Father Pitt

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Entrance to the Gerber Apartments, Shadyside

Otherwise not remarkable among the many classically inspired apartment houses in Shadyside, this one has an entrance that certainly stands out. It makes a spectacle of itself, in fact. The capitals on the massive square columns are more or less Corinthian, but Corinthian is usually the lightest and airiest-looking of the classical orders, whereas this construction gives the impression that it outweighs the whole building behind it.

This picture was taken with what might be called a toy camera. It was a no-name digital camera with stated 18-megapixel resolution, but clearly those 18 megapixels are achieved by multiplying some much smaller number of pixels. It may amuse you to enlarge the picture to full size and examine the results.

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August 31, 2021
Spire of First Baptist Church, Oakland

August 30, 2021
Spanish Mission Style in Dormont

A modest commercial building on Potomac Avenue, this is a good example of the Spanish Mission style in commercial buildings and apartment houses. The style—a kind of Eastern fantasy of the Southwest—is certainly not unknown elsewhere in the Pittsburgh area, but for some reason it was especially popular in Dormont, where numerous Mission-style buildings still stand. Doubtless the original roof overhang above the name was tile, and very probably green tile. Below, the building at Potomac and Glenmore Avenues retains its original green roof tiles.

August 30, 2021
Engine Company No. 28, Shadyside

A large classical firehouse with its front on Filbert Street and a long, well-designed side on Elmer Street.

The Filbert Street front.

Arms of the city of Pittsburgh, on the left side of the front.

Arms of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, on the right side of the front.

The Elmer Street side looks like an Italian Renaissance palace.

August 29, 2021
Minnetonka Building, Shadyside

Most pedestrians on Walnut Street pass this building without noticing it; at best they may glance at the rounded corners, but otherwise it strikes them as just another modernist building. It is in fact one of the very earliest outbreaks of modernism in Pittsburgh: it was designed by Frederick Scheibler and opened in 1908. It must have been startlingly modern indeed surrounded by Edwardian Shadyside.

August 28, 2021
Zovko’s Garage, South Side

This utilitarian garage has a faint scent of Art Deco: instead of a flat front, we get pleasingly arranged vertical lines.

August 27, 2021
Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh, Shadyside
This building began its life as the First Methodist Protestant Church; it later passed into the hands of the Seventh Day Adventists, and now belongs to a nondenominational Korean congregation. It is a work of Frederick Osterling in his typically florid Romanesque style. Obviously the spire has had a bit of bad luck, but the rest of the exterior is in pretty good shape.

This modest but tasteful house seems to be the parsonage for the church, and Father Pitt can easily imagine that it was designed by Osterling as well. He would be happy to have his speculation corrected or confirmed. Update: Father Pitt’s speculation was wrong. The architect of the parish house, built in 1914 or so, was H. E. Kennedy.¹
1. Source: The Construction Record, May 2, 1914: “Plans are being prepared by Architect H. E. Kennedy, Home Trust building, tor the erection of a stone parish house on Howe and Aiken streets, for the First Methodist Protestant Congregation. Cost $15,000.” ↩︎
August 27, 2021
The News Boys, by David Gilmour Blythe

If you had bought a newspaper in Pittsburgh in about 1850, you probably would have bought it from a child like these. David Gilmour Blythe, Pittsburgh’s master caricaturist, produced a small masterpiece of a character study here. It hangs on a whole wall of David Gilmour Blythe paintings in the Carnegie Museum of Art; the curators date it to some time from 1846 to 1852.

August 26, 2021
The Lionhead, Shadyside

Twin lion heads guard the entrances to the Lionhead, an apartment building in Shadyside.

August 26, 2021
Second Empire Storefront on Carson Street

The cornice and dormers are fine specimens of Victorian woodwork.

August 26, 2021