This is one of Father Pitt’s favorite modernist churches in the city. It seems like an effortless blending of architectural modernism with the ancient idioms of Eastern Christian tradition, but of course things in art that seem effortless always take a great deal of effort. If modernism in church design always came out looking like this, old Pa Pitt would have adopted it enthusiastically.
This beautiful Corinthian bank has found another use, so we hope the building will be preserved now that things are looking up in Homestead.
Think how invitingly bright the banking hall must have been when those lofty windows were open to the light.
The Birmingham Bridge is a generous bridge for the traffic it carries, isn’t it? And why are there these strange wings sticking out at the southern end?
The answer is that the Birmingham Bridge was built in the 1970s as part of a vast network of expressways that would bring Pittsburgh into the automobile age at last, by destroying much of the city and making it easier for suburban drivers to get to major destinations. There was to be an interchange at the southern end of the bridge, with exit and entrance ramps connecting to the bleak expressway-blighted streets below.
Almost all that ever came of the plan was the Birmingham Bridge; the fates had mercy on the city and scuttled the rest of the network. But the stubs of those interchange ramps are still there to remind us how close we came to making Pittsburgh the Los Angeles of the East.
We’ll have to wait for winter to get a good view of the whole front of this interesting church, which is obscured by a lush growth of mimosa trees. But we can appreciate some of the details now.
The architect was James N. Campbell. Old Pa Pitt knows of only two churches by Campbell still standing in Pittsburgh: this one and the old Seventh Presbyterian Church on Herron Avenue, Hill District. (There are probably others as yet unidentified.1) Both churches have similar styles, and both have similar histories. They both became African Methodist Episcopal churches: this one was Avery Memorial A. M. E. Zion Church for quite a while. They both were abandoned. This one may still have some hope: it looks as though someone has been trying to refurbish it, perhaps as a private home. But it also looks as though the renovations have stalled.
Since Father Pitt considers this an endangered building, he has collected some pictures of the more interesting details to preserve them for posterity in case the worst should come to pass.
From the Engineering News for July 6, 1916. Father Pitt knows of no such signs remaining in the city, but he would be delighted to have any remnants pointed out to him.
The use of concrete as material for constructing streetname signs is novel at the present time, but it has proved practicable. Two such signs are shown in Fig. 9. These were designed and installed recently by the Department of Public Works of Pittsburgh. Both post and signboard are of granite-finished concrete. The design shown at the left is modified as a Lincoln Highway marker. The signplates are separate from the post, being so constructed that they swing about a vertical axis and may be clamped at any desired angle. The letters, of a black cement composition of permanent color, are about ⅜ in. thick and dovetailed securely into the concrete of the background.
It is cheering to report that this impressive little Gothic church, once an abandoned hulk, has now been stabilized and put to use, apparently as a private home. Some of the stained glass was smashed while it was abandoned, but the remainder has been kept in place and covered with clear glass to seal up the holes. Since it sits in a prominent spot diagonally across from the Carnegie Free Library of McKeesport, it improves the neighborhood quite a bit to have this building occupied.
The cornerstone bears a date of 1903.
The outsized tower and shadowy inset corner porch are distinctive features.
Designed by Rutan & Russell, the Pittsburgh Mercantile Company was definitely not a company store, because those had been made illegal in Pennsylvania. Instead, it was a separate company that happened to have exactly the same officers as Jones & Laughlin, which ran the steel plant across the street, and that happened to accept the scrip in which the steelworkers were paid.
So it was a company store, but technically legal.
The words “company store” probably conjure up images of bleak little Soviet-style general stores, but this was obviously nothing like that image. It was a fantastic palace of every kind of merchandise, and the architectural decoration was obviously meant to send the message that there was no reason to object to the company-store system, because what else on the South Side could begin to equal this experience?
We have a large number of pictures if you care to see more.
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Closed since 2017, the Western Penitentiary (or, more recently, State Correctional Institution—Pittsburgh) will have a hard time finding a buyer. It would perhaps make a fine mansion for an eccentric supervillain, but most real-world supervillains are dreadfully prosaic in their tastes.
Nevertheless, it is a masterpiece of prison architecture—aesthetically, at least. The architect was Edward M. Butz, and it was built between 1876 and 1882, with various later additions. It looks more like a prison than the Bastille did, and so we present it on Bastille Day, with the cheerful news that no inmates are imprisoned here, but the sad news that it may eventually have to be pulled down by a demolition contractor rather than a revolutionary mob.
Two 4300-series CAF cars pass at Fallowfield station in Beechview.
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