These two Second Empire storefronts could use a bit of paint, but the buildings, which probably date from the 1880s, have kept most of their decorative detail. The bricks show that the ground-floor fronts of both sides have been rebuilt, but the one at right probably looks very close to the way it looked when the building was new, and it could be a good model for restoring the one at left.
Father Pitt knows nothing about this pair of storefronts other than what he can deduce from their appearance. The narrow dormers are typical of the middle nineteenth century; with their Italianate brackets and windows, these buildings look as though they were put up in the 1870s, or possibly the 1860s. On the whole they are in a very good state of preservation. Now that Sharpsburg is filling up with art galleries and breweries, perhaps they can be profitably restored.
It looks as though this commercial block in Sharpsburg was built in two stages. The date stone would have been in the center of the original building, making a neatly symmetrical composition; it might have had some eruption of ornament behind it where the blank spot is in the cornice. Later, the building was extended by two bays to the right, nearly identical in design, but breaking the symmetry, and without the terra-cotta ornaments between the second and third floors. It also appears that the bricks are very slightly different in color, perhaps from a different source.
The date stone would have told us when the original building was put up, but at some point a new owner decided to obliterate the evidence of the old one.
At least the terra-cotta decorations remain.
Sharpsburg has a shortage of street names. There is Main Street, and North Main Street, and South Main Street; and North Canal Street and South Canal Street and Short Canal Street. The town is crammed into a tiny narrow strip along the Allegheny, but it is still easy to get lost.
Here is a hint for institutions finding themselves in possession of distinguished historic buildings that are crumbling a bit at the cornice: when the low-bidding contractor says, “Sure, I can fix that…”
…see what the second-lowest-bidding contractor has to offer.
The building is still in use as a school, now for special education. We note that it has been modified to suit the modern discovery that natural light poisons children’s blood.
The ground floor of this building has been turned into a garage, but without losing too much of the character of the façade. The date stone tells us that the building was put up in 1889.
Probably a little later, but not too much later, a building went up to the left of this one, perhaps for the same owners.
This building appears on a 1906 map, which gives us a latest possible date. The style is somewhat different—we might call it Allegheny Valley Rundbogenstil—but the two buildings share some decorative details: the treatment of the cornice is the same, and the same flower-and-foliage ornaments (they look like a jonquil between acanthus leaves) are used on both buildings.
A well-preserved specimen of Victorian architecture on Main Street in Sharpsburg. The windows have been altered, but the storefront with its inset entrance is intact, and the decorative details of the upper floors have been kept—except for what was probably art glass in the attic.
Sharpsburg has a paucity of street names and has to double up on many of them. At the western end of the borough, Main Street splits into two Main Streets. On South Main Street we find two similar hotels from the 1890s, both in the kind of German classical-Romanesque hybrid style that old Pa Pitt has learned to call Rundbogenstil. “Hotel” meant “neighborhood bar with rooms for rent”; such hotels popped up in neighborhoods everywhere in our area, because it was much easier to get a liquor license for a hotel than for a bar.
First, the Lafayette Hotel (probably not its original name), which not only still has a lively and beloved bar on the ground floor, but even still has rooms for rent.
The date stone: built in 1896.
This probably tells us the initial of the original name of the hotel.
An oval stained-glass window.
A block away, we have the Sharpsburger Hotel, now apartments.
Built in 1893.
A bit of Romanesque carved foliage and a street sign that probably dates from the 1890s. Old Pa Pitt is collecting old street signs on the sides of buildings, by the way, which was the usual place for them in the 1800s. Both these hotels retain their corner signs.
With the approach ramps to the 62nd Street Bridge in the foreground.
It is sad to report that the last Lutheran congregation in Sharpsburg has thrown in the towel. (There were once three Lutheran churches: this English one and two German ones.) The good news, however, is that Sharpsburg is becoming a trendier neighborhood, and it will be worth adapting this distinctive building to some other use. It is a sort of Jacobean Gothic with more than a whiff of Art Nouveau.
An old firehouse converted to a commercial building on Main Street in Sharpsburg. It still has its bell.
Sharpsburg, including St. Mary’s Church, reflected in the windows.
