Father Pitt

Category: Scott Township

  • St. Ignatius de Loyola Church, Glendale

    St. Ignatius de Loyola Church

    Glendale is a semi-urban neighborhood of Scott Township, just outside Carnegie, that was heavily Polish. The center of social life was St. Ignatius de Loyola parish, which until 1952 was housed in a combined school and church building. In that year the school burned. Fortunately the parish had the resources to build on a much larger scale. The result was a beautiful late-Gothic church and a separate school building. Although the Catholic parish is gone now, the buildings are still in use as the Red Balloon Early Learning Center.

    The church was designed by Ermes Brunettini, whose simple but traditional church bridges the gap between Gothicism and modernism.1

    Entrance

    The front of the church was once adorned with a crucifix by Oakmont sculptor Louis Vergobbi, but it was taken away, along with most of the stained glass by the Henry Hunt studio, when the Catholic congregation moved out. All that remains is the cherub that served as the base.

    Cherub
    Angel

    Angels by Vergobbi still guard the two towers.

    Angel
    Angel
    Angel
    Angel praying
    Tower
    Tower
    St. Ignatius School

    The school is in a more straightforwardly modernist idiom, but the stone matches the stone of the church. Since it was built at the same time as the church, it is very probable that Brunettini was the architect of the school as well, along with the additions to the convent. The architect’s drawing shows that, except for new tinted windows, very little about the outside of the school has changed.

    Rendering of St. Ignatius School
    Convent

    The convent was originally a splendid Queen Anne mansion, the Dr. Henry House. It was expanded with additions that match the architecture of the church (and fight noisily with the architecture of the house), including a chapel with a round apse.

    Convent
    Tower and eyebrow dormer

    The roofline of the original house still sticks up behind the large additions in front, including the tower with balcony and a Richardsonian eyebrow dormer.

    Tower with balcony
    Convent
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church, Scott Township

    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church

    This little country church in the village of Woodville kept going when its neighbor, Old St. Luke’s, was abandoned and crumbling. But now the tables are turned: Old St. Luke’s has been gradually restored and is now associated with a rich Episcopalian congregation, whereas the Presbyterians have given up—and their building has been bought by the owners of Old St. Luke’s. It is now officially the Annex of Old St. Luke’s Church.

    Rear of the church
    Chartiers Valley Presbyterian Church
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Clark High School, Scott Township

    Clark High School

    Just outside Carnegie on Washington Avenue, this school opened in the fall of 1935. It was designed in a bracingly modern style by Mount Lebanon architect J. Lawrence Hopp, who designed a number of other schools in nearby suburbs. It has been an office building for quite a while now, but the alterations to the exterior have not been severe, as we can see from a 1950 photograph of students trying their hands at rescue techniques.

    Rescue drills at Clark High School, Scott Township
    Photo by Post-Gazette photographer Paul Slantis, from Historic Pittsburgh (go there to see it in full resolution).

    A certain number of students were probably lost every time these drills were performed, but that is the price we pay for preparedness.

    Entrance

    Some history of the building and all the yearbooks are at the Chartiers Valley Historical Society page on Clark High School.

    1100 Washington Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Woodland Stream

    Stream in the Kane Woods

    Along the Tom the Tinker Trail in the Kane Woods Nature Area.

    Waterfall

  • Along the Tom the Tinker Trail

    The Tom the Tinker Trail runs beside a gurgling stream through a narrow valley in the Kane Woods Nature Area. The trail is named for a fictional character in the Whiskey Rebellion: farmers who paid the whiskey tax would receive threatening notes signed “Tom the Tinker.”

    Yes, there is a manhole cover in the middle of this idyllic scene. A sewer line runs down the hill through the stream valley.

    All through the woods we can see evidence that there was once a little community tucked into this narrow valley. Above, a ruined foundation clings to the side of the gorge.

  • Waterfalls in the Autumn Woods

    Along the Tom the Tinker Trail in the Kane Woods Nature Area.

  • Abandoned Homesite in the Woods

    A long-abandoned homesite in the Kane Woods Nature Area in Scott Township. You can recognize it by the ornamental plantings now run wild—or, if not, the crumbling steps are a dead giveaway.

  • Early Fall in the Woods

    Leaves are starting to turn along the Liberty Trail, Kane Woods Nature Area, Scott Township.

    Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

  • A Walk in the Woods

    A stroll through the dappled shade of the Kane Woods Nature Area, Scott Township.

    Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

  • Waterfalls in the Kane Woods

    Not all the waterfalls were frozen. These were moving, and we present them with sound—just two minutes of water burbling through the winter forest.