
Decorative trim on the Schiller Glocke Gesang und Turn Verein (map), a German singing club (now apartments) built in 1897.

Decorative trim on the Schiller Glocke Gesang und Turn Verein (map), a German singing club (now apartments) built in 1897.

This church was built as the First Ruthenian Church (a Presbyterian church for Ruthenian immigrants), and later became a Byzantine Rite church. Now, like many other things on the South Side, it’s a bar.
Addendum: The architect was Chauncey W. Hodgdon, whose churches were usually in the Gothic style, but who adopted a mixture of classical and Byzantine for this very unusual congregation.1

Dormers with carved and painted decorations on a Second-Empire-style house at Jane and 28th Streets, South Side.

A small but very tasteful building on the most prominent corner in the West End. The lower floor has had a modernist makeover, but the upper floors retain the original carefully balanced symmetry.

The church was pulled down to make way for an office block, but the tower was left to preside over its old corner.

Clouds reflected in the windows of a modernist office building (built in 1965) in uptown Mount Lebanon.


Another elegant Renaissance palace, slightly smaller but very similar in style to the Aberdeen. Once again, the view is marred by intrusive utility cables.

A fine Gothic building with a prominent tower in the west front, this church sits right on the border between Shadyside and Oakland—it would be in Oakland if it were on the other side of the street. The view is marred by utility cables, which is true of most things in most American cities. Europeans put those things under the ground; Americans seldom even notice what an aesthetic blight they are, not to mention how often storms bring them down.
