A storefront with living quarters upstairs in a slightly prickly Victorian style. The upraised arm on the corner makes it look as though the building is trying to hail a streetcar.
The inscription has been obliterated, which is not playing fair. But the building appears on a 1901 plat map as belonging to someone named Kissner; it was probably built in the 1890s.
This building has been neglected for decades, but it was solidly constructed and has suffered less than we might think from that neglect. It’s for sale right now, and it would be a splendid meeting hall for your lodge. All you have to do is found a lodge, and make sure to invite people with money to be your charter members.
Father Pitt took some pictures of this building back in 1999, and it is surprising how little it has changed since then—either for the better or for the worse.
Map.
Designed by Frederick Sauer, this school was called the Latimer School after Allegheny was conquered by Pittsburgh. It was built in 1898.
In the 1980s it was converted to apartments under the name “The School House.” As far as old Pa Pitt knows, this was the first major conversion of a disused school to apartments in the city, and it showed that the idea was viable.
The school was converted to apartments in the age of Postmodernism, and the designer of this canopy cleverly made it a kind of abstracted projection of the original entrance. Father Pitt caught the fabric part of the canopy on a bad hair day.
The North Avenue side.
Map.
This church has a complicated history. It was built as the Tenth United Presbyterian Church. In 1940, it was sold to the Catholic Diocese and became Mary Immaculate Church, the Italian parish in Dutchtown. It went through several parish mergers and names—Our Lady, Queen of Peace, being the most recent—before being sold again, and today it serves as Jonah’s Call Anglican Church. The original church is a typical Pittsburgh corner-tower Protestant church, but the Catholics made it their own with some fine sculpture, to which the Anglicans fortunately have no objection. The Catholic congregation also moved the main entrance, which had been in the tower; the old entrance made a good frame for the Blessed Virgin.
Built for a German Reformed congregation, Imanuel Evangelical Church later became a Methodist church, and then an art gallery. This is another city church with the sanctuary upstairs.
The inscription on the front tells us that the church was built in 1859 and rebuilt in 1889. Father Pitt does not know how extensive the rebuilding was, but he might guess that the ground-floor windows on the side, with their angular Gothic arches, were from the 1859 building. The carved stonework ornaments probably date from 1889.
Whenever old Pa Pitt looks into Romanesque foliage and sees somebody looking back at him, he suspects our master of Romanesque grotesqueries, Achille Giammartini.
The Parkway North just missed this building when it tore Dutchtown in two.
A well-preserved pair of houses with a breezeway between them and an old-fashioned storefront. The corner store preserves some memories of the time when it sold auto parts.
On the corner of North Avenue and Middle Street stands this small but imposing German Lutheran church, built in 1877. Father Pitt is fairly sure the Lutherans have gone, though the church site (last updated in 2010) is still on line. The Urban Impact ministry remains.
“St. Matthew’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church, built 1877.”
Connoisseurs of such things will note that this is a church with the sanctuary upstairs.
The hefty tower was added in a burst of prosperity about 25 years after the church was built.
Meanwhile, just across narrow Middle Street was a different kind of Lutheran church. And although old Pa Pitt gave this article a humorous headline, he is fairly sure there was no battle. Pittsburgh learned the virtue of tolerance: those other Lutherans across the street may be completely wrong about everything that is most important in life, but they’re our neighbors, and we wave to them when we see them on the street.
St. Mark’s was built in 1892. After its Lutheran congregation left, it was a Church of God in Christ until a few years ago. It has recently been expensively refurbished and painted black (it used to be painted brick red). Old Pa Pitt has not heard who was responsible for the refurbishing, but all the stained glass was removed, which is often the sign of a Pentecostal congregation moving in.
Except for the loss of the glass, the church is in very good shape externally, and it is a fine example of Pittsburgh Rundbogenstil—the round-arched German style that mixes classical and Romanesque elements.
A “hotel” in the common Pittsburgh sense had rooms for rent, but probably expected to make most of its money from the bar downstairs. The rooms were there because it was much easier to get a liquor license for a hotel than for a bar or restaurant. Both these hotels were on backstreet corners in Allegheny. Above, the Hotel Reeg at the corner of Tripoli (originally Third) Street and Middle Street.
We can just make out the ghosts of the letters that used to spell out “Hotel Reeg.” But it helped that old Pa Pitt was able to guess that it looked like a hotel, and that the name “Geo. Reeg” appears as property owner on old plat maps.
The Hotel Rahn, a block away at the corner of Suismon (originally Second) and Middle streets, is still very active. The rooms upstairs may be apartments now, but the restaurant and bar are a Dutchtown landmark: Max’s Allegheny Tavern, one of Pittsburgh’s top spots for German food.
This was called Perry’s Hall when it was built in 1898, according to a historic marker on the side. A retail store occupied the ground floor; the second floor was used for lodge meetings—a common arrangement in lodge buildings. Thus the rather grand side entrance, which would lead directly to the stairs up to the meeting hall.
By the 1920s, we see on the plat maps that the building was in use as an International Socialist Lyceum—which makes a much grabbier headline than “Perry’s Hall,” don’t you think?
We notice, incidentally, that the small frame buildings next door are marked as belonging to “F. Fabian.” We wonder whether that is a misunderstanding, and the property really belonged to the American Fabian Society, or whether it is one of those amusing coincidences in which history abounds but which would be too implausible for a novelist to invent.
In more recent times, the building was the site of the lamented James Street Tavern, a venue for traditional jazz, for many years. It has just been splendidly restored, and the owner is offering it for lease. So there is no reason it could not be an International Socialist Lyceum again. All it needs is a socialist with enough money.
Built in 1888 to house the priests from the adjacent St. Mary’s Church, this is now the Priory Hotel.
