The McNally Building on Penn Avenue was built in 1896. It is a good example of the kind of tall, narrow building that grew up in the early days of the elevator. But of course the most important thing about this picture is that it allows old Pa Pitt to indulge in his habit of photographing buses coming toward you.
Just about every ugly thing that can happen to an old house has happened to this once-grand Second Empire mansion on the back end of Warrington Avenue. It has been sheathed in artificial siding. All the windows have been replaced with windows and doors in the wrong shapes. Almost all the trim has been removed (if you enlarge the picture, you can find a tiny remnant in the pediment over the front entrance). The porch has been replaced with treated lumber, which manufacturers assure us never has to be painted and therefore is always allowed to decay into even uglier colors than it was originally. The front entrance has been replaced with cheap doors from a home center.
Yet, with all that, there is still a pleasing symmetry to the house that gives it a kind of senescent dignity. At present, it stands in a nice working-class neighborhood where houses are worthless, or at least not worth enough to make any substantial work on this one profitable. But it has a magnificent view of the city, and if someone with a little money were to adopt it, it could be remade into an attractive single-family mansion again, or a more attractive apartment house.
Old Pa Pitt does not know the history of this house. On the Pittsburgh Historic Maps site, it first appears on the 1890 layer, suggesting that it was built in the 1880s. From then until 1923, it is marked as belonging to Mary L. Bayer or M. L. Bayer.
There is something about men’s clubs: when they take over a building, the first thing they do is block out as much of the natural light as possible. But the outlines of the old windows are clear enough: it is not hard to imagine this building the way it was when it was a Swedish church.
This is a late example of the style of modest church more typical of the middle 1800s. It has all the elements—the shallow-pitched roof, the walls divided into sections by simple pilasters, the date stone in the gable, the crenellations. We also note that typical nineteenth-century Pittsburgh adaptation to a tiny lot: the sanctuary is on the second floor, with social hall and schoolrooms or offices on the ground floor.
Without the date stone, old Pa Pitt would have guessed that this church was twenty years or more earlier.
The Amvets seem to have moved out, and it looks as if the building is vacant now. Considering the mushrooming value of Lawrenceville real estate, it will probably be filled or demolished soon.
This building has been much altered and diminished. There was originally more building behind it, and the façade has been drastically remodeled. The front entrance is now a pair of windows, and the original grand arches have been bricked in, with small and mismatched windows. The city’s Hilltop architectural inventory (PDF) classed this as a building with low architectural integrity. But it is very interesting for two reasons. First, the front gives us a good lesson in urban archaeology: enough is left so that we can try to imagine how the original building looked. Second, the fact that there was such a thing as a prominent school of rhetoric in Knoxville is itself an interesting window into times past. The briefest exposure to any of our politicians today will be enough to convince us that a school of rhetoric would be welcome in these parts.
Addendum: The building was originally the First Methodist Protestant Church of Knoxville. When the church moved a block away, Mr. King bought the building and had it completely remodeled by Knoxville’s own favorite architect, E. V. Denick. A newspaper account in the Pittsburgh Post, March 5, 1911, described the school and the renovations:
WILL BUILD FOR SCHOOL.
Byron W. King’s Institution to Be Housed in Own Home in Knoxville.
A school of oratory is to be erected in Knoxville. Byron W. King, well known as a teacher of elocution and kindred Subjects, has purchased the property of the Knoxville Methodist Protestant Church, Zara street and Virginia avenue, and will have it remodeled to suit his purposes.
Plans for the remodeling have been made by Architect Edwin V. Denick, and work will begin at once on the transformation. When completed the building will be a three-story brick that will have all of the appointments necessary for Mr. King’s purposes.
A large auditorium and classrooms will be placed on the first floor. On the upper floors will be dormitories and other accessories that have been figured on by Mr. King. In the basement will be a large dining hall, a kitchen and the heating apparatus.
With the remodeling of the old structure and the brightening up of both its exterior and interior, together with the Y. M. C. A. building across the street, the corner will be a lively one and will put on quite a metropolitan air.
The new church of the Knoxville Methodist Protestant congregation is at Georgia avenue and Zara street. King’s School of Oratory and Dramatic Culture is now in Sixth street, Pittsburgh.
