A particularly splendid mid-Victorian building from 1881, as we can see by the beehive date stone in the middle of the façade.
The architect would probably have told you that the style was Renaissance, but mid-Victorian architects were much freer in their interpretation of historical styles than the next generation would be.
Charles Geisler, who lived in the South Hills neighborhoods all his working life, was a successful architect who specialized in small to medium-sized apartment and commercial buildings. Much of his work had a tint of the Spanish Mission style. The ground floor of this building, put up in 1923, has probably changed, but the upper floors are unusually well preserved, with tiled overhang, nine-over-one windows, and carved wood brackets, making this an excellent example of Geisleriana.
This little building looks like the little brother of the building next door. Father Pitt has no direct evidence that Geisler designed it, but the two properties were under the same ownership in 1923. Given the notable similarity in the treatments of the rooflines, it is reasonable to suspect Geisler, even if we cannot yet convict him of the design.
The Rex is attributed to Geisler in city architectural surveys, although it has been remodeled more than once, and old Pa Pitt would not be surprised if one of those remodelings was under the direction of Victor A. Rigaumont, who had a prosperous practice converting the silent generation’s movie houses to up-to-date Art Deco palaces for the talkie era.
St. Vladimir’s has been in this building (the older one on the left, that is) for nearly a century, but if you think it doesn’t look like the sort of building a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation would build for itself, you’re right. If you’ve seen as many churches as old Pa Pitt has, you might think right away that this one has an Episcopalian look about it, and indeed it was built as St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The Ukrainian congregation moved in in 1926. Here we see it in the middle of a snowstorm.
Carson Street on the South Side is reputed to be one of the best-preserved Victorian commercial streets in North America. Mere snow cannot deter old Pa Pitt from his duty of documenting the city around him, so here is a generous album of Carson Street buildings, most of Victorian vintage, with falling snow for added picturesque effect.
Carson Street on the South Side is known as one of the best-preserved Victorian streetscapes in North America. Father Pitt loves to photograph those Victorian buildings, with their lavish yet careful attention to detail; but in a spirit of contrarian perversity, old Pa Pitt also likes to point out the post-Victorian additions to the streetscape. This building was probably put up shortly before 1910 in a very modern style for its time. The front is unusually well preserved, with big display windows wrapping around properly inset entrances.
Back in 1968, the streetcar fan David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, took this picture of a PCC car in front of the freight office for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad. Except for looking cleaner, the building hasn’t changed much. Streetcars no longer pass in front of it, but they stop diagonally across the street at the Station Square station.
The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie could not quite get a foothold downtown, but it had the next best thing: a station right on the Smithfield Street Bridge, so that it was only a short walk from downtown to the P&LE trains—or a short trolley ride, since the streetcars ran on the bridge.
