In Allegheny Cemetery. Cemetery deer don’t care about anything.
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Father Pitt’s Great Big List of Buildings and Architects
For some time now, old Pa Pitt has been gathering information about buildings and their architects in a spreadsheet, so that he doesn’t have to go looking for the information every time he takes another picture. It is still in its early stages, but it already has more than 200 entries. Since it might be useful to other people as well, Father Pitt has decided to publish it:
Father Pitt’s Great Big List of Buildings and Architects
You should be able to download the spreadsheet in Open Document, Excel, or any of several other formats, and you can play around with the spreadsheet without changing the original.
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The Back of Bellefield Presbyterian Church on a Rainy Day
Pedestrians and drivers often see the front of this magnificent Romanesque church, but few ever notice the back. It is plainer but still interesting in its masses, with the half-round auditorium characteristic of many Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the late 1800s.
The front (seen below in a picture from last year) is also given a round bulge, so that the whole building seems to orbit around that polygonal central tower.
Old Pa Pitt will repeat what he said the last time he published pictures of Bellefield Presbyterian Church:
The church was built in 1896 as the First United Presbyterian Church; the architect was William Boyd, who gave the congregation the most fashionably Richardsonian interpretation of Romanesque he could manage. It was more or less in competition with the original Bellefield Presbyterian, of which only the tower now remains. But in 1967 the two congregations merged. They kept this building, renamed it Bellefield Presbyterian, and abandoned the old Bellefield Presbyterian up the street, which was later demolished for an office block.
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Penn Avenue Gatehouse, Allegheny Cemtery
If you are not a frequent visitor to Allegheny Cemetery, you might pass the Penn Avenue gatehouse and wonder whether your memory is playing tricks on you. Isn’t there something…different about it?
Your memory is not playing tricks on you. Here is a picture from 2021:
What old Pa Pitt was told was that engineers had determined that the tower was dangerously unstable. The stones were carefully taken apart and labeled, and maybe someday the tower will be restored.
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Uxor Way and St. Michael’s Church, South Side
This is one of those only-in-Pittsburgh views: a glorious Romanesque church on the Slopes hovering over little frame alley houses on the Flats. St. Michael’s (now the Angel’s Arms apartments) was designed by Charles F. Bartberger, father of, and often confused with, the prolific Charles M. Bartberger.
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UPMC Mercy Pavilion
The new UPMC Mercy Pavilion is supposed to be tons of fun for the entire neighborhood, according to the sponsored news stories distributed by UPMC. It includes a café and art installations and a gym and even a few medical facilities. According to the “Building Overview” page on the hospital’s site, “HOK—a global design, architecture, engineering, and planning firm—designed the pavilion with input from Chris Downey, AIA. Mr. Downey is one of the world’s few blind architects.” HOK, formerly Hellmuth Obata + Kassbaum, also designed One Oxford Centre and PNC Park (with local favorite Lou Astorino).
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819 and 821 Penn Avenue
A pair of commercial buildings with striking terra-cotta details—especially No. 819, on the left. The huge windows would have allowed light to pour into workshops on the upper floors.
Truly enlightened zoning regulations would mandate cornices with lions’ heads on all buildings more than four storeys tall.
