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Filling a Gap on Polish Hill
This odd little improvised structure has a strange charm for old Pa Pitt. It sits on Brereton Street, the spine of Polish Hill, and fills a gap between buildings that may have been left by the burning or destruction of a more substantial building. Clearly this thing has been here for a while, and the owner, who can do nothing to prevent the sagging (which only adds to the charm), has chosen a cheerful and decorative paint scheme.
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Gothic House in Shadyside
Old Pa Pitt is not quite sure how to classify this house. It is a sort of Jacobean or Tudor Gothic, but with very Victorian woodwork on the gables. We shall call it “Jacobean with gingerbread.”
Addendum: This is the Remsen V. Messler house; the architects were Peabody & Stearns, who designed several other Tudorish mansions around here, as well as the Liberty Market (now Motor Square Garden) and the Horne’s department store.
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Duquesne Baseball Team, 1892 or 1893
The borough (later city) of Duquesne was only three or four years old when this picture was taken, if the dating in family tradition is correct, but it already had a baseball team with spiffy jerseys. One of the players—possibly the boy on the ground in front with the dark jersey—is James W. Estep (1879–1948), son of George Estep, one of the founders (and later two-term burgess) of Duquesne, and it was James’ late grandson who provided us with this picture, for which Father Pitt is very grateful.
Old Pa Pitt knows nothing of the history of this team, and he would be delighted if any readers could enlighten him.
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Harris Theater
This little movie house, built as the Avenue Cinema in 1931, became the Art Cinema in 1935; from the 1960s until the 1990s, it showed “adult movies,” which old Pa Pitt assumed meant that all the films were over 21 years old. But it had begun life as an art-film house, and in 1995 it resumed that role under the name “Harris,” after one of the founders of the movie-theater business—John P. Harris, who with his brother-in-law opened the world’s first movie theater, the Nickelodeon, which was on Smithfield Street (a plaque marks the site today). Movies had been shown in theaters before, but the Nickelodeon was the first to show only movies. The idea caught on with amazing rapidity, and “Nickelodeons” sprouted everywhere.
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Belgian Block
A surprising number of Pittsburgh streets are still paved with Belgian block, which Pittsburghers usually call “cobblestone.” (Real cobblestones are irregular round stones.) In some better neighborhoods, all the streets were paved with Belgian block. In other neighborhoods, more-or-less flat sections were paved with brick, which is much cheaper but very slippery when wet, and the more expensive Belgian block was reserved for steep slopes.
This pavement is on Elgin Street in Highland Park.
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PCC Car and Schoolhouse, Bethel Park
This old school is now a community center for Bethel Park. In front is a Pittsburgh PCC car, the ideal Art Deco streetcar that dominated Pittsburgh transit for a generation, restored to its Pittsburgh Street Railways livery. (It was one of the last PCC cars to run in Pittsburgh, and had been repainted in the 1980s Port Authority livery.) Yes, we do have quite a few pictures of it, because old Pa Pitt is an unashamed fan of PCC cars, which always look to him like trolleys that would run on the planet Mongo in the old Flash Gordon serials. More modern, but less futuristic, trolleys still run on the Silver Line just a block away.
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A Forest of Moss
If you look at it through a jeweler’s loupe, you find that moss comes in fascinatingly different forms. You also discover something of its habits, such as the way it traps tiny droplets of water.
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Bicolor Grape Hyacinth
Muscari latifolium is not nearly as popular as the common grape hyacinth, M. neglectum, but it adds interest to an early-spring display.
