The cornice and dormers are fine specimens of Victorian woodwork.
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Second Empire Storefront on Carson Street
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Apartment Building, 17th and Sarah Streets, South Side
This modest apartment building (it looks as though the ground floor used to be a store) is enlivened by interesting brickwork.
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St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Church, South Side
It is impossible to get a picture of the front of this church without ugly and intrusive utility cables, and old Pa Pitt is not quite obsessive enough to edit out the cables.
This is a Ruthenian church. Back in 1900, the congregation split from the other St. John the Baptist Byzantine congregation a few blocks away at 7th and Carson Streets so as not to have to put up with those Ukrainians. You will search a map of Europe in vain for the nation of Ruthenia, but the Ruthenians or Rusyns in America have an ethnic pride perhaps all the stronger for never having had a nation of their own. The present building was dedicated in 1958, and the modernist-influenced Byzantine style bears a strong family resemblance to the style of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Oakland.
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Cast-Iron Ornament
On a storefront on Carson Street, South Side.
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Lithuanian Hall
A building whose design brings a little bit of the Baltics to the South Side. The decorated pediment is unusual or unique here, but would be right at home in Vilnius. The original symmetry is undone by additions on the right-hand side, but this is still a valuable monument of ethnic Pittsburgh that ought to be preserved.
The faded decoration over the main entrance seems to be a stylized version of the arms of Lithuania, but old Pa Pitt would be delighted to be corrected.
An update: In spite of what old Pa Pitt took as its Baltic appearance, this was built as a German Turnhalle, or athletic club: the Birmingham Turnverein. The arms of Lithuania (if that is what the faded emblem is) and perhaps the decorations in the pediment would have been added by the later owners. This is yet another example of the Nordic flight that happened as the East Europeans settled on the South Side: one after another, churches and institutions that had been built by Western Europeans passed into the hands of East European immigrants.
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Founder’s Mark on a Cast-Iron Storefront
Last week old Pa Pitt published this picture of a cast-iron storefront on 18th Street, South Side.
Today, walking past the same building, he noticed an inscription at the base.
This is the mark of the founder who cast the storefront, and we see that it was a very local business: East Birmingham was the borough that went from today’s 17th Street to about 27th Street.
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Cast-Iron Storefront
This unusual cast-iron storefront is on 18th Street at the intersection with Sarah Street. Its arches are echoed by the windows above, which still retain their original four-pane configuration.
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Front Door, 17th Street, South Side
In the South Side, 17th Street is the line between Old Birmingham and New Birmingham: you can tell because the street grid is broken at that point, and east-west streets have to jog to continue on their way. This house is on the Old Birmingham side.
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16th Street, South Side
Looking south on South 16th Street toward the South Side Slopes. Note the large number of aluminum awnings, which used to be even more ubiquitous in Pittsburgh; the back streets of Old Birmingham are the best place to see them now.
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Terra-Cotta Ornaments on the Maul Building
The splendid terra-cotta facing of the Maul Building is covered with ornaments that may have been standard catalogue items, but nevertheless show considerable artistic talent.
