R. Maurice Trimble designed this charming little church, which was finished in 1909. It is still in nearly original condition, and still owned by its original congregation.
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Allegheny Unitarian Universalist Church, Mexican War Streets
Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000.
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More Houses on North Avenue in the Mexican War Streets
A couple of blocks of North Avenue, where we can see some fine Italianate houses of the Civil War era, interspersed with some towering Queen Anne mansions. We start at the corner of Palo Alto Street, where a Queen Anne house makes the most of a tiny lot by going up to a fourth floor.
These two houses share splendid porches, probably added later, since the porches match even though the houses do not. The owners of the houses have coordinated their efforts, so that the porches match.
Three more modest houses, though their full third floors give them a generous allotment of bedrooms.
A pair of houses that were both the peak of elegance in different eras. The Italianate one on the right goes for a simpler dignity; the Queen Anne on the left pulls out all the stops to make the most picturesque composition possible. Note the relative heights, by the way: high ceilings were a feature of the Italianate style in better houses, so that the house at left adds one more floor in exactly the same vertical height.
Seventeen years ago, Father Pitt published a picture of the front door of the house on the right. The picture was taken on 120 film with a folding Agfa Isolette.
Two simple and attractive Italianate houses, one of which has grown a partial fourth floor.
Here is an interesting document of how the neighborhood has changed. The house at left was originally an Italianate residence; the corner store may have been original or may have been added later. The projecting commercial building next to it, which probably dates from about 1920, was added when the house was taken over by the United States Casket Company, later the Melia Casket Company, which still inhabited the building until about twelve years ago. Both buildings have had a thorough renovation since the casket-makers moved out.
Two different interpretations of Italianate, one of which has sprouted an inartistic dormer to give it a fourth floor.
Finally, a center-hall house in a kind of late Greek Revival style; it occupies a double lot.
Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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Queen Anne Manse in Knoxville
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Much of the detail on this fine old house is well preserved, including the half-octagon dormer, the oval art-glass window, the wraparound porch (partly enclosed by an improvised screen), and one of the finest displays of aluminum awning old Pa Pitt has ever seen.
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The Great Soho Curve; or, Why We Don’t Have Cable Cars Anymore
From “Flem’s” Views of Old Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh: George T. Fleming, 1905), p. 43. This photograph of the Great Soho Curve, a maintenance nightmare for the cable cars that very briefly made up Pittsburgh’s transit system, was taken in 1893. It appears to have been taken from the roof of a house about where the ramp from Fifth Avenue to the Boulevard of the Allies is today. Fifth Avenue still makes this double curve, though the street is one-way inbound now, and the cable cars are gone.
This picture tells the story of why we don’t have cable cars anymore. Pittsburgh streets have curves, and curves are bad for cable cars. In this picture, the entire curve is lined with cable access points about every six feet, and the picture shows cars stopped while men are fussing with one of the cables. In San Francisco, the one city where cable-car lines are still in service, the lines are all perfectly straight, except for turns at intersections. When electric traction came along, it was obviously more suitable for Pittsburgh—except where hills were prohibitively steep, and for those places we have inclines, which are a kind of cable car permanently attached to the cable.
That fairy castle on the hill at upper left is the Ursuline Young Ladies’ Academy, designed by Joseph Stillburg. It has long since been replaced by more mundane buildings at Carlow University, but this picture shows the impression it must have made as you rode the cable car out from downtown toward Oakland.
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George Washington Memorial, Allegheny Commons
Edward Ludwig Albert Pausch was the sculptor of this monument, which Wikipedia tells us is his most ambitious work. It is meant to show Washington at the age of 23, when he was failing to keep the French out of Pittsburgh—although since Pausch modeled the face on the Houdon bust sculpted in 1785, our young colonel looks a bit old and weary for a 23-year-old.
As equestrian statues go, this one is not Father Pitt’s favorite. It is probably a very good one, but it strikes old Pa Pitt as stiffly posed. The pile of vegetative debris that holds the horse up by the stomach does not help; it makes George look like he’s posing on a carousel pony. Most equestrian statues stand on their own four legs—but then most are made of bronze. This one is in granite.
The monument was given by the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, a fraternal order for people who could prove they weren’t Catholic. The Jr. O. U. A. M. was a big deal a century or so ago, and the local group’s splendid building in Oakland still stands at 3400 Forbes Avenue.
Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Sony Alpha 3000.
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Bloomfield Trust Company
This fine new building opened in 1926, and the bank got to enjoy it for five years before it was liquidated in the dark days of the Depression. After that, it sat vacant for a while. Just after Prohibition ended, the Liquor Control Board picked it for a liquor store, but bids for the conversion came in too high, and the board went looking for another location. Later, at some point, it became a bank again. Now the bank has moved out, and it’s ready for its next life.
As you can see from the picture above, the streets do not intersect at a right angle at this corner, so the building is a trapezoid. The upper floors were built as apartments to gain some extra income to pay for the building.
Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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Knoxville
The slopes of Knoxville, an independent borough until it was taken into Pittsburgh in 1927. Below, two very different towers: the tower of St. Canice on the left and the U. S. Steel Tower on the right.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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Masonic Hall, North Side
Bartberger & East were the architects of this Masonic Hall, which sat derelict and in danger of demolition for many years. (The Bartberger of the partnership was Charles M. Barberger, the younger of the two Charles Bartbergers.)1 Now it is beautifully restored as a center of literary culture, which teaches us not to lose hope.
The building was put up in 1893, as you can tell by reading the super-secret Masonic code in terra cotta on the front: “A. L. 5893.” “A. L.” stands for anno lucis, “in the year of light,” a Masonic dating system that takes the creation of the world as its starting point. At the risk of suffering the fate of William Morgan, old Pa Pitt will reveal the secret calculation that converts A. L. dates to our Gregorian calendar: subtract 4000.
Like most lodge buildings of the time, this one had the main assembly hall upstairs, leaving rentable storefronts on the ground floor. The side entrance on Reddour Street, which led up to the main hall, is festooned with carvings by Achille Giammartini.
Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Sony Alpha 3000; FujiFilm FinePix HS10.
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Outbound Trolley on Broadway, Beechview, in 1999
Outbound car 4133 rounds the curve on Broadway, Beechview, in 1999, on route 42 (now the Red Line). The Siemens SD-400 car is in its original 1980s livery. It was later rebuilt as part of the 4200 series.
And that should be enough numbers to leave the trolley geeks drooling.
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Garage Done Right
In the 1920s and 1930s, designers of houses often made them into fairy-tale cottages, in which every detail was carefully managed to evoke picturesque fantasies of old England or France. But this was also the time when built-in garages were becoming a requirement for suburban homes. If the garage door is on the front, it often spoils the fantasy. But this house in Mission Hills, Mount Lebanon, shows us that there is an alternative: make the garage part of the fantasy.
Not only is the garage entrance a big stone arch that suggests an immemorially ancient cellar under the house, but it is also decorated with the terra-cotta rays that were a fashionable adornment of the fairy-tale style.
Kodak EasyShare Z1281.
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