The Winter Flower Show continues through January 11.
-
Laughlin Memorial Library, Ambridge
This splendid library was built in 1929 from a design by Eric Fisher Wood, who is perhaps most famous for collaborating with Henry Hornbostel on the extravagant memorial to America’s great president Warren G. Harding.
-
The Ambridge-Aliquippa Bridge
Seen here from 11th Street in Ambridge. The bridge opened in 1926; and, considering the location, it will not greatly surprise you to learn that it was put up by the American Bridge Company.
-
Harmonist Church, Old Economy Village
Still an active church, now as a Lutheran congregation, which would have annoyed George Rapp to no end, since he escaped from Lutheran persecution in Germany. This church was probably designed by George Rapp himself; it was built with bricks made by the Harmonists on site, and it was finished in 1831. The clock tower is delightful and distinctive, but the clock has stopped.
-
Old Economy Village
The Harmony Society was founded by George Rapp, a German peasant who declared himself a prophet. The Harmonists were persecuted by Lutherans in Württemberg as threats to social order, so Rapp led his followers to America, where they soon proved that they were actually quite good at social order. They settled first in Harmony, and then moved for ten years to New Harmony in Indiana. In 1824, they ended up in Economy, now the northern end of Ambridge. In each settlement, they lived comfortable and virtuous lives, and—perhaps more admirable in American citizens—they made good money in business. They prized celibacy as a superior state, however, and the community eventually withered away.
Old Economy Village is something like the Williamsburg of Western Pennsylvania. The streets are full of simple and well-built brick houses, the smell of boxwood is in the air, and there is a notable absence of ugly overhead wires.
The George Rapp house. The Harmonists were a society of equals, but George Rapp was considerably more equal than the others.
The cemetery. There are no gravestones in a Harmonist graveyard; such ostentation is unnecessary, since Christ will know his own.
-
Boggs School
A one-room schoolhouse in Moon Township, built in 1898 on the foundation of an earlier school from 1854. A non-profit organization is hoping to turn it into a local attraction.
-
Sewickley Bridge
A classic truss bridge that spans the Ohio between Sewickley and just west of Coraopolis; it may come as a surprise to find that it was built as late as 1981. Here we see it from the hill above Sewickley.
-
Art Deco Outbreak on Carson Street
This Victorian storefront was given a strange Art Deco makeover at some point in the twentieth century. The makeover extended only halfway up, so the original Victorian style is perfectly preserved on the top two floors. East Carson Street on the South Side is one of the best-preserved Victorian commercial streetscapes in North America, but until very recently it was never preserved in any deliberate fashion—only by extraordinary luck.
-
South Side Market House
Charles Bickel, a good and competent Pittsburgh architect most famous for Kaufmann’s department store, designed this building, but Father Pitt is not quite sure about the rest of its history. A market house was built here in 1893 and burned in 1914; it was rebuilt in 1915, but the exterior walls may have remained from the older building. Old Pa Pitt would love to hear from someone who knows definitely one way or the other. At any rate, it is one of only two original city markets left in Pittsburgh (the other is the East Liberty Market, now Motor Square Garden), neither of which is still used as a market. It sits in the middle of a tight urban square whose southern half is very much like some of the squares of London; the northern half spoils the illusion.
-
Queen Anne House in Shadyside
In American terminology, the Queen Anne style is a hodgepodge of every style of architecture except, perhaps, anything that was popular during the reign of Queen Anne. With its oversized front-facing gable and multiple textures, this house perhaps fits in the “Shingle Style,” often regarded as a division of the Queen Anne style.
