A. P. Moore Club portrait
The Jewish Encyclopedia
of Western Pennsylvania
A project of the Rauh Jewish Archives at the Heinz History Center
The A. P. Moore Club was a Jewish boys club in Pittsburgh. It was started around 1920 by a group of Jewish 10-year-old boys living in the Hill District. David J. “Leftee” Levenson was an unofficial leader of the club and handled its administrative affairs.[1]“Independent Baseball,” Pittsburgh Sunday Post, April 18, 1920, Sec. 3, p. 7 (online—Newspapers.com).
The A. P. Moore Club’s activities were athletic, theatrical, and social. Its basketball team had a rivalry with the Enoch Rauh Club in the Coffey Club League. One of the stars of the A. P. Moore Club team was Moe Rubenstein, who later became a starting player on the Geneva College basketball team and a successful football, basketball and baseball coach at Ambridge High School. The A. P. Moore Club regularly hosted galas, dances, field trips, and variety shows, and it participated in local debating leagues. For at least two years in the early 1930s, the club sponsored the A. P. Moore Club Trophy for debating.[2]“Club Championship Debate to be held Thursday nite,” Y.M.&W.H.A. Weekly, June 12, 1931, p. 1 (online).
The A. P. Moore Club met at the Hebrew Institute in 1922 and shifted to the Irene Kaufmann Settlement House in 1923. It also maintained a private clubhouse at Fifth and Dinwiddie street in the Hill District for some period of time. The club later became a member of the YM&WHA Congress of Clubs. Ralph Schugar was club adviser. The club gradually stopped meeting in the late 1920s, as the members completed high school.
The club was named for Alexander Pollock Moore. Moore owned the Pittsburgh Leader, was a leader in the state Republican Party. He was the fourth and final husband of actress Lillian Russell. After her death in 1922, he served as an ambassador to Spain and Peru.
