The South Side Market House, designed originally by Charles Bickel, and given its current form by Stanley Roush, taken on film in glorious black and white. We also have color pictures and some historical photos of the South Side Market House.
Originally a store with upstairs living quarters. The corner location made a side entrance for the living quarters possible.
The South Side Market House was built in the heart of old Birmingham in 1893. The architect was Charles Bickel.
Originally the building was much more elaborate:
However, in 1915, a fire gutted the building, leaving only the outer walls standing.
Mr. Bickel was still alive at the time, but the reconstruction was designed by the city’s own talented Stanley Roush.
This bovine cartouche commemorates the death and resurrection of the South Side Market.
The fire was not the end of the building’s adventures. In 1950, public markets having become obsolete in Pittsburgh, the building was remodeled as a recreation center under the supervision of Button & McLean, who left the exterior almost unchanged from Roush’s 1915 design.
It was refurbished again in 2012 as a “Healthy Active Living Center” for senior citizens. Father Pitt does not yet know who supervised that remodeling, but he would be delighted to hear from anyone who has information.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Pittsburgh field office, officially the Martha Dixon Building, looks like a Hollywood producer’s idea of a building FBI agents would work in. It is an outstanding example of the style old Pa Pitt calls neoneoclassical, in which the symmetry and forms of classical architecture are stripped of all ornaments like carved capitals or sculptured pediments that would shock the sensibilities of moderns. “To glamorize the four-story, 160,000 sq ft (15000 m2) structure, precast concrete components were used on the façade of the building.” So says an article in PCI Journal for November–December 2002, and Father Pitt would like to mark it as the first time he has seen the word “glamorize” applied to anything having to do with precast concrete. The result is a building that is designed to offend no one’s taste, and if you think that is easy you should try it some time. The architects were DRS Architects of Pittsburgh, who have also done offices for the DEA as well as some prominent buildings for local universities.
South 11th street is a narrow street of little rowhouses, many dating from before the Civil War. Here are a few random views on the southern end of the street.
The domes of St. John the Baptist, with the skyline in the background, figure in many postcard views of Pittsburgh. So if you want to sell postcards, here is your chance. Like all Father Pitt’s pictures, these are donated to the public domain, so you can do what you like with them.
We also have pictures of the church from the other direction and some pictures of the interior.
A lot of things have happened to this building over the years: the windows have been replaced with the wrong size, and the ground-floor storefront has been heavily altered. But the changes are mostly superficial, and might easily be undone. The building still carries an ornate crest with the date 1889 and the initials of the original owner: A. Rosenhild.
This little house is one of the few survivors from the days when much of Carson Street in East Birmingham was residential. It preserves most of its fine mid-Victorian Italianate detail, so it is worth a closer look than most pedestrians on the busy sidewalk of Carson Street usually give it.
One unfortunate change is the entrance. Instead of double doors with an art-glass transom, we have a stock door from the home center and pieces of plywood around it. But the elaborate woodwork surrounding the entrance is still intact.
It is typical of Italianate houses that the downstairs windows are very tall. This is the bright and cheerful branch of Victorian domestic architecture.
The windowsills rest on ornate iron brackets.
According to a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1924, this warehouse was built in 1917 with fireproof construction, brick curtain walls, concrete floors and roof. It belonged to Swift & Co., a wholesale meat dealer; later it seems to have passed to a produce dealer, and that 1924 Sanborn map has “Produce W. Ho.” neatly pasted over whatever was marked on the outline of the building before.
After eight years with no advertising, the colossal Duquesne Brewery Clock is back in the beer business for the first time in a quarter-century—advertising what was once a runner-up rival to Duke.
