Father Pitt

Category: Beechview

Downtown West Liberty
The borough of West Liberty included more than half of what is now Beechview and all of Brookline. West Liberty Avenue, as you might guess from its name, ran right down the middle of it. Today city planning maps make West Liberty Avenue the border between Beechview and Brookline, but it forms a distinct business corridor of its own.

The five-way intersection of West Liberty Avenue with Capital Avenue, Haddon Way, and Curranhill Avenue looked for a while as though it might become the core of a substantial neighborhood business district. Instead, West Liberty Avenue was taken over by the automobile business, becoming the second great automobile row in Pittsburgh (after Baum Boulevard). But these buildings remain as a little clot of neighborhood businesses among the car dealers.

In the picture above, the building at left with Slick’s Bar in it, which dates from about 1916, was designed by Charles Geisler, who at the time lived only a block up the hill from the construction site.¹ The red bricks at the top (with an initial E bolted into them) probably indicate where there was once a green-tiled overhang, one of Geisler’s favorite ornaments.

A little farther up Capital Avenue we find this building, now home to a cupcake shop. The simple ornament picked out in blond brick is typical of the era around and after the First World War.

On the other side of West Liberty Avenue, this building from about 1928 was designed by the architects Smart & Scheuneman.² For many years it has been home to a sewing-machine shop of the sort where they will not bat an eye if you bring them a hundred-year-old machine to work on.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

This frame building, probably dating to the early 1900s, has been neglected for a long time—long enough that it still has its wood siding and trim.
1. Source: Construction Record, February 26, 1916, p. 4. “Architect Charles R. Geisler, 1933 Warnock street, awarded to Harry Bupp, 1093 Wingate avenue, the contract for erecting a two-story brick veneered hollow tile store and apartment building on Capital avenue for Henry Anmann, 103 Capital Avenue. Cost $6,500.” As built, No. 101 has three floors instead of two. On the “1923” layer at Pittsburgh Historic Maps. “E. Amman” [sic] appears as owner of no. 101. Warnock Street, where Mr. Geisler lived, is now Woodward. ↩︎
2. Source: “Bids Taken for New 19th Ward Building,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, October 9, 1927. “Bids have been taken for a store and apartment building at West Liberty avenue and Currant [sic] street, Nineteenth Ward, for Mrs. R. M. Ousler. Smart & Scheuneman are the architects.” “R. M. Oursler” is shown as owner of this and the older building next door on a plat map. ↩︎
December 24, 2024
Westfield Stop in 2001 and 2024

Almost 24 years ago, old Pa Pitt had occasion to wait on the inbound platform of the Westfield stop on what was then the Route 42 streetcar line. The picture above was taken in March of 2001. The other day Father Pitt found himself at the same spot and took a similar picture, with sun instead of snow.

Not much is different, because Beechview is a neighborhood that changes slowly. A few trees along Rockland Avenue in the background have grown. The automobiles are more recent models. The most obvious difference is the stop itself, where the sodium-vapor lights have been replaced with LEDs and the old brown sign has been replaced with a blue one. The destination no longer mentions Library, because Library cars no longer run on this route (they go through Overbrook instead).

December 23, 2024
Milo Street, Beechview

Like many other streets that appear on the maps of hilly neighborhoods, Milo Street is entirely stairs. Whenever you see a street sign that seems to be pointing off the edge of a cliff, a stairway like this is usually the explanation.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

December 19, 2024
Pair of Double Houses in Beechview

Pittsburgh is full of tiny houses like these, and there’s not much special about these four in particular, except that they demonstrate how even the humblest dwellings have stories to tell after a century of history. These little doubles were originally identical, but they have had separate adventures. Two of the houses have had one of their upstairs windows bricked in; one of them has had the window replaced with a three-staggered-light front door, which is an amusing trick to play on houseguests. The pair on the left have had their flat porch roofs replaced with peaked roofs. All of them probably had green tile (or possibly red) on the overhangs above the upstairs windows. The main purpose of those overhangs is to serve as a signifier of the Spanish Mission style, which was very popular when these houses were built. The overhangs may also serve as a talisman to ward off the aluminum-awning salesman, and it worked in three out of four of the houses.

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

December 11, 2024
Fall in the South Hills Neighborhoods

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Rooftops of Beechview houses with the tower of St. Canice Church, Knoxville, in the background.

October 29, 2024
Adapting to a Vertical Lot

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

In other cities, this lot would be unbuildable. In Pittsburgh, we just have to make some adaptations. The house (now divided into three units) has a garage around the back on the left side (where you can’t see it in this picture). Suppose you were on the ground floor, meaning the floor that is level with the street in front, and you decided to go down to your car in the garage. You would have to go down into the basement. Then you would have to go down into the other basement. Then you would have to go down into the other other basement, where the garage is. Then you would have to back your car down the steep slope from the garage to the street. Altogether, there are six levels to this house in back, though only three in front. Gaining three storeys from front to back is unusual for a house in most places; in Pittsburgh, it’s just the way we deal with the topography God gave us.

September 24, 2024
Variations on the Pittsburgh Foursquare in Beechview

Some variants on the Pittsburgh Foursquare from one block in Beechview. They all have the same basic layout of reception hall, parlor, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor; three or four bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor; and two or more rooms on the third floor. Above, a fairly late version, probably from the 1920s. The lines are simpler and the roof is shallower.

Here is a well-preserved larger version with its original slate roof and multiple dormers. Note the arched window in the dormer. The bay on the left side of the house, which goes up from the dining room into the master bedroom, is very common in Pittsburgh Foursquares of the early 1900s. It allows cross-ventilation and ample light into those rooms in spite of the narrowness of the gap between houses.

This variant without the pyramid roof creates more room in the third floor.

A very large example of the Pittsburgh Foursquare, but the layout of rooms is more or less the same; they are just bigger rooms.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

Finally, a much-renovated house with a gambrel roof, which probably has more room on the third floor in proportion to its size than any of the others.

September 23, 2024
Under the Asphalt

Scratch the asphalt of any Pittsburgh street—like this one in Beechview, which had just been milled in preparation for repaving—and you will find bricks if the street is relatively flat, or Belgian block if it is on a steep slope or in a heavy-traffic area.

September 20, 2024
Rebuilding the Red Line

The Red Line has been closed between South Hills Junction and Potomac for extensive reconstruction. The workers did not dally: as soon as the line was closed, it was covered with construction equipment, and Pittsburgh Regional Transit has posted signs at all the shuttle-bus stops informing us that the line will reopen on schedule September 1. Here we see the Hampshire Avenue grade crossing under reconstruction.

This road looks about as closed as it can get.

Newly laid track at the Westfield stop, whose platforms have also had extensive work. The track is Pennsylvania Broad Gauge, a relic of the laws that prohibited streetcar companies from using standard-gauge track out of well-founded fear that a secret deal with the railroad companies would send freight trains down the middle of city streets.

New track along Suburban Avenue.

August 15, 2024
Krebs Building, Beechview

This building on Beechview Avenue is good training in urban archaeology. We can see the changes it has gone through and guess at what it might have looked like when it was new.

We notice, for example, that the windows on the third floor are rectangular, but the holes for them are arched. Likewise, the windows on the second floor are too small for their holes. Luckily the window-replacement project was done without serious alterations to the underlying wall, so it will be possible for a prosperous future owner to install windows that fit the holes.

We can also see that the ground floor was originally a storefront. It has been turned into another apartment, as often happens in neighborhoods where the commercial district has shrunk.

What are we to make of those wood shingles that hang over the first floor? They probably were installed in the 1970s, when such things were popular; they would have served the two purposes of covering the original signboard above the store and giving both entrances of the building a bit of key-fumbling shelter.

June 17, 2024