A simple Gothic design that leaves huge openings for stained glass. The parsonage is a typical Pittsburgh foursquare house, but attached directly to the left side of the church.
Note the usual Pittsburgh adaptations to steep slopes.
The congregation these days has a taste for delightfully direct and confrontational signs like PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD or BE SURE YOUR SIN WILL FIND YOU OUT. Old Pa Pitt approves. Those signs make religion sound lively and exciting, the way it should be.
The children of Allegheny millionaires could walk around the corner to this school, where they would presumably be prepared to go on to college and become better educated than their merely rich parents, or perhaps just become wastrel thugs like Harry Thaw. It is now a training center for the city police, most of whom are not children of Allegheny millionaires.
Old Pa Pitt does not know the original purpose of the low industrial-looking building to the left of the school in this picture. It seems to date from between 1910 and 1923, to judge by our old maps, and it belonged to the school. Can anyone enlighten us?
Addendum: The architect was Thomas H. Scott, who would later design the Machesney Building (Benedum-Trees Building) and the Garden Theatre, among other works.
This is a particularly grand rowhouse: note how much taller it is than its neighbor, indicating high ceilings. It seems to be abandoned right now, but perhaps it has a chance if the urban pioneers moving into the neighborhood get to it before it mysteriously catches fire. There is much worth preserving: the woodwork is in fairly good shape, and the windows—mostly unbroken—are still original and proper for the period. The location of the house on Fifth Avenue might make it attractive, but also might put it in the way if development mania reaches this part of the street.
We have seen this view more than once before, but it is one of the best views of the building, and it is worth seeing in different lights. Here the patterns of light and shade from the drifting clouds made an especially pleasing picture.
The Boylan was one of Beechview’s first commercial buildings—storefronts on the ground floor, apartments above. Over the years it has had some alterations: the front bays have been shrouded in aluminum, the right-hand storefront was filled in by a contractor with more ambition than taste, and it may have lost a cornice. But the current owner has given us a good lesson in how to refresh a building with that kind of history without spending a lot of money. Fresh paint tastefully applied to pick out the details makes the building look inviting and minimizes the aesthetic damage of the altered storefront.
Some stained glass illuminated from the inside. Above: over the entrance to the Brayton apartments.
In a parlor window.
The entrance to a Tudor apartment building on Negley Avenue at Walnut Street.
We continue our visits to car dealers of the mythic past with one that catered to the very highest class of motorist. The Painter-Dunn Company sold Pierce-Arrow cars, a luxury brand that lasted until 1938. This dealership is the architectural equivalent of the Pierce-Arrow advertisements, which concentrated on elegant design without trying to tell us how good the car was. The design conveyed the message.
Father Pitt does not know the whole history of this building. The elaborate cornice at the top of the second floor suggests that the third floor was a tastefully managed later addition.
Addendum: The Construction Record in 1915 confirms that this building was put up as two floors, and names the architects: “Architects Hunting & Davis Company, Century building, awarded to Henry Shenk Company, Century Building, the contract for constructing a two-story brick and terra cotta garage and assembly shop on Center avenue, Shadyside, for the Painter-Dunn Company. Cost $100,000.”
Note how Millvale Avenue runs right into the garage entrance.
This church in the Soho section of Uptown was built in the 1880s. It began as the Central Presbyterian Church; in 1897 it merged with First Presbyterian downtown and became the Central Chapel of the First Presbyterian Church. The style is typical Pittsburgh small-church Gothic. More recently this was the Corinthian Baptist Church, and although it is now boarded up, someone at least maintains the grounds.
This Kodak bridge camera has a very long Schneider lens, and in pictures at the far end we notice some vignetting if the background is plain enough. It could be corrected in the GIMP, but in this picture the vignetting adds to the artistic effect. How is that for an excuse for laziness?
