Father Pitt

Category: Sheraden

  • Beaux-Arts Terrace in Sheraden

    3118–3112 Bergman Street

    Thomas Scott designed this terrace of four houses, built in 1912,1 and they are kept in remarkably fine shape. The updates have been handled with taste and an understanding of the original style, so that today there is hardly a finer Beaux-Arts terrace of cheap little rowhouses in the city. We have talked before about the challenge of making inexpensive housing seem attractive; it was a challenge that Scott met and conquered.

    3116 and 3114
    Front door

    The doors of the two end units are framed in scrupulously proper Doric fashion.

    Sawed-off Moravian arch

    The two inner units have these unique sawed-off arches over their front doors.

    3118–3112
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
    1. Source: The Construction Record, December 2, 1911: “Architect T. M. Scott, Machesney building, has completed plans for four 2-story brick residences, to be erected on Bergman street, Sheraden, for W. McCausland, 3022 Zephyr avenue, Sheridan. Cost $15,000.” McCausland still owned them in 1923, according to plat maps. ↩︎
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  • Renaissance Palace in Sheraden

    3045 Bergman Street

    This dignified Renaissance mansion was built earlier than the rest of the houses on its street, probably in about 1900, when it would have been just about the finest house in the up-and-coming borough of Sheraden. It has been turned into apartments, but the exterior details are well maintained.

    Front elevation of the house
    front porch and entrance

    The architect had fun drawing this front entrance, and we praise the current owners for keeping it in good shape.

    Front door
    3045 Bergman Street
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Fairy-Tale Cottage in Sheraden

    3038 Bergman Street

    This pretty and whimsical house would be right at home in Mission Hills or Beverly Heights, but here it is on a pleasant back street in Sheraden. The original windows add much to its appeal—God, as Mr. Mies said, is in the details. The porch is a classic of the Fairy-Tale Style.

    Porch
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Murphy Building, Sheraden

    Murphy Building

    William J. Shaw was the architect of the most prominent commercial block in Sheraden, built in 1904 or 1905 for Sheraden’s own self-made developer, contractor, and civic luminary John Murphy.1 The details are mostly Renaissance; but the heavily eyebrowed arches and weighty and elaborate cornice make the term “Rundbogenstil” appropriate, giving us another chance to say the word “Rundbogenstil.”

    Inscription: “MVRPHY”
    Acute angle of the Murphy Building

    This is a classic Pittsburgh “flatiron” building, with the classic Pittsburgh problem of three dimensions of irregularity in the lot. To the right the ground slopes precipitously down to the Sheraden station—a railroad station when it was built, a busway station now that the West Busway has duplicated the old Panhandle commuter route to the western suburbs.

    Corner of the Murphy Building

    We considered taking those utility cables out. After a couple of experiments, we realized it would require more hand-painting than we were willing to do.

    Pilaster base with egg-and-dart ornament

    A pilaster base on the sharp corner with oversized egg-and-dart ornamentation.

    False Balcony

    A Renaissance false balcony with egg-and-dart, dentils, and balusterasters in relief. Old Pa Pitt had to invent the term “balusteraster” to describe these false balusters, and now that he has invented it he will use it wherever appropriate. We can see that this building keeps a sharp eye on the complicated and confusing every-which-way intersection outside; possibly the most amusing videos are posted to some YouTube channel.

    Murphy Building
    Inscription
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    Inscription on the Hillsboro Street side.

    1. Pittsburgh Gazette, July 9, 1904, p. 11: “Plans are being prepared by Architect W. J. Shaw for a three-story store and office building to be erected in Railroad street, Sheraden, at a cost of $32,000 by John Murphy.” Also, Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, July 27, 1904, p. 481: “Plans have been prepared by Architect W. J. Shaw, Smith Building, for a three-story store and office building to be erected on Railroad street, Sheraden, for Mr. John Murphy, at a cost of $32,000. It will be well finished throughout and provided with the usual modern conveniences.” ↩︎
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  • Modernist Bank in Sheraden

    Modernist bank

    Built as a branch bank, this tidy little modernistic building seems to be succeeding in its second life as a little neighborhood grocery. It is one of several “flatiron” buildings in Sheraden, and old Pa Pitt had to stand in the middle of a fairly busy intersection to get this picture of the sharp end:

    Sharp corner of the bank
    2827 Chartiers Avenue
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
    Comments

  • Holy Innocents School, Sheraden

    Holy Innocents School

    John T. Comès designed the older Holy Innocents Church, which was replaced by the cathedral-sized church that stands today, and it is likely that he designed this school as well. The style is a kind of Art Nouveau Jacobean. It is vacant right now, which puts it in danger, since large vacant buildings are attractive nuisances both for arson and for blue “Condemnation” stickers.

    Inscription over the entrance: Holy Innocents School

    Painting the stone accents grey may have been someone’s solution to the soot problem. It was not a good idea.

    Date stone: A. D. 1907
    Side of the school

  • Holy Innocents Church, Sheraden

    Holy Innocents Church, Sheraden

    Looming up from the quiet back streets of Sheraden, this titanic Gothic church would put many a cathedral to shame. Built in 1924, it was probably the grandest work of William P. Hutchins. Though it has closed as a church and has been stripped of some of its ornamental details, it is still in use and thus maintains at least a precarious hold on existence.

    Front of the church

    This article will be a feast for lovers of utility cables. The rest will just have to put up with diagonal black lines in the pictures.

    From Landis Street
    Entrance
    From Sherwood Avenue
    Apse
    Apse not for whom the bell tolls

    The apse of the church is a commanding presence on the street, making strollers-by feel almost as if they have wandered into a medieval cathedral city. But how many Gothic apses in those stuffy European towns have a garage in the basement?

  • Langley High School, Sheraden

    Langley High School

    This school began in 1923 as Sheraden High School, then was renamed Langley. It is now an elementary and junior high school. The architects were MacClure & Spahr, whose instinct for late English Gothic made it a memorable Tudor palace.

    Long wall
    Another entrance

  • Episcopal Church of the Messiah, Sheraden

    Episcopal Church of the Messiah

    Very few Shingle-style frame Gothic churches are left in Pittsburgh with their original wood siding: they usually get covered with artificial siding that obscures all the details and character of the building. How long this rare survivor from the 1890s will last is questionable: it belongs to the Pneuma Center for Biblical Guidance now, and it is always a temptation for organizations on a small budget to solve every problem with vinyl. So far the owners have kept the place beautifully.

    Front of the church
    With the attached parsonage

  • Engine House No. 40, Sheraden

    Engine House No. 40

    Haven’t we been here before?

    Firehouse in Sheraden

    This firehouse looks awfully familiar for a very good reason. It is a mirror image of Engine House No. 57 by the same architects (Thomas W. Boyd & Co.) in Brookline:

    Engine Company No. 57
    This is the one in Brookline.

    The one in Brookline was built in 1910. A city architectural survey dates this one in Sheraden to 1928, but that is probably a misprint for 1908, since a brick firehouse appears here on a 1910 map, and this style would have been terribly old-fashioned in 1928.

    Engine House No. 40
    This is the one in Sheraden again.