Father Pitt

Author: Father Pitt

  • Dual Presbyterians in Carnegie

    First Presbyterian Church, Carnegie

    This church, formerly First Presbyterian of Carnegie, now belongs to the Attawheed Islamic Center, which keeps the building up beautifully and lavishes a lot of attention on the landscaping. We can see from an old postcard from the Presbyterian Historical Society collection (undated, but probably about 1900) that this side of the building has hardly changed at all—except for the improvement in the landscaping. Even the stained glass is intact, since it is not representational and therefore causes no offense to Islamic principles.

    Old postcard of First Presbyterian Church
    Rear of the church

    At least two layers of educational buildings are behind the church.

    Diagonally across Washington Avenue is another Presbyterian church…

    First United Presbyterian Church

    …but this one was First United Presbyterian. The United Presbyterians were a Pittsburgh-based denomination that finally merged with those other Presbyterians in 1958. The building now is used as a banquet hall.

    First United Presbyterian Church
    Towers
    First United Presbyterian Church
    Rear of the church
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    Comments

  • Rabbit That Thinks It’s Invisible

    Eastern Cottontail
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    An Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) sitting very still in a patch of Crown Vetch (Securigera varia) in South Side Riverfront Park.

    Comments

  • The Rainbow Terrace on Dawson Street, Oakland

    Colorfully painted rowhouses

    Within their low-budget limits, these little houses are of an attractive design, and they are very well kept up. The odd-shaped lot also means that they are staggered in a visually interesting way. But, still, they would be just seven among thousands of Pittsburgh rowhouses if they had not been painted in this striking way that lights up the whole block.

    Rainbow houses
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Addendum: The architect was probably Frederick Sauer, who seems to have done all the architectural work for John Dimling, the developer who owned this row. See also the Harry, George, Matilda, Laura, Hilda, and Herbert apartments.

    Comments

  • Sixteenth Ward War Memorial, South Side

    Sixteenth Ward World War I memorial
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    Since old Pa Pitt has made it a rule to record all the names on every war memorial he photographs, this picture is huge—about 50 megapixels. If you enlarge it, all the names should be legible, from Abbott to Zorn.

    Comments

  • Soho Public Baths

    Soho Public Baths

    Built in 1907–1908, this splendid bathhouse was designed by Carpenter & Crocker,1 who did the whole ground-floor front in terra cotta.

    This bathhouse served Soho, once a crowded neighborhood of tiny houses, many without indoor plumbing; long lines would form on Saturday nights as the working classes took their one chance to get clean. Almost all the houses are gone, and most of the other buildings, leaving overgrown foundations; this stretch of Fifth Avenue is spookily deserted. Even the neighborhood has ceased to exist in Pittsburghers’ imaginations. Soho once referred to the area around the north end of today’s Birmingham Bridge, but there is no such place now on city planning maps. What used to be Soho is divided officially between “Bluff,” “West Oakland,” and “South Oakland.” Soho is generally mentioned only when Andy Warhol comes up, because he was born there; but if you ask where Soho was, Wikipedia will tell you it is a synonym for Uptown, which it will also tell you is the same as the Bluff. (In fact the house where Andy Warhol was born, now a patch of woods on a deserted street, is in the part designated West Oakland by the city.)

    This building was in use more recently than most, but it, too, has been left to rot. It is one of only three or four standing public baths in the city, only one of which—the Oliver Bathhouse—is still serving its original purpose.

    Public Baths

    Old Pa Pitt painted out the close-up graffiti in this picture, because they were distracting, and because if street gangs want to advertise on his site, they can pay for it.

    Soho Public Baths
    Soho Public Baths
    Soho Public Baths
    Balcony
    Ornament with cartouche
    Frieze
    Lintel
    Cartouche
    Keystone
    Soho Public Baths
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
    Comments

  • Clark High School, Scott Township

    Clark High School

    Just outside Carnegie on Washington Avenue, this school opened in the fall of 1935. It was designed in a bracingly modern style by Mount Lebanon architect J. Lawrence Hopp, who designed a number of other schools in nearby suburbs. It has been an office building for quite a while now, but the alterations to the exterior have not been severe, as we can see from a 1950 photograph of students trying their hands at rescue techniques.

    Rescue drills at Clark High School, Scott Township
    Photo by Post-Gazette photographer Paul Slantis, from Historic Pittsburgh (go there to see it in full resolution).

    A certain number of students were probably lost every time these drills were performed, but that is the price we pay for preparedness.

    Entrance

    Some history of the building and all the yearbooks are at the Chartiers Valley Historical Society page on Clark High School.

    1100 Washington Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Engine Company No. 8 and East End Police Station, East Liberty

    Firehouse and police station

    City architect Richard Neff designed this palace of public safety in the style old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist, which combines classical detailing with an Art Deco sensibility. It is currently getting a thorough renovation.

    Engine Company No. 8 and East End Police Station
    Truck Co. No. 8; Engine Co. No. 8

    It’s Construction Safety Week! But don’t worry. You still have fifty-one weeks in the year to be careless.

    East End Police Station
    Engine Company No. 8 and East End Police Station
    Fire and police station under renovation
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    Comments

  • Cast-Iron Front on Wood Street

    101 Wood Street

    A well-preserved cast-iron front, though the building has lost its hat. Father Pitt would probably paint it a different color.

    101 Wood Street
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Telephone Exchange, East Liberty

    Telephone exchange

    Inside the building was a mass of wires and electrical equipment and operators’ switchboards. But the Bell Telephone Company insisted that the outside of every telephone exchange must be an ornament to the neighborhood. They were all Renaissance palaces like this until the 1930s, and it is likely that they all came from the same architectural office—namely, the office of James Windrim, who also designed the 1923 Bell Telephone Building downtown. After Windrim, Press C. Dowler took over as the Bell company’s court architect, and the style changed to refined Art Deco.

    Bell Telephone exchange entrance
    Spiral ornament
    Cornice
    Telephone exchange, East Liberty
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.
    Comments

  • St. Mary’s Church and Lyceum, Lawrenceville

    St. Mary’s Church

    Dedicated in 1873, this church for an Irish parish was designed by James Sylvester Devlin, about whom old Pa Pitt knows only that he designed this church. It has closed as a parish, and when Pittsburgh Catholics leave a church they take everything distinctive and valuable with them, so that, for example, all the stained glass is gone. But the building is still in good shape.

    West Front of the church

    A good summary of the history of the church is in James Wudarczyk’s Faith of Our Fathers: Religion in Lawrenceville.

    Historic Landmark plaque
    Clear window with organ pipes behind it

    Clear glass reveals that there is still at least part of an organ in the building.

    Clear windows
    Side entrance
    Side entrance
    Door pull

    For hardware connoisseurs, a door pull on one of the side entrances.

    Door handle
    The altar end of the church

    The altar end of the church.

    Rear of St. Mary’s Church
    St. Mary’s Church and Lyceum

    Behind the church is the Lyceum, built in 1914.

    St. Mary’s Lyceum
    Comments