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  • Apartments in the Watkins Development, Squirrel Hill

    5840 and 5844 Alderson Street

    This quiet enclave of small apartment buildings is part of the same “city set on a hill” development as the Morrowfield, and the buildings were probably also designed by J. E. Dwyer. They’re fairly ordinary Pittsburgh buildings of the early 1920s, Mission style with a bit of Romanesque thrown in. They look their best in black and white.

    Entrance arch
    Alderson Street apartment buildings
    Entrance to 2714 Shady Avenue
    Ornament with mask
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Digimax V4.

    Comments
    October 17, 2025
  • Duplex in Beechview by W. A. Thomas

    1401–1403 Beechview Avenue

    William Arthur Thomas designed this First-World-War-era duplex,1 which is typical of the better class of Pittsburgh duplexes: it offers two spacious apartments (plus attic and basement), each with more square footage than many city houses. Thomas was very fond of white Kittanning brick, to judge by the number of his buildings that made use of it.

    Duplex in Beechview
    Duplex
    Nikon COOLPIX P100; Olympus E-20N.

    Comments
    October 16, 2025
  • Two Beaux-Arts Survivors on Penn Avenue

    819 and 821 Penn Avenue

    Doubtless built for very pedestrian commercial uses—with huge windows that provided bright light from the south all day—these two buildings nevertheless could not be seen in public until they were dressed in the proper Beaux-Arts fashion. Other more recent buildings grew up around them and then were torn down, but these have survived, and seemed to be getting some work when Father Pitt walked past them recently.

    Both buildings pull from the same repertory of classical ornaments in terra cotta, but mix them up in different ways.

    Ornaments on 819 and 821

    No. 819 is more heavily ornamented—both in the sense of the abundance of ornaments and in the sense that the individual ornaments seem weightier:

    Bracket
    Lions on the cornice
    Foliage and Greek key

    No. 821, on the other hand, is decorated with a lighter and more Baroque touch:

    Cartouche
    Cartouche and Vitruvian scroll
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Comments
    October 16, 2025
  • Limbach Building, Allentown

    Limbach Building

    The Limbach Building is a good representative of what has been going on in Allentown over the past few years. Allentown was traditionally a German neighborhood, and the Limbach Building is a well-preserved example of the style old Pa Pitt calls German Victorian. Above we see it as it was just a few days ago; below in July of 2021. The building is in better shape now, and the downstairs tenant—a gym called “Death Comes Lifting,” whose slogan is “Fitness for the Misfits”—is weirder. Thus the whole progress of the Allentown business district is epitomized in one building: better and weirder.

    Limbach Building in 2021
    Dome

    It is especially cheering to see that someone is taking good care of the distinctive dome on the turret. The building would lose half its German flavor without that detail.

    Corner entrance
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Old Pa Pitt is also happy that the corner entrance has never been filled in.


    Comments
    October 15, 2025
  • Frame Victorian in Park Place

    222 East End Avenue
    Olympus E-20N.

    A Victorian frame house, built in the 1890s (according to old maps), whose siding was never replaced with one of the Four Horsemen—aluminum, vinyl, Insulbrick, and Permastone. The porch was filled in at some point, probably about a century ago—at any rate, so long ago that the siding of the addition is also wood.


    Comments
    October 15, 2025
  • Carl Building, Wilkinsburg

    Shields Building

    The Beezer Brothers designed Wilkinsburg’s miniature skyscraper for real-estate developer and brewer Leopold Vilsack. It was built in 1902.1 It had been announced as the Vilsack Building; Vilsack named it the Carl Building (after his son) while it was still under construction; later it was called the Shields Building. It holds a curious place in the history of public housing: it was converted to apartments for senior citizens in 1975 as the first Section 8 housing project.

    The Beezers’ rendering of the proposed building appeared in the Gazette for April 12, 1902:

    Pittsburgh Gazette, April 12, 1902, p. 8. Thanks to David Schwing for finding this clipping.

    You may notice, if you count carefully, that the building lost a floor between initial design and construction.

    We transcribe the caption under the drawing:

    Wilkinsburg is soon to have a sky-scraper—somewhat of an infant in its class, perhaps, but ’way above any of its neighbors, and abundant evidence of the hustle and pride that characterize the residents of Pittsburgh’s most attractive suburb. The Vilsack office building, for such will be the title of the new structure, will be a thoroughly high-class building, its owner, Leopold Vilsack, having spared no pains or cost in the plans to make it equal in convenience to any of the more pretentious structures downtown. The site for the building is at the southeast corner of Wood and Ross streets, on a lot 33×122 feet, which Mr. Vilsack purchased a few months ago through his agent, James B. Lawler, for $18,000. The building was designed by Beezer Bros. It will be seven stories high and absolutely fireproof in its construction. Architecturally the building will be an exceptionally handsome structure. The first two stories facing in Wood and Ross streets will be built of Indiana limestone and the upper stories of gray pressed brick and terra cotta. Two high-speed elevators will carry the tenants and the building will have a duplicate boiler system to furnish it with power, heat and light. The first floor will be used for storerooms. On the upper floors are about 90 offices, all finished in hard wood and provided with marble floors and wainscoting. A large barber shop and a photograph studio will be among the features. Water will be supplied from an artesian well. The building is to be erected under the immediate direction of Beezer Bros. and will cost at least $150,000. The house on the lot, now occupied by Dr. A. B. Smith, the former owner, will be moved about 150 yards up Ross street on to another lot of Mr. Vilsack’s. Work on the new building will begin May 1 and it is expected it will be finished by January 1.

    It is interesting to note that, if you visit the building today, you will once again find “a large barber shop” among the features.

    Top of the Shields Building
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Comments
    October 14, 2025
  • At the Top of the Union Trust Building

    Top of the Union Trust Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Urban legend says that these structures are chapels where the privileged can repent of their sins, but in fact they house the elevator mechanics and other rooftop necessities.


    Comments
    October 14, 2025
  • Streetcars in Allentown

    Two-car train on Warrington Avenue

    All summer long, all the rail routes have been detoured through Allentown. Stop and consider for a moment how thoroughly odd Pittsburgh transit is: do you know of any other subway system that keeps up an alternate route over the top for times when one of the tunnels has to be closed?

    Trolleys on Warrington at Beltzhoover

    The few riders who look up from their phone screens have a chance to notice that Allentown is changing. Over the past few years, the Warrington Avenue business district has been going through a rapid trendification. It’s full of weird little shops too low-budget for the high rents of Lawrenceville.

    Trolley and bus passing

    A bonus bus coming toward you, for the longtime fans.

    Trolley on Warrington at Allen

    While the trolleys are going over the top, they stop at Allen Street in the middle of the Allentown business district.

    “Nothing beats public transit” on a mural

    Many people in Allentown would like to have their Allentown Trolley back permanently. They have been enjoying their summer of streetcars.

    Two-car train
    Nikon COOLPIX P100; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

    Comments
    October 13, 2025
  • Nativity of Our Lady Church, Greenfield

    Nativity of Our Lady Church

    The architect of this Byzantine-modern church was Charles J. Pepine, who designed a number of postwar churches in our area.1 It was dedicated in 1949 under the name “Nativity of Our Lady”; later it was known as Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, but it was usually just called St. Mary’s. It closed in 2010. Some attempts were made to turn the building into apartments, but they ran into objections from neighbors and we know not what other troubles; currently the building is vacant, though with building permits dated 2015 and 2019 in the front window.

    Tower

    The distinctive high domes of these towers were not part of the original plan when the new church was first announced in September of 1948, as we can see from this sketch by the architect.

    From the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, September 4, 1948.
    Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Church
    Nativity of Our Lady Church
    Side entrance
    Entrance to the parking lot
    Pillar
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    If there must be parking lots, they should be marked by architectural elements in keeping with their buildings—like these pillars at the parking-lot entrance for St. Mary’s.


    Comments
    October 12, 2025
  • Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple

    Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Built in 1916, the Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple was designed by Alden & Harlow. Mr. Alden had already been dead for eight years, but his famous name was kept at the head of the firm; Howard K. Jones, whose name was not added to the firm (as “Alden, Harlow & Jones”) until 1927, was doing much of the design work by 1916, and may have had a large hand in this building.

    It’s a curious structure, two-thirds basement. Often lodge halls were put on upper floors to provide rentable storefronts on the ground floor that would pay for the building, but that is obviously not the case here. Perhaps the reason may be sought in pure symbolism. Whatever goes on in this building (which the uninitiated are not permitted to know) is so lofty that even the members must ascend through two and a half levels of basement before they can reach the main event.

    A full-page photograph in the Architectural Record from 1925 shows us that the front of the building has not changed in any noticeable way, except for the new doors and windows:

    1925 photo of the Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple.
    From the Architectural Record, September, 1925.

    Unlike some other landmark buildings in Wilkinsburg, this one has been preserved by new occupants, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Mosque, who clearly love the building and keep it in sparkling condition. Even the inscription and the cartouche have been attractively covered, not obliterated, by the Muslim community.

    Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple
    Olympus E-20N.

    Comments
    October 11, 2025
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