The rear of St. Bernard Church, as seen from the St. Clair Cemetery.
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St. Bernard Church and School, Mount Lebanon
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Uptown Mount Lebanon
The whole of Uptown, the central business district of Mount Lebanon, was included last year in a new Mount Lebanon Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The district was designated as an outstanding example of an early automobile suburb of the 1920s, but the automobile was only half the story. Until the middle 1980s, streetcars ran down the middle of Washington Road; now they run under part of Mount Lebanon in a subway tunnel, emerging behind the business district with stairway and elevator access to the middle of everything. The ideal automobile suburb is one in which an automobile is not a necessity.
Camera: Canon PowerShot S45. The streetscape above and the picture of the Rosalia building are composites.
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Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building
Mount Lebanon is a township, technically speaking; but it feels more like a city of its own. Post-Gazette columnist Peter Leo always referred to it as “the Great State of Mount Lebanon,” which sums up how Pittsburghers think Mount Lebanese think of themselves. The central business district is “uptown”—a word that means an area outside downtown in most cities (even Pittsburgh itself), but in southwestern Pennsylvania usually means a downtown area that happens to be on a hilltop. Uptown and the surrounding area is now a national historic district, and this 1930 Art Deco building is one of its gems: it is the masterpiece of its architect, William Henry King, Jr.
A decade-old article from the Trib has quite a bit of good information about the building.
Camera: Canon PowerShot S45. The picture of the whole building above is a composite of four photographs.
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Deer Tracks in the Snow
Late-afternoon sunshine highlights deer tracks through the snow in a little glen in Mount Lebanon.
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Art Deco in Mount Lebanon
“Uptown” Mount Lebanon is a fine example of a 1920s streetcar suburb. (In southwestern Pennsylvania, the central business district of a town is often called “Uptown” if it’s on a hill.) There is more Art Deco here than anywhere else in the Pittsburgh area, except perhaps East Liberty.
