Father Pitt

Category: Carrick

  • Passionist Convent, Carrick

    Passionist convent

    This was the first Passionist convent in the United States. The architect was Edmund B. Lang, whose firm would soon be known as Edward B. Lang & Brother, the Brother being Herman J., who would design some fine churches, including St. George’s in Allentown and St. Basil’s in Carrick.

    Convent

    The cornerstone was laid in 1910, and the Pittsburg Press covered the event in its “Religious and Charitable” section for September 2, 1910 (p. 9).

    The cornerstone of the first Passionist convent in America will be laid in Carrick next Sunday afternoon at 4 o’clock. This convent, the mother house of the order in this country, is also the first cloistered convent to be built in the local diocese. The ceremony of laying the stone will be conducted by the Rev. Father Stanilaus Grennan, provincial of the order in this country. Bishop J. F. Regis Canevin, of the Pittsburg diocese, and a number of prominent members of the clergy and laity are expected to be present. The convent, which has been designed by Architect Edmund B. Lang, is severely plain in plan. It is being built of brick and stone. The American Passionist Sisterhood consists of the five nuns who came to this country from Italy, arriving in Pittsburg May 5. Since coming here the number has been augmented, two Pittsburg girls and one Baltimore girl being now in the novitiate, preparing themselves to join the order.

    Convent
    Inscription reading “Passionist Nuns”
    Belfry
    Chapel and convent

    The chapel is a good example of the late Rundbogenstil as practiced by the Langs.

    Chapel
    Chapel
    Wooden awning
    Wooden awning
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Stewart Avenue Lutheran Church, Carrick

    Stewart Avenue Lutheran Church

    O. M. Topp, the favorite architect of Lutherans in Pittsburgh for a generation, designed this magnificent Romanesque church, which was built in 1927–19281 and seems almost like a tribute to the late John T. Comès, who had died five years earlier. Topp almost always designed churches in the Gothic style, but here he takes up Romanesque and shows that he can be a master of it, right down to the polychrome stripes that Comès loved so well.

    West front
    Rose window
    Entrance
    Lunette
    Stewart Avenue side

    The entrance on the Stewart Avenue side is perhaps the stripiest ecclesiastical structure in the city of Pittsburgh.

    Stewart Avenue entrance
    Lunette
    Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
    1. The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation identifies Topp as the architect of the main church. The Sunday-school wing was built shortly afterward. Source: The Charette, October, 1927: “359. Architect: O. M. Topp, Jenkins Arcade, Pittsburgh, Pa. Title: Stewart Ave. Lutheran Church, Sunday School. Location: Stewart Ave. and Brownsville Road. Ready for bids Sept. 19th. Approximate size: Two stories; brick, wood and steel. Cubage: 125,000 cu. ft.” ↩︎
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  • Spencer Methodist Episcopal Church, Carrick

    Spencer Methodist Episcopal Church (now Spencer United Methodist Church)

    Now Spencer United Methodist. Charles W. Bier was the architect of this church,1 which opened in 1925. It sits on a steeply sloping lot at the southern end of Carrick, so that—like many Pittsburgh churches—it has ground-level entrances on two ground levels.

    Spencer Methodist Episcopal Church (now Spencer United Methodist Church)
    Tower

    An open belfry becomes a nuisance to maintain, and when the bells are silenced—as they have been in most of our churches—the belfry is often filled in.

    Basement entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    1. The American Contractor, April 14, 1923: “Carrick, Pa.—Church:$100,000. 1 sty. 100×72. Church st. & Spencer av., Carrick. Archt. Chas. W. Bier, Pittsburgh Life bldg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner The Spencer M. E. Congr., Spv. Gilbert G. Gallagher, 117 Spencer av., Carrick. Solid brk. Drawing prelim. plans.” The church as built does not seem like a $100,000 church. But the dimensions and estimate went up: November 3, 1923: “Church: $140,000. 1 sty. & bas. 75×143. Church st. & Spencer av., Garrick [sic]. Archt. Chas. W. Bier, Pittsburgh Life bldg., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner The Spencer M. E. Congr., Rev. Gilbert G. Gallagher, 117 Spencer av., Garrick. Revising plans.” The current church looks like Bier’s work; we can only guess that the ambitious plans were scaled back a bit before construction began. ↩︎
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  • Fairy-Tale Cottage in Carrick

    15 Wynoka Street
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

    We’ve seen this house before, and here it is from a different angle. It sits on the side of a steep hill, and the best way to take in the front of it is to stand far away—in this case, in the South Side Cemetery.

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  • Sholten Arms, Carrick

    Sholten Arms

    Father Pitt has not been able to find the architect of this fairy-tale palace, but it is in good shape. It was built for Frank Sholten, a local newsdealer who apparently wanted to expand into the landlording business, in 1928, and a Sun-Telly photographer captured the building still under construction.

    “Carrick Fourth Ward in Home Building,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 27, 1928, part 4, p. 12.

    The building has a near-twin in West Homestead, and some lucky day Father Pitt or one of his correspondents will find the name of the artist behind both of them. Meanwhile, we can appreciate the details, bathed in golden late-afternoon sun.

    Entrance
    Dormer
    Diapered brickwork
    Sholten Arms
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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  • The Louisa, Carrick

    Louisa

    A typical small apartment building with storefronts that keeps many of its distinctive details, including the tiled overhang with exaggerated brackets. The windows have been replaced (although the art glass surrounding the stairwell windows is still there), and the storefront on the right has been heavily altered. But the quoins picked out in contrasting Kittanning brick still grab our attention as we walk by.

    Perspective view
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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  • St. Basil’s from a Distance, Carrick

    St. Basil’s Church

    Father Pitt took his new old Kodak superzoom to the South Side Cemetery to try it out. These pictures of St. Basil’s Church are not cropped; the lens has a very long range, although there are more recent superzoom cameras with even longer ranges. Herman J. Lang was the architect of the church.

    Tower of St. Basil’s
    St. Basil’s
    St. Basil’s Church
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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  • Carrick Hotel

    Carrick Hotel
    Found at the Carrick-Overbrook Wiki.

    Last week we saw this picture of the old Carrick Hotel, with the Carrick Municipal Building behind it. The Municipal Building is still there, converted to a storefront. What happened to the hotel?

    It’s still there, too, under decades of accretion.

    Carrick Hotel
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    You would hardly recognize it, until you notice those distinctive dormers peering at you from behind the later overgrowth. This kind of development is typical in business districts that became prosperous but not too prosperous: prosperous enough for commercial frontage to be valuable, but not prosperous enough to make it worthwhile constructing larger buildings. Houses and other buildings grew storefronts in front, but the valuable original building remained behind the new construction. As the neighborhood aged, the commercial frontage became less valuable again, and it was adapted into offices or apartments.

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  • Silent-Era Theater in Carrick

    1732 Brownsville Road

    This building shows up as a theater on a 1916 map, and that is all Father Pitt knows about it.

    The intersection of Brownsville Road and Narrow Avenue (now Newett Street) in 1916.

    It is not documented at Cinema Treasures, where theater fanatics have catalogued 178 theaters in Pittsburgh, or at the expiring and impossible-to-navigate Carrick-Overbrook Wiki, so it may not have lasted very long as a theater. (And Father Pitt is only making the assumption that it was a movie theater rather than a live theater or vaudeville house, because the latter seems much less likely for the era and place.) If anyone from the neighborhood knows the story of this building, the information will be received with gratitude. The building is well kept: it has been updated just enough to be useful to its current tenant without destroying the original design of the exterior.

    Old theater in Carrick
    Perspective view

  • Carrick Municipal Building

    Carrick Municipal Building

    Carrick became a borough in 1904, and for this little all-in-one borough building hired the big-deal architect Edward Stotz.1 It must have created an impression of prosperity when it was built in 1905, and it still looks solid and respectable today, one year short of a century after the people of Carrick voted for the borough to be annexed by the city of Pittsburgh in 1926. It has been converted into a retail store, and the huge second-floor window makes an excellent display for the current tenant.

    Inscription: “Erected 1905 / Borough of Carrick / Incorporated June 21, 1904”
    Carrick Municipal Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The building originally had an elaborate baroque crest that has been shorn off. We can see it in this picture, where the municipal building appears behind the Carrick Hotel:

    Found at the Carrick-Overbrook Wiki.
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