Father Pitt

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Grace Lutheran Church, Brookline

Since 1959 this has been Pittsburgh Baptist Church, our first Southern Baptist congregation. But it was built in 1908 as a Missouri Synod Lutheran church, Grace Lutheran. It is perhaps Brookline’s most striking church, built in a unique variant of the Arts-and-Crafts Tudor Gothic style that was popular then. The massing of the forms is particularly pleasing.

Addendum: The architect was John A. Long, as we discover in the Construction Record, September 16, 1911: “Martsolf Brothers, House building, have secured contract for the erection of a two-story cement stucco church and parsonage, on Pioneer avenue, Brookline, for the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Congregation. Architect John A. Long, Machesney building, prepared the plans.”

November 29, 2022
Granite Building

The German National Bank Building, which later took on the name “Granite Building,” was designed by Charles Bickel. It opened in 1890 as one of the wave of Romanesque buildings that followed H. H. Richardson’s County Courthouse. Mr. Bickel pulled out all the stops and used every texture of which stone is capable. To modern eyes it may almost look random, but after one’s eye has been trained to the Victorian Romanesque, the care with which the elements are balanced becomes apparent.

November 28, 2022
Ruth Apartments, Dormont

A small apartment building along the Red Line in Dormont, with some of the Spanish Mission details that were very popular in Dormont a century ago. It was also popular to give small apartment buildings women’s names; across the street are two very similar buildings named Thea and Esther.

November 27, 2022
Cathedral of Learning at Night

November 26, 2022
608 Wood Street

The exceptionally ornate front of this building is marred only by the modernist excrescence on the ground floor, which until recently was a McDonald’s restaurant. Something more tasteful could be done with that storefront fairly easily. The rhythm of the upper floors is just about perfect, and the carved and incised details are worth stopping to appreciate. (The upper floors are a bit blurry in this picture, which is attributable to low light on a drab day.)

November 25, 2022
Backstreet Bar on the South Side

November 24, 2022
Wrights Way

Two blocks of alley houses on Wrights Way, South Side.

November 23, 2022
Wood Street Subway Station

November 22, 2022
More Chimney Pots of the South Side

No one else seems to be documenting the chimney pots of Pittsburgh. It has become one of old Pa Pitt’s many missions.

November 21, 2022
Moody View from the West End Overlook

A pair of moody views taken on moody black-and-white film in 1999, probably with an Argus C3.

November 20, 2022