Father Pitt

Category: Sculpture

  • Forgotten Hero of the Spanish-American War

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    Everything old Pa Pitt remembers about Col. Alexander Leroy Hawkins is inscribed on the Spanish-American War Monument in Schenley Park. No one seems to think of him today, but he was obviously all the rage in 1899, when he died at sea. He was a hero of the Spanish-American War; he died during the the subsequent Philippine Insurrection, when the ungrateful natives, entirely disregarding the proven fact that the United States was a much nicer colonial power than Spain, attempted to set up their own republican government on their own terms, forcing the Americans to crush all resistance in order to guarantee them a republican form of government.

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    Click on the picture to enlarge it.

    Mark Twain was one of the most vocal opponents of “American imperialism,” and he used the now-familiar term “quagmire” to describe our involvement in the Philippines:

    I have tried hard, and yet I cannot for the life of me comprehend how we got into that mess. Perhaps we could not have avoided it—perhaps it was inevitable that we should come to be fighting the natives of those islands—but I cannot understand it, and have never been able to get at the bottom of the origin of our antagonism to the natives. I thought we should act as their protector—not try to get them under our heel. We were to relieve them from Spanish tyranny to enable them to set up a government of their own, and we were to stand by and see that it got a fair trial. It was not to be a government according to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for the United States. But now—why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater.

  • Catholic Deco

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    Click on the image to enlarge it.

    North Catholic High School in Troy Hill was built in 1940. Its greatest claim to distinction is the set of unique reliefs by Charles Bradley Warren illustrating “The Pursuit of Knowledge.” “Unique” is a word thrown about with little regard for its etymological meaning, but here it seems descriptive. Where else will we find any similar combination of Catholic iconography, Art Deco style, and scientific progressivism? The reliefs are a little grimy from decades of heavy industry in the valley below, but they have lost none of their power to astonish a first-time visitor to Troy Hill.

    No, old Pa Pitt has not reversed one of the photographs. These are two different reliefs over doors on opposite sides of the building, identical except that they are mirror images of one another. In each relief, the monkish scientists gazing into the distance are turned to face a stunning view of the Allegheny valley and the city of Pittsburgh.

    Click on the image to enlarge it.
    Click on the image to enlarge it.

  • Tombstones of the Romantic Era

    “Romantic” is a vague term, but in the Allegheny Cemetery there is a certain class of tombstones for which no other adjective seems appropriate. Asymmetry and an imitation in stone of forms from the vegetable kingdom are their distinguishing traits.

    Wilkins stump

    The Wilkins family monument crosses the line from simple romanticism into morbid romanticism. It depicts the Wilkins family as a tree trunk, with each deceased member as a branch cut off from the trunk. The metaphor, if carried to its logical conclusion, suggests that the family is extinct, leaving nothing but a dead stump. But someone must have paid for that monument, which is really quite colossal in person.

  • A Prosperous Oriental Merchant

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    This is the face of a Middle Eastern trader as imagined a century ago by sculptors who had doubtless read the Arabian Nights in the popular Victorian translation. It adorns what Pittsburghers know as the Gimbel’s building, because it held the Gimbel’s department store for more than fifty years.

  • Robert Burns and Phipps Conservatory

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    Robert Burns stands guard in front of the Victoria Room at Phipps Conservatory. Schenley Park is full of unexpected statues around every corner.

  • Panther on the Panther Hollow Bridge

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    Giuseppe Moretti, Pittsburgh’s best and most consistently employed sculptor, gave us the four stalking panthers that frame the Panther Hollow Bridge behind Phipps Conservatory in Oakland. You can see his signature below this panther’s right hind leg.

  • Dolphin Fountain by Frank Vittor

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    In the 1930s, the great Frank Vittor, who had absorbed more than a little of the Art Deco spirit, designed the standard drinking fountain for Pittsburgh city parks. The main design, appropriately enough, was a classical dolphin (which looks nothing like a real dolphin). A surprising number of the original run of fifty fountains remain; this one is outside the Schenley Park visitor center, across the drive from Phipps Conservatory. They have recently been fitted with pushbutton valves (they used to run continuously), but otherwise they remain almost unaltered from Vittor’s original design.

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  • Ornaments on Heinz Hall

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    These ornaments in relief adorn the exterior of Heinz Hall, formerly the Loew’s Penn movie palace, and now home to the Pittsburgh Symphony. The creation of this first-rate concert hall began the long transformation of the decaying theater district into the bustling and lively cultural attraction it is today.

    Heinz Hall is a short walk around the corner from the Wood Street subway station.

  • Deco Romanesque

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    The County Office Building is a curious combination of Romanesque and late Art Deco, with more than a hint of the style Father Pitt likes to call American Fascist. Below, an eagle ornament on the corner holds the Allegheny County arms in its talons. On the arms: a ship, a plough, and three sheaves of grain (though they look like mushrooms in concrete).

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    The County Office Building is a short walk away from the First Avenue subway station.

  • St. Richard Caliguiri

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    For ten years from 1978 to 1988, Richard Caliguiri (pronounced, in defiance of all orthography, “Cal-i-JOOR-ee”) was mayor of Pittsburgh. During that time, even though the steel industry collapsed and hundreds of thousands of jobs vanished, downtown Pittsburgh went through the most prosperous period in its history. In 1988, he died of Pennsylvania Politician’s Disease, otherwise known as amyloidosis, just before the prosperity ended, assuring his canonization as the most beloved mayor in the city’s history. This statue by the famous portraitist Robert Berks stands on the steps of the City-County Building. He’s looking over a map of his beloved Golden Triangle, a map that changed considerably during his time in office.