Father Pitt

Category: Beechview

  • Tudor Duplexes in Shadyside and Beechview

    Woodside Dwellings

    This duplex in Beechview is one of a pair right beside the Westfield stop on the Red Line. It looked very familiar. Where had we seen it before?

    Duplex on Ellsworth at St. James Place

    This duplex is on Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside, part of a group of duplexes on St. James Place and the adjacent side of Ellsworth Avenue. It is not identical to the one in Beechview, but so many of their parts are identical that the Beechview and Shadyside duplexes were obviously drawn by the same pen.

    Woodside Dwellings

    Above, a perspective view of one of the pair in Beechview, which is marked “Woodside Dwellings” on a 1923 map. It stands on Westfield Street, which was briefly called Woodside Avenue; the other of the pair was called “Suburban Dwellings” after the cross street, Suburban Avenue. Except for the loss of the Tudor half-timbering in the front gable, this one is very well preserved. (Suburban Dwellings has lost more details.)

    Below, a perspective view of one of the duplexes in Shadyside.

    Duplex on Ellsworth Avenue

    One of the details they share is a “No Outlet” sign. But we can see that the Shadyside duplexes are narrower and deeper than the Beechview ones. The same architect adapted as much of the same design as possible to the different dimensions of different lots.

    Four more of these duplexes stand on St. James Place, a little one-block side street running back to the cliff overlooking the railroad and busway.

    Duplex
    Tudor duplex

    This one has kept its original tile roof.

    Perspective view
    Another duplex
    Yet another

    A detail preserved by the one in Beechview is the Art Nouveau art glass with Jugendstil tulips.

    Art glass

    Old Pa Pitt does not yet know the architect of these Tudor duplexes. But if he had to make a wild guess, he would guess Charles Bier. The wide arches with strong verticals above, and the filtering of Tudor detailing through a German-art-magazine Art Nouveau sensibility, strongly remind us of Bier’s other works. There are other known works of Bier both in Shadyside and in the South Hills.

    In Shadyside, these Tudor duplexes are interspersed with Spanish Mission duplexes, showing once again that Tudor and Spanish Mission belong together.

    Duplex on Ellsworth Avenue
    Duplex on St. James Place

  • Robert E. Sickenberger House, Beechview

    Robert E. Sickenberger house

    This modest house in Beechview does not stand out a great deal from its neighbors. Its lines seem to be a little more simple, perhaps, but you would not stop to gawk at it when you walked by on the street.

    The architect, however, was headed in an interesting direction. H. C. Clepper designed this house for Robert E. Sickenberger in 1914,1 and he was already flirting with the simplicity of modern style.2 Two decades later, Clepper (working for a bigger architectural firm) would be the designer of almost all the ultramodern concrete houses in Swan Acres, “America’s first modern suburb,” most of which still stand today and are still the objects of pilgrimages by architectural historians.

    Front of the house

    As we have seen many times before, surprisingly interesting bits of architectural history are ready to ambush us from the blandest streets once we know to look for them.

    1. Source: The Construction Record, December 6, 1913: “Robert E. Sickenberger, 725 Frick building, is taking bids on the erection of a two-story brick veneer residence to be built on Rockland avenue, Beechview, to cost $4,000. Plans for the building were made by Architect H. C. Clepper, Park building.” R. Sickenberger appears as owner of this house on a 1923 map. ↩︎
    2. We should point out, however, that some of the current simplicity may come from later alterations, such as the replacement of some of the trim with aluminum. and alterations to the porch. ↩︎

  • A Streetscape in Beechview

    Westfield Street, Beechview

    Beechview is one of those neighborhoods where three dimensions must be taken into account in any attempt to navigate the back streets.

  • The Oldest Church in Beechview Was in Banksville

    Former St. Catherine’s Church

    The current St. Catherine of Siena Church, today part of St. Teresa of Kolkata parish, inhabits a big warehouse-like building from the 1960s on Broadway in Beechview. But St. Catherine’s parish predates Beechview itself. It was originally in the heart of the village of Banksville, where it inhabited this frame building that still stands today, after many subsequent adventures.

    Old church in Beechview

    City planning maps like to draw neighborhood boundaries down the middle of major streets. This often leads to absurd divisions where the spine street of a neighborhood is marked as the neighborhood boundary, putting half the neighborhood in a different neighborhood—as in Garfield and Arlington, for example. Banksville is another example: the neighborhood boundary goes right through the center of the old town of Banksville, putting the eastern half of it in Beechview, including this church. But when it was built, this church was in the heart of Banksville, right across Bank Street (later Gorn Avenue and now the driveway for this building) from the Banksville post office, the site of which is also in Beechview according to city planning maps.

  • Hampshire Stop, Beechview

    A two-car Red Line train stops at the inbound Hampshire safety island on Broadway in Beechview.

  • Fallowfield Station

    Red Line train at Fallowfield

    An inbound two-car Red Line train stops at the Fallowfield station in Beechview. The leading car is in the new chain-of-circles livery; the trailing car is in the older checkerboard livery.

    Fallowfield Station
    Two-car train at Fallowfield

  • Streetcar in Late-Afternoon Sun

    There are some sections of the Red Line through Beechview and Dormont where the streetcars seem to be carefully threading their way through the back yards of the neighborhood.

  • Beechview Christian Church

    Beechview Christian Church

    The building now belongs to Mercy Intellectual Disabilities Services, which has altered it to suit a radically different purpose. But the outlines of the church are still clear. The architect was T. Ed. Cornelius,1 about whom Father Pitt knows nothing except that he seems to have had a fairly successful career designing middle-class houses and modest churches—this one was budgeted at $25,000 in 1923, which was not a great deal to spend on building a church.

    This is another case where old Pa Pitt went looking for one of his pictures and discovered that he had never published it. The picture was taken in August of 2022, but only recently did Father Pitt discover the name of the architect.

    1. Source: The American Contractor, June 9, 1923: “Church: $25,000. 1 sty. & bas. 60×80. Shiras av. & Broadway. Archt. T. Ed. Cornelius, Magee bldg. Owner The Beechview Christian Church, Shiras av. & Broadway. Brk. Drawing plans.” ↩︎

  • The Traffic Light in Beechview

    Buildings on Broadway and Beechview Avenue, Beechview

    Central Beechview has one traffic signal, but it’s a very complicated one, regulating traffic on Broadway, Beechview Avenue, and Hampshire Avenue—and also the streetcars.

    Streetcar on Broadway in Beechview

    Yes, that streetcar was still in the intersection when the light turned red. But are you going to argue with the streetcar?

  • Walkway on the Fallowfield Viaduct, Beechview

    Walkway on the Fallowfield viaduct in Beechview

    The Fallowfield viaduct is an important transportation link, both for streetcars and for feet. It connects central Beechview to the streets on the next hill over. But old Pa Pitt admits that he publishes this photograph, not because it is useful and educational, but simply because the lines and colors made an interesting composition.