-
Two Views of the Cathedral of Learning
Above, from the grounds of Soldiers and Sailors Hall; below, from the steps of Bellefield Presbyterian Church.
-
Apartment Building on Wightman Street, Squirrel Hill
This apartment building has a few details worth appreciating, though it appears to have lost its cornice. This building also has the biggest art store in Pittsburgh on the ground floor. You walk in the Hobart Street entrance and find yourself in a fairly big art-supplies store. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. In fact the whole ground floor of this building is given over to art supplies.
This floral ornament presides over the light well.
Addendum: The building was put up in about 1924; the architect was Charles R. Geisler. Source: The American Contractor, October 27, 1923: “Apt. Bldg. (36 suites): Hobart & Wightman sts. Archt. C. R. Geisler, Ferguson bldg. Owner & Bldr. L. L. Noffah, 5843 Forbes st. Sketches.”
-
Queen Anne House on Ellwood Street, Shadyside
This house was built, probably in the 1890s, as one of a row of four similar or identical houses. Of the other three, one was converted to a duplex and two to three-unit apartment buildings: this is the only one that remains as built. The ornamental woodwork is worth observing.
-
Presbyterian Church, West End
It seems to old Pa Pitt that the whole history of the West End is epitomized in this building.
There was a Presbyterian church on this spot more than 150 years ago, marked “Un. Presb. Ch.” on an 1872 map. It was just around the corner from another kind of Presbyterian church (which is now a garage); even today Wikipedia lists more than 45 kinds of Presbyterians in the United States, and that is after a number of mergers and consolidations. In 1890 this is marked “A. F. Pres. Ch.,” and again in about 1903; but on a 1905 map it is marked “United Presbyterian Church,” and that is as much as Father Pitt can do to sort out the history of the congregation.
At about the time of the First World War, the church had a little burst of prosperity and added this fashionable Tudor front.
Later, the congregation fizzled out, and the building was heavily altered and taken over by Ceramiche Tile. Now Ceramiche is moving to the western suburbs, and this building is up for sale.
The result is a building that—like much of the rest of the West End—is hard to sort out from both an architectural and a historical point of view. But the stone-and-half-timber front is an attractive ornament to Main Street, and we hope the building will find a sympathetic new owner.
-
Duplex on Highland Avenue, Shadyside
The two sides of this duplex, which probably dates from the 1870s or 1880s, have gone their separate ways, but the whole building is well preserved. The demolition of a badly mutilated house next door gives us a chance to appreciate some of the details on the side of the house.
This rear view shows us a very inartistic addition to the third floor of one side, which is fortunately invisible from the front.
-
A Riot of Victorian Detail
We’ve seen this exuberantly Victorian building on Carson Street before. It is one of the few relatively unmutilated survivors of the style that was common for commercial buildings in the 1870s and 1880s, so old Pa Pitt got out a long lens to appreciate some of the details.
-
Carved Ornaments on Bellefield Presbyterian Church
Originally the First United Presbyterian Church, this congregation merged with the Bellefield Presbyterian Church down the street, which sold its building (of which only the tower remains) and moved here, with the compensation that this church was renamed Bellefield Presbyterian. The building, designed by William Boyd and built in 1896, is festooned with a riot of carved Romanesque ornaments.
Each one of these cherubs has a different face and different ornamental carving surrounding it.
-
Bellevue Presbyterian Church
There were two large Presbyterian churches around the corner from each other in Bellevue, both called Bellevue Presbyterian. The other one was the United Presbyterian congregation, and old Pa Pitt will pause for a moment to let the laugh track do its job. The church we see here was later called Northminster Presbyterian, and it is now home to the New Life Community Church.
Of course, in the glory days of steel and coal, the building was not quite so pale, as we see in this old postcard:
One response
