Old Pa Pitt is a transit extremist. He believes in a subway between downtown and Oakland, and nothing less. But the “bus rapid transit” now in progress will certainly be an enormous improvement over what we have now, which is herds of buses getting stuck in inbound Fifth Avenue traffic. Here we see them piled up in front of the fancy new Atwood Street station.
Catharanthus roseus in most classification systems, but Vinca rosea in the garden trade.
A southbound Red Line car leaves the Mount Lebanon subway station, as seen from the Alfred Street crossing.
The Iroquois Building, which takes up a whole block of Forbes Avenue, was designed by Frederick Osterling, Pittsburgh’s most consistently flamboyant architect. Osterling designed in a variety of styles: he had his own ornate version of Richardsonian Romanesque, and his last large commission was the Flemish-Gothic Union Trust Building. Here, as in the Arrott Building downtown, he adapts Beaux-Arts classicism to his own flashier sensibilities. The building was finished in 1903.
This clock sits in front of the central light well—a typically ornate Osterling detail.
A naked brick front would never do for Osterling; it must be constantly varied in shape and texture. These grotesque reliefs help.
This unusual cast-iron storefront is on 18th Street at the intersection with Sarah Street. Its arches are echoed by the windows above, which still retain their original four-pane configuration.
UPDATED UPDATE: The building is now demolished, but the terra-cotta façade will supposedly be re-erected on the new building.
This sadly abandoned building, which has its own Wikipedia article, has been sitting empty in what has become a valuable part of Oakland for at least three years. It has come into the hands of the University of Pittsburgh, as everything in Oakland does sooner or later, and Pitt wants to demolish it. Preservationists want to keep it, because it is an important part of Croatian-American history. Pitt usually wins.
The architect was Pierre A. Liesch, a disciple of the great Frederick Osterling. Liesch is credited with some of the detail on the Union Trust Building downtown: “Liesch was a native of Luxembourg and later used a similar Flemish Gothic style for his design of the Croatian Fraternal Union Building,” says Wikipedia. “Similar” is generous. The Union Trust Building is, in Old Pa Pitt’s opinion, a work of colossal genius. This building is interesting and, again in Father Pitt’s opinion, not in the best taste. (His opinion might be different if the building still had the “highly ornate overhanging cornice and a pointed-arch apex topped with a sculptural element” mentioned in the Wikipedia article.) Of course it may well be that the Croatian clients had no budget for colossal genius, and Mr. Liesch gave them what they could afford.
In the South Side, 17th Street is the line between Old Birmingham and New Birmingham: you can tell because the street grid is broken at that point, and east-west streets have to jog to continue on their way. This house is on the Old Birmingham side.
Looking south on South 16th Street toward the South Side Slopes. Note the large number of aluminum awnings, which used to be even more ubiquitous in Pittsburgh; the back streets of Old Birmingham are the best place to see them now.
The splendid terra-cotta facing of the Maul Building is covered with ornaments that may have been standard catalogue items, but nevertheless show considerable artistic talent.
