by comparing it with Las Vegas.
A ghost story recorded while the arena still stood imagined that lost neighborhood returning through sound. After dark, the dome supposedly filled with people’s voices, car horns and streetcars—the noises of streets that were no longer there.
The arena was eventually demolished too, leaving the ghostly streetcars associated with a vanished building above the cleared neighborhood.
