Views of the roof of Hampton Hall, a large Tudor apartment building in Oakland designed by H. G. Hodgkins. We also have views of the entrance and courtyard, the lobby, and the front and a perspective view.
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The Roof of Hampton Hall, Oakland
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Sony Alpha 3000.
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Entrance to Hampton Hall, Oakland
Hampton Hall is a grand Tudor apartment palace in Oakland designed by the Chicago architect H. G. Hodgkins.
A while ago one of the residents mentioned to old Pa Pitt that the long canopy that usually leads from the courtyard entrance to the street had come down for work, which—our correspondent pointed out—would make some of the previously hidden details accessible to a camera. Here, from about two and a half years ago, is how the canopy usually looks:
And here is the courtyard without the canopy:
Father Pitt ended up spending an hour or more taking pictures all over the building, and since he has so many pictures, he will split them into multiple articles to avoid wearying his visitors. Today we see the courtyard and the main entrance.
Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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King Edward Apartments, Oakland
This is the newest of the three-building complex: the original King Edward Apartments, the King Edward Annex, and this King Edward, built in 1930. Walter Perry of Chicago was the architect of this palatial addition to John McSorley’s empire of apartment buildings. It was front-page news on and off when it was new, and not in a good way: some miscalculation in the surveying seems to have ended with a few inches of this building encroaching on the property to the left. That property owner was a cantankerous and litigious sort who refused all McSorley’s offers for the land; it seems he was hoping for a big payout if he went to court. To forestall the lawsuit, McSorley had a crew start chiseling several inches of brick off the end of the building—but then the property owner claimed he was trespassing and got an injunction to stop the work.
Just to make sure that the temporary injunction handed down in common pleas court yesterday is observed, agents for the property at 214-216 North Craig street erected another barricade to keep workmen from chipping bricks off the north wall of the King Edward apartments addition. The workmen lost in their race to forestall a lawsuit because the addition encroaches several inches onto the other property and Judge H. H. Rowand ordered them not to trespass. The new barricades are shown above. Damage done by falling bricks to the roof and awning of the duplex may be seen in the picture.
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Galliot Center for Newman Studies
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. As seen from the roof of Hampton Hall. The architect was David J. Vater; the building was put up in 2007.
We also have more pictures from ground level.
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Row of Houses on Dithridge Street, Oakland
This row of seven houses presents a pleasingly varied streetscape, but the houses were clearly all part of the same development. Old Pa Pitt is fairly sure the architects were Rieger & Currier, and for the obsessive historians in the readership, here is his evidence. In the Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide for February 27, 1901, p. 136, we find this item:
Rieger & Currier, Smith Building, have prepared plans for four brick dwellings to be erected on Ditheridge [sic] street for Mr. J. Friday.
A plat map from about 1903 shows that J. Friday owned land along Dithridge Street on which at least eleven houses, some possibly doubles, were built. Three were on the east side of the street where the Latter Day Saints church is now. The others were on the west side and still stand. Numbers 229–253, part of the Friday property, clearly form a group, and probably the only group in which four houses could have been built together at one time. If we assume that they were built in one group of three and one group of four, these are all Rieger & Currier houses.
The houses have been divided into apartments, and a couple of them have had porch amputations or reductions, but on the whole the look of the row is well preserved.
And now a bonus house, just past the Friday row, a fine center-hall house in the free turn-of-the-twentieth-century version of Georgian.
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
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Galliot Center for Newman Studies
David J. Vater designed this distinctive Gothic building, built in 2007 from modern materials in a style we might call “postmodern Gothic.” It’s the home of the National Institute for Newman Studies, one of those fascinating cultural treasures few Pittsburghers even know about. The Institute is devoted to the study of the works and teachings of John Henry Newman (1801–1890), an English convert to Roman Catholicism who rose to become a cardinal in the Catholic Church. In 2019, Newman was canonized as a Catholic saint, and just three months ago (on November 1, 2025) he was declared a Doctor of the Church, one of only 38 people so far whose teachings are regarded as so extraordinarily important that they merit that title.
The arms of Cardinal Newman, with his motto: Cor ad cor loquitur—“Heart speaks to heart.”
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Oakland
George S. Orth was the architect of this school, one of the first large institutional buildings in the Oakland district. It was built in 1894, and it still serves its original institution.
The style is a sort of Flemish Renaissance filtered through Americanized Rundbogenstil. The horizontal stripes in the brickwork are such an instantly distinctive feature that they have been imitated in the school’s modern additions.
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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First Baptist Church, Oakland
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Alley Houses on Halket Place, Oakland
Kodak EasyShare Z981. In the shadows of the ever-encroaching university and hospital buildings, these tiny rowhouses still survive in a little alley in the back streets of Oakland.
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Arts-and-Crafts House in Oakland
Except for the replaced and filled-in porch, this house is in remarkably good shape, with most of its characteristic details intact. By chance the Pittsburgh City Photographer happened to capture it on May 27, 1910, while it was still under construction, so we can compare its current state to what it looked like when it was new.
Detail from “Coltart at Louisa” by the Pittsburgh City Photographer, May 27, 1910. 
Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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