Father Pitt

Category: Carrick

Endangered Buildings in Carrick

It is never pleasant, but old Pa Pitt feels as though he has a duty to document things that might be gone soon. Sometimes miracles happen, and we can always hope, but without a miracle we can only turn to the photographs to remember what has vanished.

“Berg Place,” a group of three apartment buildings along Brownsville Road in Carrick, probably cannot be saved. It’s a pity, because the buildings, in a pleasant Arts-and-Crafts style flavored with German Art Nouveau, have a commanding position along the street, and their absence will be felt. They were abandoned a few years ago, probably declared unsafe, and since then they have rotted quickly.

Some of the simple but effective Art Nouveau decorations in brick and stone.

These two buildings across the street from Berg Place, damaged by a fire, may possibly still be saved. At present one of them is condemned, but that is not a death sentence, and it looks as though prompt action was taken to secure the one on the corner after the fire. They are typical of the Mission-style commercial buildings that were popular in Carrick and other South Hills neighborhoods, and they ought to be preserved if at all possible. Carrick is not a prosperous neighborhood, but much of the commercial district is still lively, and with the increase in city property values the repairs might be a good investment.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS

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March 29, 2025
Bethel Baptist Church (Zion Christian Church), Carrick

Now Zion Christian Church. The cornerstone tells us that the congregation was founded in 1908, and its first building was at the corner of Birmingham Avenue and Hays Avenue (now Amanda Street)—a small frame chapel that must have quickly become woefully overcrowded, since this building many times the size was constructed less than twenty years later.

Plat map showing the original location of Bethel Baptist.

“The membership is 381, as compared with a membership of 30 in 1908,” says the Gazette Times of February 18, 1925, when the plans for the new building were announced.

Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, February 18, 1925

The architect was Walter H. Gould, “a member of the church,” and so far this is the only building attributed to him that Father Pitt knows about. However, it is an accomplished if not breathtakingly original design, so there must be other Gould buildings lurking about, probably in the South Hills neighborhoods. Comparing the published rendering above with the church as it stands today shows us that the tower grew about a floor’s worth of height between conception and construction—a rare example, perhaps, of an architect being told that his original design was not ambitious enough.

“By spirit and faith and the help of God.”

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

December 1, 2024
A Foursquare in Carrick

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

There’s nothing particularly special about this house, except that it’s a good example of how an architect can vary the incidentals of the usual Pittsburgh Foursquare to produce a pleasing design. The dormer has been altered a bit, but its distinctive central arch remains, though it has been filled with a rectangular stock window.

November 29, 2024
Stanley Parlors, Carrick

This old bowling alley has some interesting history. It was built in 1929 with two floors of duckpin bowling. After conversion to ten-pin bowling, it petered out in the 1990s, but not before it had been used as a location in the movie Kingpin, starring Woody Harrelson. Father Pitt has not seen that movie, but according to Wikipedia it has a reputation as somewhere between bad and mediocre, and it was number 2 on someone’s list of Woody Harrelson’s best films.

The building itself is interesting. Though the ground floor has been altered, the second floor, with its arcaded balcony, is eye-catching and makes a strong impression on the streetscape of Brownsville Road.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

November 21, 2024
Ginkgo Time

Ginkgo biloba is a tree often planted for its beautiful form and its resistance to the thousand natural shocks that trees are heir to in the city. In the fall, its leaves turn a brilliant golden yellow, and then within a very short time they all fall and carpet the ground with gold. These trees were just beginning to push the eject button in the South Side Cemetery in Carrick.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

November 20, 2024
Hillside House in Carrick

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Dutch Colonial meets Normandy in an attractively eclectic house that you can see from a long way away, because it perches on the side of a steep hill.

October 26, 2024
Concord Presbyterian Church, Carrick, Newly Built

The September 1915 issue of The Builder published this picture of the Concord Presbyterian Church in Carrick, along with this description:

CONCORD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CARRICK, PA.

An interesting building, published in this issue, built after the style of the early English Parish Church, and executed in that character exceptionally well both interior and exterior.

The exterior of the Church is of Rubble Masonry which as a material blends well with the immediate surroundings, the site being on Brownsville Road, Carrick, and of a rural atmosphere. The interior (as the interior of the early English Parish Church) is carried out in a very simple but dignified design, of plaster and timber, finished in a warm color scheme.

The Church has a seating capacity of 500, the Sunday School accommodating 450.

The architect, as the page with the photograph above tells us, was George H. Schwan. Although the immediate surroundings were “of a rural atmosphere” in 1915, they would not remain that way for long. Already in the photograph above you can see the great engine of urbanization: streetcar tracks.

This is the way the church looks today, with its early-settler country churchyard behind it and the decidedly non-rural business district of Carrick in front of it. More pictures of the Concord Presbyterian Church are here.

November 10, 2023
Apartment Building in Carrick

A fine example of the fairy-tale fantasy style that was popular in the 1920s and 1930s. The roof would probably have been green tile originally.

November 7, 2022
The Wigman House and Its Neighbor, Carrick

The Wigman House, at the corner of Brownsville Road and the Boulevard, Carrick, is a splendid example of Victorian woodwork, and it will not surprise you to discover that it was built for a prosperous lumber dealer. Carrick is very proud of this house, which some years ago was rescued from possible demolition. “This is our Crown Jewel Victorian and is the last standing example of our past,” says the Carrick-Overbrook Wiki on a page last edited in 2013. “Because the popularity of high Queen Anne Style waned in the early 1900s this house is the only example of that architectural style existing in the immediate area.” The page reprints a 2010 article by Diana Nelson-Jones from the Post-Gazette, which repeats the claim, calling the house “the last of the grand Victorians remaining on the main drag.”

But old Pa Pitt is delighted to report that this is not so. In fact the Wigman House’s neighbor three doors up Brownsville Road is older, larger, and also Queen Anne in style.

This is not a very good picture, and old Pa Pitt will try to do better the next time. But you can see what Father Pitt immediately noticed when he glanced at the house from across the street in the South Side Cemetery: the unmistakable shape of a Queen Anne mansion. The third floor has been altered a bit; that gable would have had some ornate woodwork, probably some curved surfaces with wood shingles, and possibly a balcony (note, in the shadows to the left, the charming little side balcony on the third floor). But the typical Queen Anne outline of this fine brick Victorian has not changed since it was built. Some relatively minor restorations in that third-floor gable would bring back all its Victorian splendor.

The Wigman House was built in 1902, according to the wiki page. The brick house above was built in the 1880s; it appears on the 1890 maps of Carrick.

Of course the Wigman House, with its corner turret and well-preserved woodwork, is a remarkable house. But it is a great pleasure to point out its distinguished older neighbor to the history-lovers of Carrick.

November 1, 2022
Concord Presbyterian Church and Cemetery, Carrick

This building was dedicated in 1915, but its congregation was organized in 1831—and really dates from before that, since local members had been meeting before the Presbytery recognized them as a church. This was a country church that was engulfed by city in the early 1900s; in its old country churchyard are the graves of a number of early settlers and the third mayor of Pittsburgh.

Addendum: The architect of the church was George Schwan. From the Construction Record for October 11, 1913: “Architect George Schwan, Peoples Bank building, is working on plans for the proposed church building, for the Concord Presbyterian Congregation, Carrick. The building will be one-story, either brick or stone, and cover an area of 72×90 feet. Cost $35,000.”

September 11, 2022