Father Pitt

Category: North Side

Allegheny High School

Allegheny High School, now the Allegheny Traditional Academy, has a complicated architectural history involving two notable architects at three very different times.

From Art work of Pittsburgh, part 3 (Chicago: W. H. Parish, 1893), with thanks to “Camerafiend” for making the picture available.

The original 1893 Allegheny High School on this site was designed by Frederick Osterling in his most florid Richardsonian Romanesque manner. This building no longer exists, but the photograph above gives us a good notion of the impression it made. The huge entrance arch is particularly striking, and particularly Osterling; compare it with the Third Avenue entrance of the Times Building, also by Osterling.

In 1904, the school needed a major addition. Again Osterling was called on, but by this time Richardsonian Romanesque had passed out of fashion, and Osterling’s own tastes had changed. The Allegheny High School Annex still stands, and Osterling pulled off a remarkable feat: he made a building in modified Georgian style that matched current classical tastes while still being a good fit with, and echoing the lines of, the original Romanesque school.

The carved ornaments on the original school were executed by Achille Giammartini, and we would guess that he was brought back for the work on the Annex as well.

A war memorial on the front of the Annex. Twenty-two names are inscribed. Everyone who went to Allegheny High in those years knew someone who was killed in the Great War.

By the 1930s, the school was too small again. The original school was torn down, and Marion Steen, house architect for Pittsburgh Public Schools (and son of the Pittsburgh titan James T. Steen) designed a new Art Deco palace nothing like the remaining Annex. The two buildings do not clash, however, because there are very few vantage points from which we can see both at once.

The auditorium has three exits, each one with one of the three traditional masks of Greek drama above it: Comedy, Meh, and Tragedy.

The pictures of the masks were taken in 2014 with a Kodak EasyShare Z1485.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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May 8, 2025
International Harvester Building, North Side

International Harvester was a big maker of farm equipment, but also of trucks and sport utility vehicles before anyone knew that they were sport utility vehicles. This was the company’s facility in Pittsburgh, built right on the railroad near the North Side yards.

Fortunately the building was never abandoned—it later became the headquarters of the Harry Guckert Company—so that it was in good structural shape when it was converted to loft apartments about two years ago, as we read in this article at Next Pittsburgh. The building is now on the National Register of Historic Places. According to a draft of the nomination, the architect was August C. Wildmanns.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

Map.

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April 17, 2025
Lake Elizabeth, Winter and Summer

Lake Elizabeth in West Park on the North Side. Above, just a few weeks ago. Below, in 1999.

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March 22, 2025
Presbyterian Hospital, Allegheny Center

Built in 1906, this was the main building of Presbyterian Hospital until it moved to vastly larger facilities in Oakland in the 1930s. The building was later part of Providence Hospital, and now is used for offices.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

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February 25, 2025
Arch Street, North Side

Arch Street, which is now included in the Mexican War Streets despite not bearing the name of a battle or a general, is a typical North Side combination of dense rowhouses, small apartment buildings, and backstreet stores. Here are just a few sights within one block of the street.

An exceptionally elaborate Queen Anne house whose owner has used bright but well-chosen colors to emphasize the wealth of detail on the front.

Two modest houses from before the Civil War; the brick house at left is dated 1842.

A small apartment building with a well-balanced classical front.

Some fine woodwork surrounds a front door.

The colorful dormer steals the show, but enlarge the picture to appreciate the terra-cotta grotesques on the cornice.

This little building looks as though it dates from the 1920s. Although it is quite different in style from its neighbors, it fits harmoniously by sharing the same setback and similar height.

A backstreet grocery that is currently functioning as a backstreet grocery—an unusual phenomenon in city neighborhoods these days. The apartment building above it has some interesting and attractive brickwork.

Sony Alpha 3000.

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February 24, 2025
Store and Apartments on North Charles Street, North Side

This section of North Charles Street has had at least four names. It began as Union Avenue; then it took on the name of Taggart Street, the continuation of the street to the south; then, when Allegheny was absorbed by Pittsburgh, Charles Street, the continuation of the street to the north and east, was renamed Taggart Street, to distinguish it from Charles Street on the Hill, which itself was soon renamed Elmore Street; and then for some reason the whole street was renamed Charles Street North, which has gradually turned into North Charles Street.

At any rate, under all its names, this used to be the central street of a narrow neighborhood in the valley or ravine leading up to Perry Hilltop. Whole streets crowded with little frame houses have disappeared, leaving occasional isolated survivors. This substantial brick building may go back as far as the 1870s, though if so it has been heavily altered; or it may have replaced another brick building of similar dimensions. Either way, it is an interesting building to look at, so we need no more excuse for publishing its picture.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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February 21, 2025
A Big Man’s Tiny 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.

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 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.

February 18, 2025
George Washington Memorial, Allegheny Commons

Edward Ludwig Albert Pausch was the sculptor of this monument, which Wikipedia tells us is his most ambitious work. It is meant to show Washington at the age of 23, when he was failing to keep the French out of Pittsburgh—although since Pausch modeled the face on the Houdon bust sculpted in 1785, our young colonel looks a bit old and weary for a 23-year-old.

As equestrian statues go, this one is not Father Pitt’s favorite. It is probably a very good one, but it strikes old Pa Pitt as stiffly posed. The pile of vegetative debris that holds the horse up by the stomach does not help; it makes George look like he’s posing on a carousel pony. Most equestrian statues stand on their own four legs—but then most are made of bronze. This one is in granite.

The monument was given by the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, a fraternal order for people who could prove they weren’t Catholic. The Jr. O. U. A. M. was a big deal a century or so ago, and the local group’s splendid building in Oakland still stands at 3400 Forbes Avenue.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Sony Alpha 3000.

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February 6, 2025
Masonic Hall, North Side

Bartberger & East were the architects of this Masonic Hall, which sat derelict and in danger of demolition for many years. (The Bartberger of the partnership was Charles M. Barberger, the younger of the two Charles Bartbergers.)¹ Now it is beautifully restored as a center of literary culture, which teaches us not to lose hope.

The building was put up in 1893, as you can tell by reading the super-secret Masonic code in terra cotta on the front: “A. L. 5893.” “A. L.” stands for anno lucis, “in the year of light,” a Masonic dating system that takes the creation of the world as its starting point. At the risk of suffering the fate of William Morgan, old Pa Pitt will reveal the secret calculation that converts A. L. dates to our Gregorian calendar: subtract 4000.

Like most lodge buildings of the time, this one had the main assembly hall upstairs, leaving rentable storefronts on the ground floor. The side entrance on Reddour Street, which led up to the main hall, is festooned with carvings by Achille Giammartini.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Sony Alpha 3000; FujiFilm FinePix HS10.

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February 4, 2025
Malta Temple, North Side

Built in 1927, this was a lodge for the Knights of Malta, one of those Masonic orders that old Pa Pitt has never sorted out. Most North Siders remember it as the Salvation Army building. It narrowly escaped demolition in 2008, and now it is in good shape again and ready for its next life.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Addendum: The architects were Beltz & Klicker, as we learn from their own drawing of the building as it was published in the Press on September 11, 1927.

“Knights of Malta bldg., now being erected at North ave. West, and Reddour st., Northside, one block west of Federal st., as it will appear when completed. The building and site will represent an expenditure of about $140,000. It is being erected by the four North Side Malta commanderies, numbering 1,200 members, who hope to have the new building ready for dedication about Christmas. The building committee consists of Arthur Stambaugh, Louis Falck, Albert Gawinske, and M. Landsdale. Beltz & Klicker were the architects.”

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January 31, 2025