Father Pitt

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Russell H. Boggs House and Trinity Lutheran Church, Mexican War Streets

Designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow very early in their practice, this house was built in 1888. For a long time it served as the parsonage for Trinity Lutheran Church next door, which created the odd spectacle of a church whose parsonage was taller and grander than the sanctuary.

If you look for downspouts on this house, you won’t find them. Oral tradition says that Mr. Boggs, one of the founders of the Boggs & Buhl department store, hated gutters; at any rate, his architects devised a system of internal drainage that, when it works, carries runoff through channels in the walls. When it doesn’t work, the grand staircase is a waterfall on a rainy day. When the church sold the house, the buyers had to spend a million dollars refurbishing it, and making the drainage system work again was where a lot of the money went. The house is now a boutique hotel under the name Boggs Mansion.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000.

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March 22, 2025
Lake Elizabeth, Winter and Summer

Lake Elizabeth in West Park on the North Side. Above, just a few weeks ago. Below, in 1999.

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March 22, 2025
Terminal Way Crossing McKean Street, South Side

The colossal Pittsburgh Terminal Warehouse and Transfer Company Buildings required streets to be closed and diverted to accommodate them. McKean Street was diverted and became a canyon through the complex. Here we see the bridge on which Terminal Way, the street that runs through and on top of the buildings, crosses McKean Street.

March 22, 2025
Allegheny YMCA, Mexican War Streets

A North Side landmark for just about a century now, the Allegheny YMCA on North Avenue was designed by R. Maurice Trimble and built in 1926. It did not hide its light under a bushel: the letters YMCA are picked out in light bulbs at the top of the North Avenue façade.

Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000.

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March 21, 2025
Two Hotels in Dutchtown

A “hotel” in the common Pittsburgh sense had rooms for rent, but probably expected to make most of its money from the bar downstairs. The rooms were there because it was much easier to get a liquor license for a hotel than for a bar or restaurant. Both these hotels were on backstreet corners in Allegheny. Above, the Hotel Reeg at the corner of Tripoli (originally Third) Street and Middle Street.

We can just make out the ghosts of the letters that used to spell out “Hotel Reeg.” But it helped that old Pa Pitt was able to guess that it looked like a hotel, and that the name “Geo. Reeg” appears as property owner on old plat maps.

Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

The Hotel Rahn, a block away at the corner of Suismon (originally Second) and Middle streets, is still very active. The rooms upstairs may be apartments now, but the restaurant and bar are a Dutchtown landmark: Max’s Allegheny Tavern, one of Pittsburgh’s top spots for German food.

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March 21, 2025
House by Louis Bellinger in Beltzhoover
For his entire career, Louis A. S. Bellinger was the only Black registered architect in western Pennsylvania. His most famous work today is the Pythian Temple, later the New Granada Theater, on the Hill. This is a much smaller project—a six-room house built in 1929 for a middle-class client.¹ But the client got his money’s worth. It’s not a work of towering genius: it’s just the best house you could get for the money, designed by a man who knew how to take the ordinary Pittsburgh house and make it a little bit special.

The house is abandoned and overgrown, and it will probably not last much longer. It would take a miracle to save it—a miracle that made the location suddenly valuable, since it will require a nearly complete gutting to put the house back in livable shape. All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists now, so that future historians will know that Louis Bellinger made it.

It appears that the house originally had an open porch with an arched entrance; later most of the porch was closed in to make another room. The large window opening in front was a good bit larger when it was an open porch, as we can tell by the slight difference in mortar in the bricks to either side of the window.

Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
1. Source: The Charette, January, 1929, p. 12. “602. Architect: Louis A. S. Bellinger, 525 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: Robert T. Smith. Title: One family dwelling, six rooms and bath. Location: 85 Sylvania Ave. Contract awarded to Vincent Mingers. Contract price: $8700.00.” ↩︎
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March 20, 2025
Two Victorian Rows on Craig Street

Two rows of houses that have adapted to the trendy business atmosphere of South Craig Street. The row above has been adapted with minimal external modifications.

Since old Pa Pitt is a connoisseur of breezeways, he could not neglect this exceptionally fine example.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

This row has been altered a bit more, though some care was taken to preserve its distinctive outlines.

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March 20, 2025
St. George’s Church, Allentown

Seen from Climax Street in Beltzhoover. Old Pa Pitt will disclose that there were bunches of utility cables in the way, but to make an idealized view of the building rather than the utility grid, he took them out. If there are blackouts in your idealized Beltzhoover, you know why.

We have many more pictures of St. George’s in another article.

March 19, 2025
Hoffstot Building

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Originally a building with five floors, built in 1886; a sixth floor was added in 1892 with considerable skill. We have more pictures of the building from two years ago; the picture above is a composite of six different photographs, so it is very big if you enlarge it.

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March 19, 2025
Daffodil

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March 18, 2025