Father Pitt

Category: Shadyside

  • Tudor Duplexes in Shadyside and Beechview

    Woodside Dwellings

    This duplex in Beechview is one of a pair right beside the Westfield stop on the Red Line. It looked very familiar. Where had we seen it before?

    Duplex on Ellsworth at St. James Place

    This duplex is on Ellsworth Avenue in Shadyside, part of a group of duplexes on St. James Place and the adjacent side of Ellsworth Avenue. It is not identical to the one in Beechview, but so many of their parts are identical that the Beechview and Shadyside duplexes were obviously drawn by the same pen.

    Woodside Dwellings

    Above, a perspective view of one of the pair in Beechview, which is marked “Woodside Dwellings” on a 1923 map. It stands on Westfield Street, which was briefly called Woodside Avenue; the other of the pair was called “Suburban Dwellings” after the cross street, Suburban Avenue. Except for the loss of the Tudor half-timbering in the front gable, this one is very well preserved. (Suburban Dwellings has lost more details.)

    Below, a perspective view of one of the duplexes in Shadyside.

    Duplex on Ellsworth Avenue

    One of the details they share is a “No Outlet” sign. But we can see that the Shadyside duplexes are narrower and deeper than the Beechview ones. The same architect adapted as much of the same design as possible to the different dimensions of different lots.

    Four more of these duplexes stand on St. James Place, a little one-block side street running back to the cliff overlooking the railroad and busway.

    Duplex
    Tudor duplex

    This one has kept its original tile roof.

    Perspective view
    Another duplex
    Yet another

    A detail preserved by the one in Beechview is the Art Nouveau art glass with Jugendstil tulips.

    Art glass

    Old Pa Pitt does not yet know the architect of these Tudor duplexes. But if he had to make a wild guess, he would guess Charles Bier. The wide arches with strong verticals above, and the filtering of Tudor detailing through a German-art-magazine Art Nouveau sensibility, strongly remind us of Bier’s other works. There are other known works of Bier both in Shadyside and in the South Hills.

    In Shadyside, these Tudor duplexes are interspersed with Spanish Mission duplexes, showing once again that Tudor and Spanish Mission belong together.

    Duplex on Ellsworth Avenue
    Duplex on St. James Place

  • Holy Spirit Byzantine Catholic Church, Oakland

    Begun in 1960 and dedicated in 1962, this church was designed by the firm of Williams, Tribilcock, Whitehead and Associates1 in a modernist Byzantine style. And no one notices the architecture, because the church is deliberately oriented to display its huge and colorful mosaic triptych, “made entirely of genuine Venetian glass,” to traffic outbound on Fifth Avenue.

    The mosaic is a complete introduction to Christian theology. On the left, the Old Testament prophets who foretold Christ, with illustrations of their lives and visions; on the right, the Apostles who knew and were taught by Christ, with equally appropriate symbols; and in the center, the Trinity, up among the birds and airplanes.

    Some Old Testament prophets.
    A selection of Apostles.

    The mosaic has suffered some cracking over the years, but it is still a stunningly colorful sight to come across as one walks from Oakland toward Shadyside.

    The south-transept entrance features three aluminum-glazed onion domes served on an hors-d’œuvre tray.

    On city planning maps, the church is in Shadyside, but Pittsburghers have always considered the Oakland monumental district to begin at Rodef Shalom at the eastern end, and the church calls its neighborhood “Oakland,” and the post office places it in the Oakland postal code.

    1. The source for all our information is the “About Us” page on the Holy Spirit site. ↩︎

  • A Stroll Up Devonshire Street

    Georgian mansion and fence

    Today we are going to take a stroll up one block of Devonshire Street; and although it will be a short stroll, it will be a long article, because almost every single house on this block is an extraordinary mansion by some distinguished architect. Old Pa Pitt regrets that he does not know which architect for most of them, but he is feeling lazy today and has decided not to spend the rest of the day researching the histories of these houses. Instead, he will simply publish these pictures, which are worth seeing both for the houses themselves and for the poetic effect of the late-autumn landscapes, and will update the article later as more information dribbles in.

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  • Carron Street Baptist Church, Shadyside

    This beautiful and tasteful Colonial Revival church by the Beezer Brothers was featured in the December 15, 1900, issue of the American Architect and Building News. You search Google Maps for it in vain today, and you may be thinking what a shame it is that it disappeared.

    But it didn’t disappear. It’s still there.

    It looks a little more working-class now, but it’s recognizably the same building. Is there a tasteful and wealthy congregation looking for a church? This one is ripe for restoration.

  • Admiral Apartments, Shadyside

    Admiral Apartments

    Father Pitt has pictured this building before, but here are two more pictures. This would be an undistinguished modernist box except for the patterns in the bricks, which elevate the whole building to Art Deco and make it an ornament to its corner rather than an unfortunate relic of the middle twentieth century.

    Corner view

  • Liberty School Auditorium, Shadyside

    Auditorium of the Liberty School

    This splendid little auditorium combines the Jacobean style of the main school with a hint of Art Deco. Father Pitt does not yet know who designed the addition. The original school was a design by MacClure & Spahr, and we know that Benno Janssen designed additions to more than one MacClure & Spahr building; this would certainly be in the range of Janssen’s style.

  • Queen Anne House on Ellwood Street, Shadyside

    House on Ellwood Street

    This house was built, probably in the 1890s, as one of a row of four similar or identical houses. Of the other three, one was converted to a duplex and two to three-unit apartment buildings: this is the only one that remains as built. The ornamental woodwork is worth observing.

    Gable of the house with ornamental woodwork

  • Duplex on Highland Avenue, Shadyside

    The two sides of this duplex, which probably dates from the 1870s or 1880s, have gone their separate ways, but the whole building is well preserved. The demolition of a badly mutilated house next door gives us a chance to appreciate some of the details on the side of the house.

    This rear view shows us a very inartistic addition to the third floor of one side, which is fortunately invisible from the front.

  • Highland Building in Evening Sun

    The Highland Building looms behind the tiny shops of Ellsworth Avenue.

  • Garages in Shadyside, Coming and Going

    Carron Street Baptist Church

    Above is the old Carron Street Baptist Church, which as you might guess is on Carron Street. It has not been a church for quite a while, and it has gone through some substantial alterations on its way to becoming a garage, so old Pa Pitt is not quite sure whether it ought to be added to the collection of churches with the sanctuary upstairs, or whether it simply had a high basement. (Update: The answer is that it had a high basement. The church was designed by the Beezer Brothers, and we have found the architects’ original rendering.)

    From the church that became a garage we walk just about a block to the garage that became a high-class furniture store.

    Highland Garage

    This was the South Highland Garage, and as a work of architecture it is probably more distinguished than the Carron Street Baptist Church ever was. If you like, you may formulate your own sarcasm about the true American religion and our fitting sense of architectural priorities. But then you can remember that Calvary Episcopal Church and Sacred Heart are just a short stroll away, and your sarcasm will wither on your tongue.