Father Pitt

Author: Father Pitt

  • YWCA

    YWCA in downtown Pittsburgh
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    “One of the most handsome modern structures in Pittsburgh, this building is oriented inward, with a blank wall on each street facade above the ground floor windows.” So said James D. Van Trump in “The Stones of Pittsburgh,” and Father Pitt defers to Mr. Van Trump’s superior taste. The wedge-shaped sign above the entrance is a relatively new addition, put up in 2016, but it fits well with the spare modernism of the rest of the building. The architects were Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the biggest firms in the business and most famous for supertall buildings like the Sears Tower and the Burj Khalifa.

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  • Eastminster Presbyterian Church, East Liberty

    Tower of Eastminster United Presbyterian Church

    Built in 1893 as Sixth United Presbyterian, this church was designed by William S. Fraser, who was a big deal in Pittsburgh in the later 1800s. Fraser adopted a very Richardsonian kind of Romanesque for this church, putting its congregation right at the top of the fashion heap for the moment.

    Eastminster Presbyterian
    Postcard of Sixth United Presbyterian Church
    Undated postcard, about 1900, from the Presbyterian Historical Society via Wikimedia Commons.

    If you ask why there are two Presbyterian churches so close together—this and East Liberty Presbyterian—the answer is that there were two kinds of Presbyterians. Sixth U. P. belonged to the United Presbyterians, a Pittsburgh-based splinter group that eventually merged with the other Presbyterians in 1958. Most neighborhoods and boroughs with large Protestant populations thus had two Presbyterian churches—or more, since there were Reformed Presbyterians and Cumberland Presbyterians as well.

    Eastminster U. P. Church
    Workmen restoring stained glass

    The stained glass is being restored slowly and carefully.

    Highland Avenue entrance
    Central door
    Eastminster United Presbyterian Church
    Organized 1856, built 1893
    Capitals
    Lantern
    Side entrance
    Station Street entrance
    Vine ornament
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Pink Horse-Chestnut

    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Thompson Building, Carnegie

    Thompson Building, Carnegie

    Since we were talking about acute angles, here is a “flatiron” building at the acute angle of the intersection of Main Street and Washington Avenue in Carnegie. Pittsburgh and its surroundings are full of these triangular buildings, because Pittsburgh topography makes it very difficult to lay streets out in a simple grid.

    Thompson Building
    Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • 700 Fifth Avenue: The Sharpest Corner in Pittsburgh?

    700 Fifth Avenue

    If it isn’t the sharpest, it must at least be close. Father Pitt remembers when the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art was going up in Washington (Big Worshington, that is): it was boasted that I. M. Pei’s design included the most acute angle in any American building. This angle is nearly congruent with Pei’s, except that here the point has been slightly blunted. The architect has made sensible use of that sharp corner by putting the stairwell there, with a column of windows to light it.

    700 Fifth Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Rhododendron

    Pink rhododendron
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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  • Potomac Station

    Outbound Red Line car at Potomac station

    An outbound Siemens SD-400 car on the Red Line arrives at Potomac station in Dormont.

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  • East End Electric Light Company, East Liberty

    1899 in the gable of the building

    Here is a relic of the genesis of the Electric Age. In the early days of electric light, the East End Electric Light Company supplied the rich East Enders with current to light their mansions. In 1899 it built this large substation, which is still in use by Duquesne Light today. Although it is clearly industrial, the building was put up at a time when an industrial building had to be ornamental as well as useful. It was therefore built in the style the ancient Romans might have used it they had built electric substations in their cities.

    Power substation
    Power substation
    Window
    End of the building
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • FNB Financial Center

    FNB Financial Center

    The biggest skyscraper project since the Tower at PNC Plaza, this was billed as the nucleus of new development that will finally make good on the promises of prosperity made when the Lower Hill was cleared out in the 1960s. The design was by Gensler, a huge architecture conglomerate also responsible for the Tower at PNC Plaza.

    FNB Financial Center
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
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  • Condemned Houses on Bedford Avenue, Hill District

    Condemned Second Empire houses

    Some day these houses will disappear. They are typical of middle-class houses that sprouted on the Hill in the 1890s, making use of the Second Empire mansard roof to give these narrow houses two more bedrooms on the third floors. Generations of condemnation notices have been pasted on them. They would be worth restoring if they were moved to another neighborhood, and perhaps they have some hope here, now that the Hill is growing new construction and looking more hopeful. But it isn’t likely that they’ll win their race with the wrecking ball.

    Two of the houses
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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