Father Pitt

Category: South Side

  • The Corner of Carson and 24th, South Side

    Building at Carson and 24th, South Side

    For most of the history of the South Side, this corner at 24th and Carson was the gateway to the long Carson Street retail district. Further out there were a few shops and (especially) bars, but the looming mass of the steel mill dominated the streetscape. Now, of course, the SouthSide Works (spelled with internal capital, which is not old Pa Pitt’s fault) development that replaced the mill has extended the retail district by several more blocks, but this building still marks an obvious break between the new and the old.

    The rounded corner is distinctive and emphasizes the building’s function as a gateway. The proper inset entrance not only makes the storefront look characteristically Victorian, but also still fulfills its purpose of not hitting pedestrians in the face with a swinging door—a purpose we have unaccountably forgotten in our modern storefronts. One would think a few lawsuits by pedestrians with broken noses would establish a design precedent, but apparently that has not happened.

    Storefronts on Carson Street

  • South Side Marina

    South Side Marina

    Recreational boats need a place to live, and more and more boat parking lots are growing closer to the Point.

    Boats at the South Side Marina
    South Side Marina
    South Side Marina

  • Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh at Twilight

    Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh

    This rich little Beaux-Arts bank on Carson Street at 18th Street was built in 1902. We have a daylight picture of the Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh building from the same angle.

  • Sunset Over the South Side

  • Row of Commercial Buildings, Carson Street at 23rd, South Side

    Seen from the Birmingham Bridge, this row of Italianate storefronts retains most of its Victorian magnificence, although the newer windows blight the one on the end.

  • Row of Queen Anne Duplexes on Sidney Street, South Side

    2315 to 2325 Sidney Street

    These three Queen Anne duplexes were once identical, or nearly so. Each one has had separate adventures, and each one has preserved some details and lost others.

    2323 and 2325

    This one probably preserves the original appearance best, though it has lost the stained glass in the parlor windows.

    2319 and 2321

    This one has suffered badly from separate ownership of the two sides. Some contractor charged quite a bit of money for mutilating the left-hand side. The right side has also been modernized, but with more taste, using windows that are the right size and shape for the wall.

    2315 and 2317

    This one has had similar alterations, but at least the parlor windows have not been filled in with toy blocks.

    Old Pa Pitt is constantly surprised by the number of Pittsburgh homeowners who say, “I hate all that natural light and fresh air! Block in those big ugly windows and give me just enough glass to see what the weather is out there.”

    Row of Queen Anne duplexes

  • Row of Houses on 24th Street, South Side

    Row of houses on 24th Street

    Father Pitt has featured this row of modest but attractive houses with Romanesque details before, but he decided to get some better pictures of the whole row while the sun was shining on the front. The composite picture above gives us a very good impression of the row as a whole, and you will probably notice that the houses are not the same width. The two at the left are wider than the rest. You might think that meant they were bigger, perhaps designed to rent for more money, but you would be mistaken. The houses are not rectangular: 24th Street marks a kink in the street grid of the South Side. The change in width distributes the area more evenly among the houses on their trapezoidal lot: the narrower houses are also deeper.

    The houses were built as rental properties in the 1890s, to judge by the fact that they appear first on the 1903–1906 layer at the Pittsburgh Historic Maps site, all owned by one Jonathan O. Phillips, who owned the empty lot in 1890. Mr. Phillips still owned the row in 1923, the last layer on the map where property owners are marked.

    From the north end

    From the Fox Way end of the row. Note the extension behind the last house.

    Sidney Street end

    The Sidney Street end of the row, where the houses are wider but shallower: note the lack of extension behind.

    From the south
    From the parking lot across the street

    From the parking lot across the street.

  • Dilworth, Porter & Co. Office

    Dilworth, Porter & Co. office

    This fine Jacobean office in the forgotten industrial back streets of the near South Side is certainly the work of a distinguished architect or architects, but old Pa Pitt has not been able to find a name with the limited research he was able to do. He is therefore going to go far out on a limb and attribute it to MacClure & Spahr, because it is just their sort of thing.

    Dilworth, Porter & Co. made railroad spikes and other things you would need if you were putting a railroad together. The company later became part of Republic Steel, and the plant was closed in 1950. It is now the M. Berger Industrial Park, with the old industrial sheds behind this office painted in garish colors. (Update: A reader very reasonably questions the use of the word “garish”—see the comment below—and perhaps “cheerful” would have been better. The point is that the colors are extraordinarily bright and seldom seen on old industrial buildings like these.)

    Entrance
    Carving
    Carving
    Carving
    Ornament

    Map.

  • A Rare Survivor on the South Side

    Father Pitt was out for a walk yesterday and suddenly realized that he had spotted an odd anomaly: a country I-house with a neat little yard and a fence and gate—but that’s the top of the Birmingham Bridge right behind it. A little research confirmed what he suspected. This old house is a rare, and maybe even unique, survivor from the time before this part of the South Side was urbanized. It appears on the 1872 layer at the Pittsburgh Historic Maps site, where it is an isolated house along the river in a section the urban sprawl has not reached yet. It belonged to Mrs. Sarah M. Phillips, whose property went all the way back to the river, the banks of which were as yet unencumbered by railroad tracks. The house has been much altered externally, with fake siding and new windows with fake shutters, but the shape (as viewed by satellite) is the same today as on the 1872 map.

  • A Bit of Good News on the South Side

    Woodcarvong over the door

    The big blue “CONDEMNATION” sticker appeared on a fine Italianate rowhouse in the 1100 block of Sarah Street a while ago, and old Pa Pitt decided to document the house before it vanished. You can imagine how delighted he was to find that the blue sticker is gone and the house is under renovation, with new windows installed already.

    House at 1107 Sarah

    Nothing can stop a contractor from installing Georgian-style fake “multipane” windows, which contractors think of as the mark of quality, even when they are completely inappropriate for the style of the house, and even when the “panes” are false divisions made by laying a cartoon grid over a single sheet of glass. But at least these windows are the right size for the holes, and therefore no lasting damage has been done. Father Pitt would guess that a house like this originally had two-over-two windows: see, for comparison, this house of similar age Uptown.

    Woodwork

    The woodwork is a bit tattered, but we hope it can be preserved.

    Woodwork

    This transom is crying out for an address in stained glass. Emerald Art Glass is only a dozen blocks away.

    Dormer
    Breezeway

    Of course Father Pitt could not leave without documenting this fine breezeway.

    Front door

    Like the windows, the front door is a standard model that fits properly and could be replaced with a more appropriate style later by a more ambitious owner.