“And I want a turret,” says the client. “I want the biggest turret in the neighborhood.”
“You got it,” says the architect.
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St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church, South Side
The domes of St. John the Baptist, with the skyline in the background, figure in many postcard views of Pittsburgh. So if you want to sell postcards, here is your chance. Like all Father Pitt’s pictures, these are donated to the public domain, so you can do what you like with them.
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR. We also have pictures of the church from the other direction and some pictures of the interior.
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The Roof of Hampton Hall, Oakland
Views of the roof of Hampton Hall, a large Tudor apartment building in Oakland designed by H. G. Hodgkins. We also have views of the entrance and courtyard, the lobby, and the front and a perspective view.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Sony Alpha 3000.
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Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Women, Lincoln–Lemington–Belmar
Dedicated in 1901, this was an institution created by and for Black women, though it had financial support from some of Pittsburgh’s wealthy White families. After the Home closed, it was a Baptist church for a while; but now it is vacant and slowly decaying. We hope something can be done to rescue it, because it has a fascinating story to tell—in fact, many fascinating stories.
The home was a comfortable place for women who had no family to support them: it had beautiful appointments inside and spacious grounds outside. A long article in the Pittsburg Post for August 25, 1901, described the institution and its new home, and introduced us to some of the ladies who would be living there. We’ll transcribe the whole article down below the pictures.
The article from the Post follows. -
Penn Building, Wilkinsburg
A commercial building on Penn Avenue with a well-preserved terra-cotta front whose distinctive Art Deco decorations were worth picking out with a long lens.
Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR
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Entrance to Hampton Hall, Oakland
Hampton Hall is a grand Tudor apartment palace in Oakland designed by the Chicago architect H. G. Hodgkins.
A while ago one of the residents mentioned to old Pa Pitt that the long canopy that usually leads from the courtyard entrance to the street had come down for work, which—our correspondent pointed out—would make some of the previously hidden details accessible to a camera. Here, from about two and a half years ago, is how the canopy usually looks:
And here is the courtyard without the canopy:
Father Pitt ended up spending an hour or more taking pictures all over the building, and since he has so many pictures, he will split them into multiple articles to avoid wearying his visitors. Today we see the courtyard and the main entrance.
Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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On Leong & Merchants Association Building, Chinatown
Much of Pittsburgh’s small but dense and lively Chinatown was destroyed when the ramp to the Boulevard of the Allies viaduct was built, but some of the Chinese merchants doggedly rebuilt in the 1920s. The On Leong & Merchants Association Building was designed by Sidney F. Heckert, who gave his clients a fairly standard 1920s Pittsburgh commercial building with well-chosen decorative details to send the message that this was an outpost of Chinese civilization. Today it is home to the Chinatown Inn, perhaps Pittsburgh’s oldest Chinese restaurant and the only Chinese business left in Chinatown.
Nikon COOLPIX P100. We also have a picture of the Court Place side of the building.
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An Evening Stroll on Espy Avenue, Dormont
Some of the houses on the southeast side of Espy Avenue, which has perhaps Dormont’s best collection of domestic architecture, illuminated by the last golden rays of evening sun. We begin with the manse for the Dormont Presbyterian Church.
We have seen this double house before, which old Pa Pitt still thinks is a good example of how to fit higher-density housing into a pleasant residential neighborhood.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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First Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Shadyside
The First German Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1837, and it was downtown, or on the edge of downtown, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue, until the commercial development of downtown Pittsburgh had scattered the congregation and made the land too valuable to keep. We can see from this building that the congregation had money to spend when the church moved to the East End. The architects were the Cleveland firm of Corbusier, Lenski & Foster (not that Le Corbusier, we should point out), who were much in demand as church designers, though this is the only one of their designs old Pa Pitt has found in Pittsburgh so far. By the time this church opened in 1928, the congregation was bilingual, with services in German and in English; so the new church was called Trinity Church.
Not hidden under a bushel.
The parsonage was designed by the same architects and built at the same time as the church.
Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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