Father Pitt

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Two Civil-War-Era Houses in Marshall-Shadeland

Two houses that both seem to date from the Civil War era; they both appear on an 1872 plat map of Allegheny City. This one has just had some spiffing up. It is an Italianate variant of the typical Pennsylvania I-house with an addition in the back (although the addition in this case may have been part of the original plan). It has been divided into two dwellings, but the outlines of the house and many of its details are well preserved.

The outline of the house on the 1872 maps shows the wing in the rear, so it is at least that old.

This house was inhabited until recently; it looks as though it had a fire and is undergoing repairs. It has a more complicated history. It also appears on the 1872 map, and later maps that distinguish the materials of buildings show that this was a wood-frame house. At some point around 1900 it was divided into two dwellings. Some time after 1923 it was sheathed in buff Kittanning brick, giving us an 1860s form with 1920s exterior details.

Canon PowerShot S45; Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

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January 21, 2026
Top of One PPG Place

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

The glass crown of One PPG Place in winter sunlight.

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January 20, 2026
Two Aluminum Firsts

Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.

The spire of the German Evangelical Protestant Church (now Smithfield United Church of Christ), designed by Henry Hornbostel and finished in 1926, was the first structural use of aluminum. Behind it, the Alcoa Building, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz and finished in 1953, was the first skyscraper entirely clad in aluminum.

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January 20, 2026
Light from a Winter Sunset

Canon PowerShot A540.

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January 19, 2026
Some Houses on Fair Oaks Street, Squirrel Hill

Murdoch Farms is the plan in Squirrel Hill famous for millionaires’ mansions, but this is the middle-class corner of it. The houses here were also designed by some of our prominent architects, but on a more modest scale. We haven’t identified most of them yet, but we’ll point out the architects we know.

Since we have about two dozen more pictures to show you, we’ll put the rest behind this link to keep from weighing down the front page.

January 19, 2026
First English Evangelical Lutheran Church

Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

Andrew Peebles, who also designed St. Peter’s on the North Side, designed this church, which was quite large when it was built but looks like a toy next to the skyscrapers of Grant Street. Built in 1887, it is now the oldest building on the street.

More pictures of First Lutheran.

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January 18, 2026
St. Walburga’s Church, Lincoln–Lemington–Belmar

You never know what you might find when you go trawling in the depths of the archives. These pictures were taken in September of 2014, but old Pa Pitt never published them. Why not? His memory is vague, but he suspects it was because he was planning to publish them when he worked out the history of the building, and he never did work it out. Finding the pictures by random luck the other day stimulated him to finish the job, and here they are.

St. Walburga’s was a German parish founded in 1903—the last ethnic German parish founded in the city of Pittsburgh. The cornerstone of this building was laid in April of 1927; the building was dedicated a year later in April of 1928. The architects were the Cleveland firm of Potter & Gabele & Co., and if Father Pitt told you how much time he spent trying to find that information before finally locating it in the Pittsburgh Catholic for April 19, 1928, you would wonder a little about whether he should be regarded as competent to manage his own life.

The church at its dedication, from the Pittsburgh Catholic, April 19, 1928, p. 3. Almost nothing has changed externally.

J. Ellsworth Potter was a successful architect who designed churches in traditional styles until his death in 1958. Henry Charles Gabele was associated with Potter until 1932, but after that seems to have fizzled out as an architect (see a brief notice in this PDF Cleveland Architects Database).

St. Walburga’s parish was suppressed in 1966, a victim of postwar demographic change. Today the building belongs to the Cornerstone Baptist Church, whose congregation obviously treasures it and keeps it in beautiful shape.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3; Kodak EasyShare Z1485.
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January 18, 2026
Clouds

Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

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January 17, 2026
St. Gabriel’s School, Marshall-Shadeland

You may have noticed this old school if you looked out the window while your chauffeur drove you down the Ohio River Boulevard. It was built in 1922 for St. Gabriel’s, a Slovak parish, whose church stood across California Avenue from the school. In the late 1960s, when the expressway portion of the Ohio River Boulevard was built, the church was demolished; the congregation moved into the school while it built a big new modern church on the hill above. (We may see that building later: it still stands, though not in use as a church.)

To get this picture of the front, Father Pitt had to stand on the narrow, sloping Belgian-block median between California Avenue and the ramp to the Ohio River Boulevard while cars whizzed by on both sides. Since he lived to bring the camera back, you have this picture.

The school has been closed for years, but the building is kept standing. It seems to be in use as a warehouse.

Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

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January 17, 2026
Double Houses on Shady Drive, Mount Lebanon

A long stretch of Shady Drive is lined on the southwest side with two rows of double houses, identical except that one row is built of sand-colored brick and the other of sooty dark red brick. Individually the buildings are attractive examples of the typical small Pittsburgh terrace with Mission-style details; as a whole row, they add up to something more impressive. Light snow was falling when we took these pictures a few days ago.

Some of the houses have had their front yards scooped out to make driveways, and a few have added garages in the basement.

We may take it as admitted that the overhangs that decorate the upstairs windows have no practical use at all, since in half the buildings they hang over the bedroom windows and in the other half those are left naked, with an overhang over the small windows that probably look out from the bathrooms. The decorative crests similarly alternate.

The alternating placement of the overhangs and the crests of the buildings actually creates a more regular rhythm in the row, taking into account the spaces between the buildings.

Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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January 16, 2026