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.
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.
Finally, a later building that does not quite succeed in competing with its neighbors, but still provides a respectable-looking entry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Frederick Sauer was probably the architect of these rather German-looking houses. They were built as rental properties on land that belonged to developer John Dimling, and in every case where we have found an architect listed for a Dimling project, it is always Frederick Sauer.
It is a little hard to tell how the right end of the row looked originally. Alterations that look as though they were made in the 1970s have obscured the original design, which—with its curved corner—would have been something interesting.
The McCormick Company, a firm that seems to have specialized in buildings for the food industry, designed this beloved landmark on the Boulevard of the Allies. It was built in 1929 for Isaly’s, a chain of dairy-delicatessen-restaurants that had begun in Ohio but took over the Pittsburgh market in a big way. At its peak, there was an Isaly’s in just about every neighborhood business district. This building had a big Isaly’s restaurant on the ground floor.
Today the building is given over to medical offices, but the Art Deco details are still well preserved.
This striking design was by Janssen & Abbott, and it shows Benno Janssen developing that economy of line old Pa Pitt associates with his best work, in which there are exactly the right number of details to create the effect he wants and no more. The row was built in about 1913.1 The resemblance to another row on King Avenue in Highland Park is so strong that old Pa Pitt attributes that row to Janssen & Abbott as well.
These houses are not quite as well kept as the ones in Highland Park. They have been turned into duplexes and seem to have fallen under separate ownership, resulting in—among other alterations—the tiniest aluminum awnings old Pa Pitt has ever seen up there on the attic dormers of two of the houses.
Nevertheless, the design still overwhelms the miscellaneous alterations and makes this one of the most interesting terraces in Oakland.
The Bayard Street face of Bayard Manor. Yes, that odd little half-timbered projection on the roof really is skewed in relation to this side of the building. That is because Craig Street and Bayard Street do not meet at exactly a right angle; the roof projection (it probably holds elevator mechanics) is oriented at right angles to every side of the building except the Bayard Street front.
More pictures of the Bayard Street front of Bayard Manor, the main entrance, and the Craig Street side.
