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Hillside House in Schenley Farms, Cleaned
This house in Schenley Farms has had a thorough cleaning and looks just built. It has also lost a large and perhaps obstructive tree. Compare the picture above to the one below, which Father Pitt took in 2014:
Addendum: This house, known as “Ledge House,” was designed by Henry Hornbostel. It was the home of Arthur Hamerschlag, for whom Hamerschlag Hall was named.
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Schenley High School
This is the most magnificent work of an architect who specialized in magnificent schools: Edward Stotz, whose son was the noted preservationist Charles Stotz. The building occupies a triangular sloping plot, which certainly challenged the architect. Mr. Stotz responded with a triangular building that looks inevitable on its site.
When it opened in 1916, Schenley High was a shrine of culture and art, an idealized version of what high-school education could be in an enlightened city. It closed as a school in 2008, and it has now, like every other substantial building in a desirable neighborhood, been refurbished as luxury apartments.
Curiously, Edward Stotz was also responsible for another famously triangular building: the Monongahela Bank Building, which is now the Wood Street subway station and the Wood Street Galleries.
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Cathedral of Learning in the Rain
It started to rain while Father Pitt was out for a walk today, which gave us this atmospheric picture of the Cathedral of Learning looming through the mist like a heavenly palace behind the pleasant houses of Schenley Farms. This is why old Pa Pitt’s cameras live in a waterproof bag. Father Pitt himself is not waterproof, but he does dry fairly quickly.
If you like black and white and all the greys in between, you might enjoy Father Pitt’s Monochrome World, a very simple site that collects his favorite black-and-white pictures from Pittsburgh and elsewhere.
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Victorian House on South 18th Street
This is the kind of eclectic mess twentieth-century architects meant when they vigorously condemned everything “Victorian.” You can hardly pin it down to any historical style. That would probably identify it as “Queen Anne,” the term for Victorian domestic architecture that is a hodgepodge of every historical style, with strange angles thrown in for added picturesque effect. And to those twentieth-century architects, old Pa Pitt has only this to say: this house is a lot more attractive and a lot more pleasant to live in than anything you came up with.
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St. Casimir’s, South Side
In a crowded neighborhood with narrow streets, getting a picture of a large church like this is almost impossible without resorting to computer trickery. Fortunately old Pa Pitt has never been above computer trickery, and this is actually a composite of two photographs. The seams are nearly invisible, but if you look closely, you may notice the same pedestrian appearing twice at different points on the sidewalk.
Like many Catholic churches in the city, this one is no longer a worship site. Protestant churches can straggle on for decades with a dozen people showing up on Sunday, but the top-down organization of the Catholic Church makes it almost inevitable that decisions will be made on the basis of efficiency. St. Casimir’s, like the school formerly attached to it, is now condominium apartments.
Below, the distinctive towers, one of which is missing a column.
Addendum: The architect was Marius Rousseau; the church was finished in 1902. Source: “New Church Almost Ready,” Post, June 8, 1902. “St. Casimir’s Roman Catholic Church, which is being built at South Twenty-second and Sarah streets, at a cost of $70,000, will be dedicated June 22. The stone and brick building is a handsome one of Renaissance style of architecture designed by Architect Marius Rousseau. The pews will be placed in the main auditorium this week. Rev. Father John Sutkartis is pastor.”
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