Father Pitt

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Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

Built in 1916, the Wilkinsburg Masonic Temple was designed by Alden & Harlow. Mr. Alden had already been dead for eight years, but his famous name was kept at the head of the firm; Howard K. Jones, whose name was not added to the firm (as “Alden, Harlow & Jones”) until 1927, was doing much of the design work by 1916, and may have had a large hand in this building.

It’s a curious structure, two-thirds basement. Often lodge halls were put on upper floors to provide rentable storefronts on the ground floor that would pay for the building, but that is obviously not the case here. Perhaps the reason may be sought in pure symbolism. Whatever goes on in this building (which the uninitiated are not permitted to know) is so lofty that even the members must ascend through two and a half levels of basement before they can reach the main event.

A full-page photograph in the Architectural Record from 1925 shows us that the front of the building has not changed in any noticeable way, except for the new doors and windows:

From the Architectural Record, September, 1925.

Unlike some other landmark buildings in Wilkinsburg, this one has been preserved by new occupants, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Mosque, who clearly love the building and keep it in sparkling condition. Even the inscription and the cartouche have been attractively covered, not obliterated, by the Muslim community.

Olympus E-20N.

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October 11, 2025
Courthouse Lion

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Of all the hundreds of lions on buildings downtown, the Romanesque lions that guard the county courthouse are the most distinctive. They used to be at street level, but the lowering of the Hump, the awkward hill that used to make navigating downtown even more difficult than it is now, left them stranded far above pedestrians’ heads.

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October 11, 2025
Entrance to the Jones & Laughlin Headquarters Building

Samsung Digimax V4.

MacClure & Spahr designed the headquarters for Jones & Laughlin, which is now the John P. Robin Civic Building. The entrance is lavishly decorated. The angle below shows off two of the most impressive lanterns in the city.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

More pictures of the Jones & Laughlin Headquarters Building: front of the building, from the southeast, and the construction of the second stage of the building.

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October 10, 2025
Early Scheibler in Park Place

Olympus E-20N.

Built in 1903, this apartment building on East End Avenue was one of the early works of our future prophetic modernist Frederick Scheibler, while he was still in his classical phase. It is listed as No. 16, “Apartment building for Robinson and Bruckman,” in the Catalogue of the Works of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., in The Progressive Architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., by Martin Aurand (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).

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October 10, 2025
Modern Apartments on Neville Street, Oakland

In the boom years after the Second World War, new housing couldn’t be built fast enough to satisfy the demand. Architects were busy, and modernism was the rage. The Mark Twain and the Stephen Foster brought clean modern lines to Neville Street and doubtless filled up as soon as they were opened to eager renters.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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October 9, 2025
Rebuilding the Diamond in 2010

The Diamond or Market Square is our most fussed-with public space. Here we see it being completely reconfigured fifteen years ago, and that reconfiguration is now being completely reconfigured. This view of Pittsburgh has changed more than most in the past decade and a half; two landmark skyscrapers, the Tower at PNC Plaza and Tower Two-Sixty, have risen on spots once occupied by low buildings in the background.

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October 9, 2025
Fifth Avenue from Grant Street

Samsung Digimax V4.

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October 9, 2025
Cranes, Cranes, Cranes

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

A typical view of Oakland: cranes as far as the eye can see. The building going up in the near distance will be student apartments.

October 8, 2025
English Terrace, Squirrel Hill

These two identical fantasy-Tudor apartment buildings at the corner of Morrowfield and Shady Avenues were built in 1929. Father Pitt does not know the architect, but they are very similar to apartment buildings built at the same time in Mount Lebanon and associated with Charles Geisler. Since Geisler worked on other buildings in Squirrel Hill, he is a likely candidate.

Advertisement from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 18, 1929.

We have the technology to take those utility cables out of the picture, but in this case not the patience.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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October 8, 2025
County Office Building

Stanley Roush, the county’s official architect, designed this building to hold the offices that were spilling out of the Courthouse and the City-County Building as Pittsburgh and its neighbors grew rapidly. It was built in 1929–1931, and it is an interesting stylistic bridge between eras. Roush’s taste was very much in the modernistic Art Deco line, but the Romanesque Allegheny County Courthouse, designed by the sainted Henry Hobson Richardson, was a looming presence that still dictated what Allegheny County thought of its own architectural style. Roush’s compromise is almost unique: Art Deco Romanesque. We have many buildings where classical details are given a Deco spin—a style that, when applied to public buildings, old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist. But here the details are streamlined versions of medieval Romanesque, right down to gargoyles on the corners. Above, the Ross Street side of the building; below, the Forbes Avenue side.

One of the entrances on Forbes Avenue.

Moses with the tablets of the Law. His beard obscures the Tenth Commandment, so go ahead and covet anything you like, except—if you are Lutheran—your neighbor’s house, or—if you are Catholic—your neighbor’s wife or house. Counting up to ten is harder than it looks when it comes to Commandments, and you may need to refer to Wikipedia’s handy chart to find how the numbering works in your religious tradition.

The bridge in this medallion looks a lot like the Tenth Street Bridge, which by pure coincidence was designed by Stanley Roush.

Decorative grate with an Allegheny County monogram.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Some very expensive columns, smooth and classically proportioned but with elaborate Deco Romanesque capitals.

We have more pictures of the decorations on the County Office Building, including those gargoyles we mentioned.

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October 7, 2025