Some late-fall color along Craig Street in Oakland.
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Fall Colors at Schenley House, Oakland
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Hamerschlag Hall from a Distance
The lantern of Hamerschlag Hall seen across the rooftops from the other end of Oakland.
Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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Trio of Small Apartment Buildings on Neville Street, Oakland
Father Pitt is not sure whether these three buildings were originally built as apartments or as single houses, but he is almost positive they were built as rental properties. Old maps tell a clear story: at some point a little before 1910, T. Herriott, who owned a house to the right of these buildings (where the Mark Twain Apartments are now), bought his neighbor’s large lot, demolished the frame house on it, and had these three buildings put up, which he continued to own at least through 1923. They obviously had porches, since the scars where the porch roofs were removed are covered with vertical clapboards.
The Flemish-bond brickwork is arranged with the headers in a different color, so that it looks surprisingly like Wikipedia’s color-coded diagram of Flemish bond:
Brickwork in Flemish bond, by Jonathan Riley, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. 
Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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Modern Apartments on Neville Street, Oakland
In the boom years after the Second World War, new housing couldn’t be built fast enough to satisfy the demand. Architects were busy, and modernism was the rage. The Mark Twain and the Stephen Foster brought clean modern lines to Neville Street and doubtless filled up as soon as they were opened to eager renters.
Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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Cranes, Cranes, Cranes
Nikon COOLPIX P100. A typical view of Oakland: cranes as far as the eye can see. The building going up in the near distance will be student apartments.
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Victorian Survivor on Neville Street, Oakland
As this part of what used to be Bellefield turned into an apartment district, a few old houses remained here and there, turned into apartments. This one suffered less alteration than most, and its splendid curved porch hints at the leisurely exurban atmosphere of Victorian Bellefield.
Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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Apartment Entrances on Bayard Street, Oakland
Designers of apartment buildings often put a lot of effort into the entrances, because the entrance is what sells the idea of the building. You are, after all, trying to make prospective tenants think this is where they want to live. You will walk through these doors, a good entrance says, and you will feel like a duke walking into his palace. In one short stretch of Bayard Street this morning, we collected several artistic entrances, beginning with the Adrian above, at which no duke would turn up his nose.
The Aberdeen is almost as splendid, an effect slightly diminished by installing stock doors at the entrance and balcony.
There are two King Edward Apartments (plus an annex around the corner); this is the older of the two.
The later King Edward is covered with terra cotta, and its bronze doors are themselves works of art.
Bayard Manor has the kind of late-Gothic entrance that would make you feel you had done your best if you were expecting a visit from Queen Elizabeth I.
The D’Arlington is an interesting combination of classical and Prairie Style, with both baroque and abstractly geometric ornaments coexisting comfortably at the entrance.
Kodak EasyShare Z981. Finally, a later building that does not quite succeed in competing with its neighbors, but still provides a respectable-looking entry.
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Elizabeth Steel Magee Hospital
Correction: In an earlier version of the article, old Pa Pitt had a lapse of memory and attributed the design to Edward Stotz instead of T. E. Billquist. His apologies are offered to Mr. Billquist.
Much of the original Magee Hospital, designed by Thorsten E. Billquist,1 is still standing, but so many additions have grown up around the buildings that we can only catch occasional glimpses of them. While old Pa Pitt was paying a visit to someone in the hospital, he noticed this view in an interior courtyard. Magee Hospital merged with Pittsburgh Woman’s Hospital to form Magee-Womens Hospital, now UPMC Magee-Womens. Eventually, if UPMC expands its empire enough, it will be able to afford an apostrophe.
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Renovating the Natatorium Building, Oakland
The last time Father Pitt took a picture of the Natatorium Building, later the Strand Theatre, was ten years ago. Since then tenants have come and gone, and murals have appeared on the side. When old Pa Pitt walked past recently, some internal construction was going on, suggesting that the building is getting ready for its next adventure.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. The architect of the original building, put up in 1907, was R. B. Melvin, who designed the high-class bathhouse with obvious references—especially in the arch over the entrance—to the Baths of Caracalla. Later, the building was remodeled as a movie theater by architect George Schwan.
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St. Mary Memorial Protestant Episcopal Church, Oakland
It feels like a little old country church in the middle of the city—and indeed, when this church was built in 1899, it was in the middle of a wide open space, with only two other houses on this block of the newly constructed McKee Place. By 1910, the block had filled in with apartment buildings and other accoutrements of city life, but the gated front yard of this church still leaves an impression of village serenity.
The church has been a school more recently, and now appears to be turning into apartments.
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