Back in the 1800s the Monongahela House was Pittsburgh’s first-class hotel. Charles Dickens stayed here, which was not enough to give him a good impression of the city. The hotel went through several incarnations; this is how it looked in 1888.
Source: Allegheny County Centennial.
This Fourth Avenue tower is smaller than some of the others, but just as splendid as its most ostentatious neighbors. It was designed by Alden and Harlow in their usual exquisite taste.
Old Pa Pitt does not know what church this is meant to represent, but he suspects a Presbyterian church: the preacher is clearly the main attraction, but the Gothic details suggest the commercial wealth that Pittsburgh Presbyterians have traditionally been known for. This painting hangs on the wall of Blythe paintings at the Carnegie; the curators date it 1860-1862.
The First Baptist Church in Oakland was designed by Bertram Goodhue, a disciple of Ralph Adams Cram, the greatest figure in American Gothic architecture.
Now part of the Morse Gardens apartments, this fine-looking 1874 school was designed by T. D. Evans, about whom old Pa Pitt knows nothing else. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
On the left, the arms of Allegheny County; on the right, the arms of the City of Pittsburgh.
Allegheny County.
Pittsburgh.
Addendum: The sculptures are by Charles Keck, who also worked with architect Henry Hornbostel on numerous other buildings, including Soldiers and Sailors Hall.
Frederick Osterling designed the small but splendid Marine Bank Building on Smithfield Street at Third Avenue. This gargoyle on the corner is old Pa Pitt’s favorite gargoyle in Pittsburgh.
The Art Deco architecture of the Mount Lebanon Municipal Building demanded Art Deco ornamentation. Old Pa Pitt is not quite sure what the standing heads along the cornice are meant to be. He suspects either crusaders or golems.
Forever overshadowed by its taller neighbor the Frick Building, the Allegheny Building, built in 1906, is also by Daniel Burnham, and also a Frick project. It is one of his spare, almost modernistic designs, and it is fascinating to see how well the classical vocabulary adapts to twentieth-century simplicity.
This terra-cotta head of a helmeted allegorical figure (the flowing hair suggests femininity, but the armor suggests “don’t mess with me”) is really a first-rate piece of work, which makes it all the more surprising to find it built into the gable of a rowhouse on the South Side. It is the sort of ornament you add to tell your neighbors, “I am slightly more prosperous than you, because I can afford to have this built into my gable.”
—Old Pa Pitt suspects that this is meant to be a head of Minerva, a Roman goddess you don’t mess with.
The other decorative details on this house are also fine, though more in a vernacular Victorian Romanesque style. This ornament is in the arch above the middle second-floor window.
