Father Pitt – Page 3 – Why should the beautiful die?

Adapting to a Vertical Lot

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

In other cities, this lot would be unbuildable. In Pittsburgh, we just have to make some adaptations. The house (now divided into three units) has a garage around the back on the left side (where you can’t see it in this picture). Suppose you were on the ground floor, meaning the floor that is level with the street in front, and you decided to go down to your car in the garage. You would have to go down into the basement. Then you would have to go down into the other basement. Then you would have to go down into the other other basement, where the garage is. Then you would have to back your car down the steep slope from the garage to the street. Altogether, there are six levels to this house in back, though only three in front. Gaining three storeys from front to back is unusual for a house in most places; in Pittsburgh, it’s just the way we deal with the topography God gave us.

September 24, 2024

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Looking Up at the Horne’s Building

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

The decorated cornice of the Horne’s building gleams in late-afternoon sun.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

September 24, 2024

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The Roxian, McKees Rocks

Composite of three photographs from the Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

One of the most cheering indicators of new vitality in McKees Rocks is the Roxian, beautifully restored and adapted as a concert venue. Its glorious terra-cotta façade looks as fresh as when the building was put up.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

September 23, 2024

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Variations on the Pittsburgh Foursquare in Beechview

Some variants on the Pittsburgh Foursquare from one block in Beechview. They all have the same basic layout of reception hall, parlor, dining room, and kitchen on the ground floor; three or four bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor; and two or more rooms on the third floor. Above, a fairly late version, probably from the 1920s. The lines are simpler and the roof is shallower.

Here is a well-preserved larger version with its original slate roof and multiple dormers. Note the arched window in the dormer. The bay on the left side of the house, which goes up from the dining room into the master bedroom, is very common in Pittsburgh Foursquares of the early 1900s. It allows cross-ventilation and ample light into those rooms in spite of the narrowness of the gap between houses.

This variant without the pyramid roof creates more room in the third floor.

A very large example of the Pittsburgh Foursquare, but the layout of rooms is more or less the same; they are just bigger rooms.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

Finally, a much-renovated house with a gambrel roof, which probably has more room on the third floor in proportion to its size than any of the others.

September 23, 2024

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Carnegie Science Center

Tasso Katselas designed the Carnegie Science Center, which is being renamed for the Kamins after a huge donation. The picture above is combined from two separate photographs.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

September 23, 2024

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Grant Street Transportation Center

This is a rather grandly named bus station and parking garage. It’s certainly a striking building to look at; it was designed by IKM, descended from the grand old firm of Ingham & Boyd. There ought to be someone in the crow’s nest at the top of the tower to shout “Bus ho!” whenever a Greyhound is sighted.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

September 22, 2024

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First Baptist Church, Coraopolis

Though the renovations with modern materials—understandable for a congregation on a tight budget—have not always been sympathetic, this is still a valuable relic of the era of Victorian frame Gothic churches. As Pittsburgh and its suburbs prospered in the twentieth century, most of those churches were replaces with bigger and brickier structures, so although these churches were once all over western Pennsylvania, remnants like this are fairly rare. This one no longer serves the Baptist congregation (or the Anglican congregation that inhabited it more recently), but some maintenance work seems to be going on.

The distinctive wooden belfry is still in good shape, though missing a few pieces of trim and wanting a bit of paint. The trim is simple and could be replicated in somebody’s garage woodshop.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

September 22, 2024

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Two Commercial Buildings in McKees Rocks

In its prime, this Renaissance palace on Island Avenue had four storefronts on the ground floor and three floors of apartments above. The storefronts have also been turned into apartments, but in a cheap way that could probably be reversed when McKees Rocks is prosperous again. The building is still in pretty good shape, and the details are worth appreciating, for which reason we give you a very large picture above. Old Pa Pitt especially likes the round and oval windows in the stairwells.

Across the street is a smaller building whose storefronts have also been turned into apartments, but with even less alteration. The big display windows are still there. It’s easy to imagine the ground floor becoming trendy little shops again in that rosy future when Island Avenue is a busy commercial street once more.

September 21, 2024

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Granite Building

The Wood Street end of the Granite Building in a composite photograph that gets a little fuzzy toward the top, but otherwise gives us a good notion of the design of the Romanesque extravaganza. It was built in 1889 as the German National Bank; the architects were Bickel & Brennan—the Bickel being Charles Bickel, who would go one to become Pittsburgh’s most prolific architect of commercial buildings.

We also have pictures of some of Achille Giammartini’s carvings on the building, and of the German National Bank ghost signs still visible on the side that faces Liberty Avenue.

September 21, 2024

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Houses on 24th Street, South Side

A row of houses in different styles, all of them typical of the South Side.

We’ve seen these two tiny frame houses before. They date from the Civil War era, and unlike almost all the others of their type and age on the South Side they retain their wood siding. The one on the left is an odd shape: there is a kink in the South Side street grid at 24th street, so the alley does not meet the street at a right angle.

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

This eclectic Victorian has a large dormer on the fourth floor, and another thing that is sort of a dormer, but not exactly, projecting from the roof and lining up with a slightly extended section, giving the house the effect of a three-storey tower.

September 20, 2024

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