Father Pitt

Category: Mexican War Streets

  • A Big Man’s Tiny House

    George Ferris House
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    This tiny house on Arch Street, which is now part of the Mexican War Streets Historic District, is one of the less distinguished houses from an architectural point of view. Crammed into a half-size lot beside a much larger house, it has nothing but a little plaque on the front to tell you that a great man once lived here. This was the home of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., when he invented the Ferris wheel.

    The great wheel was conceived as an answer to the Eiffel Tower. The Exposition Universelle in Paris had attracted the admiration of the world with the world’s tallest structure. Chicago was planning the World’s Columbian Exposition: what could possibly outdo the Eiffel Tower? George Ferris, until then a moderately successful engineer in Pittsburgh, designed the great wheel, and it was a success.

    The original Ferris Wheel

    A few numbers will show what a colossal construction this was. It had 36 cars. Each car had 40 seats, with room for 20 more people standing. Altogether, more than two thousand people could ride the Ferris Wheel at once.

    View through the Ferris Wheel
    View from one gondola to the gondolas on the other side of the wheel. Note the relative size of the people in the cars. (From the collection of the Brooklyn Museum.)

    The Lumiere Brothers, pioneer moviemakers, captured the wheel in motion in 1896.

    George Ferris never made much money from his great wheel; in fact he believed that the fair promoters had cheated him out of his share of the profits. In November of 1896, just three and a half years after the fair opened, Ferris died of typhoid fever. He never got rich enough to move out of this tiny house on Arch Street.

  • Stony Romanesque in the Mexican War Streets

    208 West North Avenue

    This stone-fronted Romanesque house on North Avenue is decorated with intricate carvings, and Father Pitt would guess that they were probably by Achille Giammartini, who was responsible for most of the best Romanesque decoration in Pittsburgh, and who also decorated the Masonic Hall just up the street.

    Romanesque capital
    Romanesque capital
    Romanesque capital
    Carved ornament and volute
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church, Mexican War Streets

    Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church

    R. Maurice Trimble designed this charming little church, which was finished in 1909. It is still in nearly original condition, and still owned by its original congregation.

    Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
    Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
    Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000.
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  • More Houses on North Avenue in the Mexican War Streets

    North Avenue at Palo Alto Street

    A couple of blocks of North Avenue, where we can see some fine Italianate houses of the Civil War era, interspersed with some towering Queen Anne mansions. We start at the corner of Palo Alto Street, where a Queen Anne house makes the most of a tiny lot by going up to a fourth floor.

    400 West North Avenue
    404 and 402

    These two houses share splendid porches, probably added later, since the porches match even though the houses do not. The owners of the houses have coordinated their efforts, so that the porches match.

    410–406

    Three more modest houses, though their full third floors give them a generous allotment of bedrooms.

    418 and 412

    A pair of houses that were both the peak of elegance in different eras. The Italianate one on the right goes for a simpler dignity; the Queen Anne on the left pulls out all the stops to make the most picturesque composition possible. Note the relative heights, by the way: high ceilings were a feature of the Italianate style in better houses, so that the house at left adds one more floor in exactly the same vertical height.

    Seventeen years ago, Father Pitt published a picture of the front door of the house on the right. The picture was taken on 120 film with a folding Agfa Isolette.

    412
    418
    502 and 500

    Two simple and attractive Italianate houses, one of which has grown a partial fourth floor.

    508 and 506

    Here is an interesting document of how the neighborhood has changed. The house at left was originally an Italianate residence; the corner store may have been original or may have been added later. The projecting commercial building next to it, which probably dates from about 1920, was added when the house was taken over by the United States Casket Company, later the Melia Casket Company, which still inhabited the building until about twelve years ago. Both buildings have had a thorough renovation since the casket-makers moved out.

    508
    516–512
    512 and 514

    Two different interpretations of Italianate, one of which has sprouted an inartistic dormer to give it a fourth floor.

    514 and 512
    516

    Finally, a center-hall house in a kind of late Greek Revival style; it occupies a double lot.

    516
    Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Front Doors of Monterey Street, Mexican War Streets

    1223 Monterey Street
    1409
    1220
    1220 woodwork
    1214
    1216
    Woodwork at 1216
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Tabernacle Cosmopolitan Baptist Church, Mexican War Streets

    Tabernacle Cosmopolitan Baptist Church
    Composite of three photographs.

    Evening sun paints the front of one of our most interesting churches—interesting both architecturally and historically. Father Pitt will admit that he is ignorant of most of the history, but perhaps a member of the congregation can fill in the rest.

    The building originally belonged to a Presbyterian church; it was probably constructed in the 1890s. The Presbyterian congregation, however, did not last much more than twenty-five years; by 1923, the building is marked as “Tabernacle Cosmopolitan Baptist Ch. (Colored),” and it has remained in the hands of that congregation for more than a century. The congregation appears to have moved to this building from a smaller church in the East Street Valley.

    When we look at this building, the thing that immediately strikes us is that there ought to be more church on top of it. Here is where Father Pitt does not know the whole story.

    On the one hand, congregations would often build a foundation and roof it over just enough to make it serviceable until the money could be raised to complete the superstructure. We have seen that in the church-turned-firehouse in Beechview, for example, and it could have happened here.

    But, on the other hand, a 1943 cornerstone tells us that there was a disastrous fire just before Christmas in 1936.

    Cornerstone: “Tabernacle Baptist Church, Organized April 29, 1874; destroyed by fire Dec. 22, 1936; rebuilt by its members in 1943; dedicated Dec. 19, 1943; Rev. L. G. McLeod, Pastor”

    It’s clear that the front of the church dates from the 1890s; this Romanesque detail would have been not just out of fashion but impossible in 1943. It could be that a higher roofline was destroyed by the fire, and the resourceful congregation made use of what was still standing and finished it off into the church that stands today.

    The building as it stands is a very good neighbor on its street. It is similar in height to the rowhouses that line the rest of the street, and it sits against the sidewalk at the same setback.

    Tabernacle Cosmopolitan Baptist Church
    Ornament

    Some of the carved stone ornament has decayed, though we can still make out the lacey foliage it was intended to be.

    Ornament
    Pinnacles
    Door
    Sony Alpha 3000 with a 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.

  • Buena Vista Street, Mexican War Streets

    East Side of Buena Vista Street

    Buena Vista Street is typical of the Mexican War Streets, which are themselves typical of many neighborhoods in the old city of Allegheny, though better preserved than most of the others. There are elegant middle-class rowhouses, churches, small shops, and small apartment buildings, all mixed side by side, as neighborhoods tended to develop in the age before zoning laws.

    1510 Buena Vista Street
    1518 Buena Vista Street
    Rowhouses in the Mexican War Streets
    Apartment building on Buena Vista Street
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    This small apartment building had its balconies filled in to make sunrooms early in its history, probably in the 1920s or thereabouts.

    Porches
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.

  • Ziegler Block, Mexican War Streets

    Ziegler Block
    Composite of six photographs.

    This substantial building in the narrow Mexican War Streets was probably put up in the 1890s; it belonged to I. Ziegler from the beginning of the twentieth century at least through 1923, and it was built on land marked as belonging to F. Ziegler in 1890. It is a whole little civilization unto itself, with a three substantial rowhouses, two storefronts, and apartments.

    1300–1306 Buena Vista Street
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
    Doorways
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.
    Lanterns
    Door to No. 1304
    Perspective view

  • Russell H. Boggs House, 1999

    Russell H. Boggs House

    This was the home of one of the founders of the famous Boggs & Buhl department store, which lasted until 1958. A few years after Father Pitt took this picture, this grand house was grandly restored and opened as “The Inn on the Mexican War Streets.” Before the restoration, it had been the parsonage of Trinity Lutheran Church next door, creating a curious spectacle of a parsonage considerably grander than its squat little modern church. But the house needed more maintenance than the church could afford: in fact the new owners spent more than a million dollars fixing the place up.

    If you look at this picture, you may have a vague impression that something is missing from this house; but unless you are in the architecture business it might take you ages to guess what it is. There are no gutters and no downspouts. It seems that Mr. Boggs had a thing about gutters. Instead, there is a remarkable internal drainage system that, when it works, carries runoff through the walls, and, when it is broken, pours runoff in a burbling cascade down the grand staircase. That is one of the reasons it took a million dollars to restore this house.

    Addendum: The architects were Longfellow, Alden & Harlow; the house was built in 1888.

  • Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church, Mexican War Streets

    A small but very tasteful church (finished in 1909) that faces the beautiful expanse of West Park across North Avenue. The architect, according to this brochure, was Robert Maurice Trimble, a native of Allegheny.