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.
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Back in the Beer Business
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Second Empire on the South Side
These two very similar buildings are some of the most splendid Second Empire architecture in Pittsburgh. The Second Empire style is so called from its popularity during the Second French Empire: that is, the reign of Napoleon III. The most distinguishing mark of the style is the mansard roof, which supposedly became popular in Paris because buildings were taxed by the number of floors, but the attic didn’t count as a floor—thus you could have a floor’s worth of free space under a mansard roof. In its other details, the Second Empire style is a species of Renaissance revival closely related to the Italianate style that overlapped it in fashion.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Finials and Brackets on Carson Street, South Side
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Silhouette of a Blowing Engine
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. A blowing engine from a blast furnace, on display at Station Square, silhouetted against the skyscrapers that such machines made possible.
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Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Freight House
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The preservation of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie station complex as “Station Square” showed Pittsburgh that historic preservation could be good business. As “the Freight House Shops,” the freight house was a successful shopping arcade for many years. But all the shopping arcades, and many of the indoor shopping malls, have collapsed in the past decade or two as shopping habits changed. Now shoppers demand stores and restaurants with individual external entrances. But the shopping arcade saved the building; and now, though other uses have been found for most of the space (a large part of it has been turned into a rock-climbing gym, because where would you find rocks in the wild in Pittsburgh?), the building itself is in no danger of demolition.
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Merry Christmas
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P&LE Central Warehouse, Station Square
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The central warehouse for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad’s freight depot, now converted to offices and other uses and known as Commerce Court. These two pictures were taken just about a year apart, but nothing significant changed during that time. While he was donating the newer one to Wikimedia Commons, old Pa Pitt ran across the older one and realized he had never published it here.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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Sixteenth Ward War Memorial, South Side
Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. Since old Pa Pitt has made it a rule to record all the names on every war memorial he photographs, this picture is huge—about 50 megapixels. If you enlarge it, all the names should be legible, from Abbott to Zorn.
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Garrison Foundry Administration Building, South Side
Longfellow, Alden & Harlow were the architects of this elegant little building in a simplified Renaissance style, which was finished in 1895. It does its best to convince us that the men who run the foundry are civilized people, in spite of the soot that surrounds them. The larger shop building behind it, built in 1901, was designed by Alden & Harlow, after the firm had decided to divide up the work, with Longfellow remaining in Boston and Alden & Harlow taking all the Pittsburgh jobs.
These buildings sat derelict and open to the weather for years, but have been cleaned up and put back together very neatly.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. Map.
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The Thomas Row, South Side
It is a little hard to date these houses on South 10th Street from old plat maps, and any South Side historians who have good information are earnestly invited to enlighten us. The two on the right end are separate from the rest and slightly larger. A row of houses appears on this land in 1872, belonging to someone named Thomas. In 1882, however, all but the two houses on the right are gone; the rest of the land is vacant. By 1890 the row is full again, still belonging to the Thomas family, except for the last house on the left, which belongs to someone named Todt.
Father Pitt’s best guess, then, is that the two houses on the right date from the Civil War era. The rest of the houses might have burned in about 1880, and were rebuilt in what was still the usual vernacular style for small rowhouses. But this is only a wild guess, and more information would be welcome. It is, after all, possible that the 1882 map was wrong, and the houses never went away.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
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