Father Pitt

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English Ivy in Bloom

We’re used to English Ivy, that beautiful and enthusiastically invasive European import, as a solid mass of dark green leaves.

But it is a flowering plant, of course, and therefore it has flowers. After many years, when it has reached a certain height and maturity, it will send forth a multitude of stalks bearing clusters of clusters of little green flowers with a heady scent, something like linden-flower tea, that attracts insects of all sorts to pollinate them. Curiously the flowering stems bear leaves that no longer grow in the familiar lobed ivy shape; instead they are unlobed, rather diamond-shaped, or like an aspen leaf, and larger than the leaves on the rest of the vine.

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September 28, 2019
The Maul Building

The Maul Building at Carson and Seventeenth is noted for its ornate terra-cotta exterior. Unfortunately the cornice has been lost, but the rest of the building, which dates from 1910, is still one of Carson Street’s commercial treasures.

Map

September 24, 2019
First Associated Reformed Church of Birmingham

Built in 1854, this is one of several churches in Pittsburgh that solved the problem of tiny lots in crowded neighborhoods by putting the sanctuary on the second floor, leaving the first floor for social halls, Sunday-school rooms, and the like.

Map

September 22, 2019
Cast-Iron Storefronts on Wood Street

Cast-iron building fronts were made in Pittsburgh for cities everywhere, but according to the architectural historian Franklin Toker they were actually less popular in Pittsburgh than elsewhere. Here, however, are three splendid identical examples. They were carefully restored in 2013, using fiberglass to duplicate missing pieces of the iron.

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September 21, 2019
Lorch’s Department Store, South Side

This building at the corner of Carson and 17th, known to today’s Pittsburghers as the home of Nakama, a well-known Japanese restaurant, was once Lorch’s, the “South Side’s Big Store,” as we can see in this advertisement preserved by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation:

To run a department store on the South Side in about 1901, you had to be able to serve your customers in Polish—and probably Ukrainian and Serbian and several other languages as well.

September 21, 2019
Layers of History

A change of tenants in this Victorian building on Liberty Avenue reveals an earlier layer of signs—one that makes old Pa Pitt wax nostalgic. For many years there was a Foto Hut here. Foto Hut was a chain of photography stores where amateur photographers could get all the basics for photography—including, of course, film and film developing. Digital photography is much cheaper, but Father Pitt still misses film.

September 21, 2019
Lions on the People’s Savings Bank Tower

These distinctive lion heads hold up the arch of the tympanum over the Wood Street entrance to the People’s Savings Bank tower.

September 20, 2019
Eleanor Street, South Side Slopes

One of Pittsburgh’s distinctive features is the huge number of public stairways. Many streets that appear on maps are actually stairways, like Eleanor Street here. In the early days of GPS navigation, trip instructions would often send drivers up or down these streets; but most GPS systems have now learned to recognize the streets that can accommodate pedestrians only.

And bicycle cops. To be a Pittsburgh bicycle cop, you have to be able to ride down one of these stairways. If you are still alive at the bottom of it, you’re qualified.

Map

Open Street Map does a good job of showing the public stairways on the South Side Slopes. All the denser red dotted lines are stairways. The narrower, sparser dotted lines are walkways.

September 20, 2019
Mexican Sunflower

Tithonia rotundifolia, the Mexican Sunflower, is a fine garden flower if you have some room for it: it can grow six feet high and spread just about as wide. Tall flowers in hot colors are fashionable again, but old Pa Pitt never cared for fashions in flowers. He just likes big bright annuals.

September 20, 2019
Sixth Street Bridge in Early-Morning Sun

The Roberto Clemente or Sixth Street Bridge is bathed in early-morning sunshine, as seen from the dimness of still-unilluminated Sixth Street downtown.

September 19, 2019