Father Pitt

Columbia Hospital merged with Pittsburgh Hospital and East Suburban General in Monroeville to form Forbes Health System. The location in Wilkinsburg closed some years ago, but unlike some other large buildings in Wilkinsburg, this complex found new uses. The largest part is a nursing home, and several other businesses and services occupy smaller sections.

The original hospital buildings were designed by John Lewis Beatty, whom we have met before mostly as a designer of Protestant churches. They are faced with a very attractive cinnamon brick that is actually made up of randomly assorted but related shades.

If we walk around to the forgotten back alley behind the hospital, we discover the old abandoned emergency entrance. We can also see some more of the older buildings in the complex.

In 1956, the hospital announced a big new addition and planned to raise a million and a half to pay for it.⁽¹⁾ The architects were Prack & Prack,⁽²⁾ longtime specialists in large industrial and institutional buildings.

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Footnotes

1. “Columbia Hospital Seeks $1,500,000,” Pittsburgh Press, November 8, 1956, p. 12. (↩)
2. Bids Wanted, Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph, May 3, 1957, p. 29. (↩)