Category: Dormont

  • Hafer Building, Dormont

    Hafer Building

    An unusually well-preserved commercial building in an eclectic style from the early twentieth century. The glass block in the stairwell doubtless marks where some more attractive art glass, which probably became a maintenance headache, would have been; and the blank panels above the storefronts were probably art glass as well (compare, for example, this other storefront on the same street). But the ground floor was never fussed with very much, and it still retains its stonework and inscription. The grey paint is not old Pa Pitt’s favorite treatment, but paint can be painted over.

    Hafer Building
    Hafer and Kinsey Buildings
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • The Center of Dormont

    2900 West Liberty Avenue

    The corner of West Liberty Avenue and Potomac Avenue is the center of the Dormont commercial district, and it is framed by two buildings that are very well suited for such a prominent location. The ground floor of the one above has been remodeled more than once, including what must have been an eye-catching moderne remodeling that left it with some rounded windows. The corner is marked with a turret, which is always good on a corner building. We suspect that the turret may have had a witch’s cap on top, but even without it the turret makes a good corner marker, accented with terra-cotta foliage around the top.

    Turret with terra-cotta foliage
    2890 West Liberty

    This building has a storefront with a proper corner entrance that has not been filled in, though the ground floor also appears to have been remodeled in the mid-twentieth-century moderne era.

    2890 West Liberty Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePx HS10.

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  • The Hollywood at 100

    Hollywood Theater

    The Hollywood Theater in Dormont is one hundred years old this year, and it is near the end of a thorough refurbishment. It is now owned by the same people who own the successful Rowhouse Theater in Lawrenceville, and it will open after the work with a similar mix of art films, cult films, and revivals. Comparing the picture above with one from 2019 shows how much can be accomplished with paint and some stucco work.

    The Hollywood in 2019
    The Hollywood in 2019.

    The original 1925 architect was Charles R. Geisler, who was prolific especially in the South Hills (he lived in Beechview within walking distance of this theater). His taste for Mission details is obvious in the roofline, with its very Geislery green-tiled overhangs. In 1948, Victor A. Rigaumont, Pittsburgh’s king of Deco movie houses, supervised a remodeling, and the spare and abstract ground floor is probably his work. This current remodeling uses dark green to link the ground floor with the roof and make the façade look more all of a piece.

    Marquee with “It is nice to have things to look forward to”
    Hollywood Theater
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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  • A Simple Apartment Building in Dormont

    2912 Glenmore Avenue

    There’s something pleasingly simple about this little apartment building just off the Potomac Avenue business district in Dormont. There are almost no decorative details, but the simple pilasters that frame the front give the building enough texture to carry itself with dignity. The stone lintels over the windows on the side of the building are a clue to its history: the front is probably a later addition, replacing open balconies with extra rooms. But the matching white brick makes the change hard to detect without some concentration.

    2912 Glenmore Avenue
    Entrance to 2912 Glenmore Avenue
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The entrance (we are able to peer into the shadows by combining three different exposures in one picture) surprises us with classical woodwork and ornamental leaded glass—another clue that this building is older than we would have thought from a glance at the front.

    2912 Glenmore Avenue

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  • Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, Dormont

    Tower and spire

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church has been without a congregation since 2013, but it is kept up, and we hope it has or finds a sympathetic owner. In spite of the name, the church is in Dormont, which was in the “Mount Lebanon district” until it became a separate borough.

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church
    Cornerstone with dates 1911 and 1930

    The church was put up in 1930; the architects were Lawrence Wolfe (the middle term in a dynasty of Wolfes who were in the architecture business for more than a century) in association with Smith & Reif.

    Mount Lebanon Baptist Church
    Entrance and tower
    Entrance and window
    False pulpit

    This decoration seems to be meant to represent an outdoor pulpit of the sort that was popular in medieval times. It is not functional, or at least not easily used, but it does send the message that the minister could step out here and denounce the whole borough if it became necessary.

    Entrance
    Door pulls and locks

    For hardware connoisseurs, here are some very elegant door pulls and locks.

    Door pulls
    Lantern
    Shield
    Vine decoration

    Grape vines in Gothic style make up most of the carved decoration.

    Vine ornament
    Address and office plaque
    Office sign
    Gable with quatrefoil window
    Tower decorations
    Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Some of the decorations verge on an Art Deco interpretation of Gothic.

    We have more pictures of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in different lighting at a different season.


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  • Spanish Mission Style in Dormont

    1431 Potomac Avenue

    A tiled overhang and exaggerated brackets to hold it up: these are two markers of the Spanish Mission style that was fantastically popular in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Dormont in particular filled up with apartment and commercial buildings in that style, like this one at Potomac and Glenmore Avenues, which was built in 1923. Here’s a small collection of commercial buildings in the Mission style on Potomac Avenue and West Liberty Avenue, the two main commercial streets of the borough.

    1436–1434 Potomac Avenue
    1436–1434 Potomac Avenue
    Wasson Building
    Wasson Building
    1419–1421 Potomac Avenue
    2883 West Liberty Avenue
    2893 and 2895 West Liberty Avenue
    West Liberty Avenue
    Nikon COOLPIX P100; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Apartment Building with Storefronts by William E. Snaman in Dormont

    2895–2899 West Liberty Avenue

    It would have been a better composition with the original ground floor, but even so the upper two-thirds are attractive. We attribute this building to William E. Snaman because it is the only apartment building in the vicinity built at the right time to match this listing:

    The Construction Record, October 30, 1915. “George E. McKee, Alger street, was awarded the contract for erecting a three-story brick store and apartment building on West Liberty avenue, Dormont, for Mrs. Mary Ivol, 6268 West Liberty avenue, Dormont. Plans by Architect W. E. Snaman, Empire building. Cost $10,000.”

    Wreath in stained glass
    Apartment building at Tennessee and West Liberty Avenues
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Transit-Oriented Development

    Red line tracks on Broadway Avenue in Dormont
    Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

    “Transit-Oriented Development” is a favorite catch phrase among urban planners. In the early twentieth century, it was just the way development happened. Most people used streetcars to get to work, to shopping, and to all their amusements, so of course development and transit had to go together. Here we see a typical pattern: a main spine street—in this case, Broadway Avenue in Dormont—divided in two parts, with a broad median for trolleys. Many neighborhood main streets were built this way. Red Line trolleys still run here in Dormont, and Silver Line trolleys on a similar plan in Bethel Park.


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  • Dormont Methodist Episcopal Church

    Dormont Methodist Episcopal Church

    Built in 1920 in an angular modern-Gothic style, this church served its original congregation until 2013, the year of the great collapse of Dormont mainline churches, when the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Baptists all threw in the towel. The building became a Buddhist temple for a while (the Buddhists gave it the current paint scheme), but it seems not to be active right now. It is, however, kept up well.

    Thanks to the Gazette Times of September 13, 1920, we have a picture of Bishop McConnell of the M. E. Church laying laying “a copy of the Gazette Times containing announcement of the corner stone laying, coins of the present day, a list of trustees and a list of members of the Dormont and Banksville churches, recently combined” in the cornerstone.

    Bishop McConnell laying documents in the cornerstone
    Cornerstone

    This cornerstone is a top contender for the coveted title of Most Awkward Word Break on a Stone Inscription Outside a Country Graveyard.

    Capsule Enclosed

    It seems that another capsule was laid in 2009, four years before the church dissolved.

    Dormont United Methodist Church

    None of the news stories we found mentioned an architect, but we hope to find a name eventually.

    Dormont Methodist Church
    Side entrance
    Tower
    Dormont Methodist Episcopal Church
    Dormont M. E. Church
    Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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  • Philadelphia Avenue, Dormont

    Houses on Philadelphia Avenue, Dormont
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    A typical streetscape of a typical prosperous middle-class streetcar suburb in the Pittsburgh area.