Father Pitt

Category: Point Breeze

  • Frick Park Gatehouse

    Frick Park gatehouse

    This looks exactly like the gateway to a world of sylvan rest and rustic pleasure that it was meant to be. In passing we note that the gatehouse is actually a building, with a room on either side of the gate: we used to have staff to sit here and tend to park visitors’ needs.

    Front of the gatehouse

    The architect was a big deal for such a small structure: John Russell Pope. He had some famous commissions in Washington (that’s Big Worshington to residents of the South Hills): the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, Constitution Hall, and the National Archives, among other buildings. In Pittsburgh he is best known for the colossal Winter mausoleum at Allegheny Cemetery.

    Map showing the location of this gatehouse.

  • The Little Phipps Conservatory at Clayton

    Conservatory at Clayton

    Henry Clay Frick really liked the Phipps Conservatory in Schenley Park when it went up in 1892. He liked it so well that he said, “I want one of those in my back yard,” and hired Alden & Harlow to design it. (You can do that when you’re a robber baron.) They gave him a miniature of Phipps Conservatory, with a central greenhouse large enough for substantial citrus trees.

    These pictures were taken in March of 2000 with a Kodak Pony 135.

    Conservatory

  • The Walled Garden in Mellon Park


    A panoramic view of the Walled Garden. Mellon Park was originally the Mellons’ back yard; the Walled Garden was designed by the landscape architects Vitale and Geiffert.

  • Frick Art Museum

    Until April 4, the Frick is hosting an exhibit called “Impressionist to Modernist: Masterworks of Early Photography.” The “early” part is debatable—the exhibit begins in the 1880s and concludes in the 1930s, by which time photography was already a century old. Father Pitt would call these works “middle” photography. There is no room for debate on the quality of the exhibit itself: all the artistic possibilities of photography as a medium are on display. It was enough to inspire old Pa Pitt to try some work in black and white, so here are some ducks:

    Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

    Well, it’s not Steichen, but Father Pitt liked the ripply reflections of cattail stalks.

  • Frick Park Gatehouse

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    The gatehouse to Frick Park, across from the Frick Art Museum, at Reynolds Street and Homewood Avenue.

  • Frick Art Museum

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    Helen Clay Frick built this charming Renaissance palace in her back yard to give the people of Pittsburgh a chance to admire her art collection. It’s a small collection—a Reynolds here, a Boucher there—but an extraordinarily rich one for its size. And in a city where the collective museum culture has decided that expensive admission fees are the rule, the Frick is always free.

  • Periwinkles in January

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    A periwinkle flower (Vinca minor) blooms in a front yard in Point Breeze, taking advantage of a short thaw.

     

  • Frick Park Gateway in the Snow

    The gateway to Frick Park at the Homewood Avenue circle, as it appeared in the gently falling snow this morning.

  • Frick Park Gatehouse

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    In the early evening, the Frick Park gatehouse at Reynolds Street and Homewood Avenue seems like the portal to an enchanted forest.

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    Click on the picture to enlarge it.

  • Museum as Art

    Frick Art Museum

    The Frick Art Museum in Point Breeze was built as a home for Helen Clay Frick’s art collection. It’s a small collection, but chosen with good taste–a Boucher here, a Reynolds there, and a roomful of priceless medieval religious art. The building itself is less than forty years old, but the timeless design could easily have been a Renaissance palace.