From The Pittsburgh Bicentennial in 1958, an advertisement for Alcoa aluminum as the new wonder material in construction. All these buildings are still standing, though the Heinz Food Research Center badly needs a rescue.
This 1950s modernist apartment building was put up on what had been the Neeld estate in Beechview until after the Second World War. It has kept much of its original detail, including the windows. The one big change has been the addition of a hipped roof, which was probably the simplest and most economical way to solve persistent problems with the original flat roof. The colored sections give the building a cheery whimsy that most modernist boxes lack.
This tiny house on Arch Street, which is now part of the Mexican War Streets Historic District, is one of the less distinguished houses from an architectural point of view. Crammed into a half-size lot beside a much larger house, it has nothing but a little plaque on the front to tell you that a great man once lived here. This was the home of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., when he invented the Ferris wheel.
The great wheel was conceived as an answer to the Eiffel Tower. The Exposition Universelle in Paris had attracted the admiration of the world with the world’s tallest structure. Chicago was planning the World’s Columbian Exposition: what could possibly outdo the Eiffel Tower? George Ferris, until then a moderately successful engineer in Pittsburgh, designed the great wheel, and it was a success.
A few numbers will show what a colossal construction this was. It had 36 cars. Each car had 40 seats, with room for 20 more people standing. Altogether, more than two thousand people could ride the Ferris Wheel at once.
The Lumiere Brothers, pioneer moviemakers, captured the wheel in motion in 1896.
George Ferris never made much money from his great wheel; in fact he believed that the fair promoters had cheated him out of his share of the profits. In November of 1896, just three and a half years after the fair opened, Ferris died of typhoid fever. He never got rich enough to move out of this tiny house on Arch Street.
Perched on the side of a steep hill, this tiny schoolhouse was built in 1874.1 After Allegheny was conquered by Pittsburgh, this was known as the Milroy School (after Milroy Street, which passes on the right side of the school). After it closed as a school in 1938, it was used as community center called Milroy House, and then a preschool; and now it is abandoned and waiting for its next life.
The school appears to have had three classrooms: left, right, and rear.
A picture taken in 1923, when the building was already half a century old, shows how the school looked with its belfry and its real windows.
From Closing Services, First Methodist Protestant Church, Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, some engravings of the old downtown church on Fifth Avenue, built in 1832. It was a sad day, of course, when the congregation moved out in 1892, but the consolation was that they were moving into a grand new Romanesque church designed for them by Frederick Osterling (still standing today as the Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh). They were probably also taking a pile of money for their church: the Kaufmann Brothers had leased the land on which the church stood, and soon a huge addition to their department store would rise there.
The First M. P. congregation had succumbed to the forces that were changing Pittsburgh from a dense medium-sized city to an urban colossus. The “Introductory Note” to the commemorative book explains the circumstances very well.
That those who worshipped together in the old church were strongly attached to it was a matter of course, and when at the close of the last service in it, Sabbath evening, May 15, the large congregation slowly retired, many went away with heavy hearts, sorrowing most of all because they should enter their old church home no more. If it is asked why did the church dispose of its home the answer is: The inexorable logic of events so decreed.
When the church was built probably no better location could have been found. It was then almost in the centre of the city and was easily reached from every point in the town. The population was held within a comparatively small territory, but as the city grew the need for business property became more and more urgent, and consequently the people were gradually forced away from their homes in the business sections of the city and scattered into surrounding suburbs. Many of the churches located in what was Pittsburgh sixty years ago have found in these later years their membership steadily and inevitably diminishing in number, and the difficulty in recruiting their ranks has increased with almost every passing year; and the explanation of both facts is the plain one: That the people have moved away and built other churches convenient to their homes.
So the church was abandoned to the inexorable march of commerce—but the land was not. For many years thereafter, Kaufmann’s, the Big Store, stood partly on land that was owned by and paying good money to the First Methodist Protestant Church, now in the tony suburb of Shadyside.
If you had asked Pittsburghers a century ago what kind of neighborhood Bloomfield was, they would have told you it was a very German neighborhood, with a few Irish mixed in, and a little pocket of Italians starting to move in back near the tracks. Go back a bit further, into the late 1800s, and hardly an Italian name is to be seen among the property owners.
Here is a uniquely well-preserved relic of German Bloomfield, whose date stone tells is that it was built in 1882 as the Baum German Evangelical Protestant Congregation. It now belongs to a charity called Shepherd Wellness Community that keeps it in beautiful shape.
Now, if we turn around and look up the street, we’ll find something else uniquely well preserved in a different way.
This building has seen layers and layers of renovations and alterations, but it goes back to the 1880s, if we read our old maps right. It appears on an 1890 map as the Bloomfield Liedr. S. Society, and on a map from a decade later under the fuller name Bloomfield Lieder-Tafel Singing Society. And if you look on Google Maps, you will find that it still appears as the Bloomfield Liedertafel Singing Society. It is still a private club devoted to music—a social relic of German Bloomfield, still in its original building.
From the Sangamon Valley Collection, published at SangamonLink. These cards were sold in a local restaurant when Schrader set up shop in Springfield, Illinois.
On a blustery day in March of 1897, a bearded man in a robe rolled up on a bicycle and set up shop in the Masonic Hall in Dutchtown. Although no advance publicity had heralded his arrival, he was nevertheless recognized at once, and crowds started to gather around him. This was Schrader, the Divine Healer. And if you ask how he was recognized at once, it probably helped that he wore a bright sash across his chest with the words “DIVINE HEALER SCHRADER” printed in big letters.
Although his arrival was unheralded, the wire services had been playing John the Baptist for him for more than a year. Everywhere he went, Schrader was news. He attracted crowds; and the more news he generated, the larger the crowds; and the larger the crowds, the more news he generated.
And so we will allow the Press reporter to take it from here, and old Pa Pitt will return afterward to wrap up the story.
SCHRADER THE HEALER
BIKED INTO ALLEGHENY TO PRACTICE ON THE PUBLIC.
HIS COSTUME AND LOOKS.
He Gives an Illustration of His Alleged Miraculous Powers—Clergymen Opposed to His Methods and Describe His Subjects as Weak-Minded and Impressible.
Schrader, “the divine healer” from the west, arrived in Allegheny yesterday and this morning opened a mission for the healing of the sick and the lame, in the barroom of Masonic hall on Washington street. His coming was unheralded and the divine healer slipped in from Parkersburg on a bicycle.
The opening of the mission is being met by an avalanche of opposition from the North Side ministers. Schrader has been denounced as a fraud and an imposter by Rev. W. J. Robinson, of the First United Presbyterian church on Union avenue. In addition to the denu[n]ciation Assistant Superintendent Glenn, of the Allegheny police department, has ordered a watch kept on the alleged apostle’s movements, and Detective P. M. McDonough was this morning sent to investigate Schrader and the character of his meetings.
Schrader is a remarkable man. Personally he bears all the earmarks of being a sharp fakir, and is almost repulsive to look upon. His mouth is large and sensual, the forehead blotched and the nose and eye unattractive. These defects in his personal beauty are covered by a beard and long, curling hair, worn after the style of the old-time master’s conception of the Holy One. His clothes are old and worn, but over these he wears a long robe of cheap material and a cheap red sash.
In spite of the inclemency of the weather this morning, there were a number of people present when Schrader arrived at Masonic hall. He did not wait for any preliminaries, but started to work at once in his muddy shoes and bedraggled clothes.
His first subject was J. F. McBride, of 7 Monitor street. McBride is a believer in spiritualism, and for years has been a sufferer from nervous troubles. Schrader laid his hands on his head, and after shaking his brow gently, made the sign of the cross upon his breast. McBride’s handkerchief was then taken and blest, after which the stamp bearing the words “Schrader, the Devine Healer” was put upon it. McBride is an educated man, and thoroughly versed in hypnotism. He claims that there is no hypnotic influence excited by Schrader, but there is an undefinable feeling during the period the hands were left on the head. His nervousness entirely disappeared. Others were not so fortunate and left the room without receiving any relief.
Schrader, who is but 25 years old, said to a Press reporter this morning that he would remain in Allegheny for several weeks. It is his intention to hold meetings dally, but a sufficient number of people were not present to-day. He claims that since he was 13 years of age he has been practicing faith cure. He has been through the entire west, but unlike Balaam, who in Biblical times rode about on an ass, Schrader rides a bicycle. During his visit to Mexico he practiced the deception that he was Christ, and, according to his own story, was besieged by thousands, among whom he performed many cures.
In Allegheny his work will not be confined to his mission in the room, which has been the scene of many disgraceful orgies, but he will visit houses of the sick. His first public appearance was in 1895. From that time he has created a profound sensation in all parts of the west. He finally suddenly disappeared, and when he turned up in Denver he claimed he had fasted for 40 days on the Holy Cross mountain. Last spring Schrader came east and wandered through the south until he reached Galveston, Tex. He also spent considerable time at Chattanooga and Lexington. At the latter place he held services in the united brotherho[o]d church. He is accompanied in his wanderings by one man, who claims to be a believer. Schrader claims to have come to Allegheny at divine dictation.
Rev. W. J. Robinson, when seen by a Press reporter this morning, said: my mind Schrader is a most pronounced fraud. From the accounts the newspapers have published of his wandering, he is undoubtedly a man who has lost all moral sense of right and should be ostracized from a religious community. Every indication points to the fact that the man is a fraud. He claims to be gifted with the spirit of God. This alone should condemn him in the eyes of right thinking people. In addition to the fact his alleged cures are performed upon people who are nervous and physically weak and who are liable to great excitement.”
Rev. Robinson is not alone in his stand against Schrader, but a number of other ministers are indignant that such actions should be tolerated by the police. In defense of the position in which the police department is placed Assistant Superintendent Glenn said that as long as Schrader did not charge for his services or hold disorderly gatherings, he could not interfere. He ordered Schrader watched, however.
And now old Pa Pitt will wrap up with just a few more words. It seems as though Schrader’s visit to Allegheny followed the usual pattern. You may have noticed that a hall was prepared for him—the old German Masonic Hall at the intersection of Washington Street (now Pressley) and Madison Avenue, a location that is now under a pile of expressway spaghetti. Someone had planned the visit in advance. An article at the SangamonLink site describes Schrader’s visit to Springfield, Illinois, in 1896. It includes that card reproduced above. According to that article, Schrader was sponsored by local businessmen and railroads, who found it profitable to exploit the crowds he drew. The article is entertaining reading, so Father Pitt will send you there instead of filling in the details here. Another article at a Pittsfield news site tells us more about Schrader’s background.
Schrader continued in the faith-healing business for some years longer. Did he believe in his own divinity? It’s possible, but people who knew him before he became divine remembered him as a con man. In later years he grew more openly mercenary. He sold those divinely blessed handkerchiefs, the ones stamped with his name that he was already handing out in Allegheny, through the mail—a poor decision, because mail fraud was a federal crime. He was indicted, but died of natural causes while awaiting trial.
A few weeks ago old Pa Pitt took a wintry walk on North Avenue (which used to be Fayette Street back when it did not run all the way through to North Avenue on the rest of the North Side). He took piles of pictures, and although he published four articles so far from that walk (one, two, three, four), there’s still quite a collection backed up waiting to be published. Thus this very long article, which is a smorgasbord of Victorian domestic architecture with a few other eras thrown in. Above, a pair of Italianate houses. They both preserve the tall windows typical of the high Italianate style; the one on the right still has (or has restored) its two-over-two panes.
A particularly splendid mid-Victorian building from 1881, as we can see by the beehive date stone in the middle of the façade.
The architect would probably have told you that the style was Renaissance, but mid-Victorian architects were much freer in their interpretation of historical styles than the next generation would be.
