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Chimney Pots in Allegheny West
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Row of Houses on North Avenue
These are what old Pa Pitt calls Baltimore-style rowhouses: that is, rowhouses where the whole row is built as one subdivided building right against the sidewalk (as opposed to the typical Pittsburgh terrace, where the houses are set back with tiny front yards). Since North Avenue is the neighborhood boundary on city planning maps, these fall into the “Central Northside” for planning purposes; but socially they formed part of the wealthy section of Allegheny that includes Allegheny West across the street.
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William Penn Snyder House, Allegheny West
Designed by George Orth, this is—surprisingly—the only New-York-style brownstone palace in Pittsburgh. Here we see it at twilight.
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The House That Death Built
William D. Hamilton was in the coffin business, which he inherited from his father and built up into the National Casket Company, a titan in the death industry. North Avenue is the neighborhood line on city planning maps, so this house is in the Central Northside neighborhood by those standards; but socially it belongs to Allegheny West, and the Allegheny West site has a detailed history of 940 West North Avenue.
The architects were Alston & Heckert; the house was built in 1895 or shortly after.1 The style is best described as “eclectic,” but the Gothic windows upstairs give the house a slightly somber and funereal aspect. Since those two trees have been flourishing in front, it is impossible to get a view of the whole façade except in the winter.
- Source: The Inland Architect and News Record, May 1895. “Architects Alston & Heckert: For W. D. Hamilton, a two-story brick residence, slate trimmings, to be erected on North avenue, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; cost, $10,000.” In an earlier version of the article, Father Pitt had said that he did not know the architect, but the names jumped out at him from this old magazine. ↩︎
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Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny West
“Blue hour” pictures are very fashionable these days. Well, old Pa Pitt can do those too, if you really want them.
We also have pictures of the Western Theological Seminary by day.
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House and Carriage House in Allegheny West
The house above faces Lincoln Avenue, a street in Allegheny West where several of the houses had carriage houses on the alley behind. And indeed, if we go around to the alley, or actually to the intersection of two alleys, we find this:
It certainly looks like an old carriage house, but it is as big as the house on Lincoln Avenue. Old Pa Pitt is not quite sure about the history of these two buildings. The house may have been built as early as the 1860s, although it was probably altered later; the carriage house appears to date from the 1880s, and in 1890 it appears as owned separately from the main house: the owner is marked as H. Phipps Jr., whereas the house is owned by F. Hubley. But on the copy of the 1890 map we saw on line, the two owners are crossed out and a single owner substituted in pencil.
Thereafter, the house and carriage house are under the same ownership.
This iron gate brings a little bit of the Middle Ages to the back alleys of Allegheny West.
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Lantern in Allegheny West
This tasteful lantern is actually one of the two flanking the parking lot for the firm that now inhabits the William Penn Snyder house on Ridge Avenue; it took some careful manipulation of angles to make it look like something other than a parking-lot decoration.
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McIntosh Row, Allegheny West
This row of houses is not architecturally spectacular, but it represents something important in the history of Pittsburgh. Originally built in 1865, it was restored in the 1970s by a neighborhood association. Allegheny West set an example of cooperative preservation that has made the neighborhood the attractive place to live it is today, and other neighborhoods took note.
Originally there were six of these houses. They had all decayed badly, but it was the demolition of the two on the end that provoked the Allegheny West Civic Council to act. It was one of the turning points in Pittsburgh history. Would the city become a sea of parking lots surrounding a few big attractions, or would we find clever ways to keep some of the good things we had?
You can read the history of Allegheny West’s successes and failures on the Recent History of Allegheny West page at the Allegheny West site. The story of the McIntosh Row is in Part 5; the site design is too clever by half, so it is not possible to link to that part directly.
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Second Empire House, Allegheny West
One of the grandest of the Second Empire houses in Allegheny West, this one has an elaborate cornice with delightfully folksy wood-carving.
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Calvary Methodist Church at Night
Calvary Methodist Church in Allegheny West is floodlit at night, and old Pa Pitt stopped the other night to get a few pictures. The design of this church is credited to Vrydaugh & Shepherd with T. B. Wolfe. Vrydaugh & Wolfe would soon become a partnership designing a number of fine churches and millionaires’ mansions. Old Pa Pitt does not know what happened to Shepherd.
These pictures were all taken hand-held with very slow shutter speeds. Photographers will tell you that you cannot take a sharp hand-held picture at 1/10 of a second. What they mean is that you cannot reliably take a sharp picture. With digital photography, where individual pictures cost nothing, what you can do is take a dozen or two pictures and hope that one of them will be sharp.
