The South Side Slopes give us excellent views of the Oakland skyline. We’ve already seen the point of view from St. Michael’s Cemetery; now here is the view from Mission Street a little to the east and halfway down the hill. Click on the picture to see a good bit of detail.
This seems to have been the masterpiece of its architects, the Chicago firm of Egan & Prindeville; indeed, the only other work of theirs mentioned in their Wikipedia article is a cathedral in San Francisco that burned in 1962. If they have to be remembered for only one work, though, this is one to be proud of. It was built in 1906, but—like all great cathedrals—it is really only beginning to take shape more than a century later. It takes a heap of liturgy to make a church a cathedral, and chapels and decorations continue to be added by successive bishops.
The Rectory is designed in a matching but more restrained Gothic style.
Addendum: According to the article “Designing in God’s Name: Architect Carlton Strong,” the rectory (built in 1926–1927) was designed by Thomas Carlton Strong, who also designed Sacred Heart Church in Shadyside.
The cluster of buildings by Charles Z. Klauder at the heart of the University of Pittsburgh is one of America’s great architectural treasures. This chapel comes from the very end of the era in which architecture could be thought of in terms of the ages rather than this decade. Klauder—who died just before the chapel opened—seems as comfortable with his French Gothic idiom as if he had grown up in France in the late Middle Ages.
Webster Hall was designed by Henry Hornbostel, Pittsburgh’s favorite architect in the early twentieth century. It was built as a luxury hotel [Update: in fact it was originally bachelor apartments, but that venture soon failed, and it was converted to a hotel] in 1926, and we can see Hornbostel moving from his flamboyant classical style (as exemplified in the City-County Building) to a sort of restrained Art Deco.
A 61C bus comes eastbound on Forbes Avenue toward the stop in front of the Carnegie Museum of Art. In the background we can see central Oakland, with two of the three Litchfield Towers, the distinctive cylindrical skyscraper dormitories.
Central Oakland as seen from St. Michael’s Cemetery in the South Side Slopes.
In old-postcard colors, a view of the front steps of St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland.
Two panoramas of the Oakland medical-intellectual district. Above, from Panther Hollow Bridge; below, from Schenley Park near the Oval. They are very large if you click on them.
This is not the largest but one of the most splendid apartment buildings in the North Oakland apartment district. It is a curious trapezoidal shape, crammed into a lot that is not quite rectangular and using up every inch of it.
There are some stitching errors in this very large composite photograph, and old Pa Pitt is too lazy to fix them.
