The Renshaw Building (left) was built in 1908; it is architecturally interesting for the way it duplicates the base-shaft-cap form of a standard beaux-arts skyscraper in miniature.
The Kirkpatrick Building was built a quarter-century earlier in 1884. A cast-iron front on the first four floors gives way to standard Victorian Romanesque brickwork in the upper half.
The Maginn Building was one of several Romanesque designs by the prolific Charles Bickel. The large windows of the upper floors indicate that it was built as some kind of workshop or small factory, of which there were many in this section of town.
William G. Johnston & Co. was a very successful printing and bookbinding firm that put up this building on Ninth Street at Penn Avenue in 1886. Mr. Johnston would probably be pleased to see that his building looks very much as it did when he knew it, except that—like every other building downtown—it is doubtless cleaner. If you look very closely, you may see a small stitching error, which comes from the fact that this picture is put together from multiple photographs. The lesson, obviously, is not to look so closely.
Addendum: Through various permutations, the William G. Johnston Company was the successor of Zadok Cramer, one of the very early printers and booksellers in Pittsburgh, who began his business here in 1800.
Gentle showers in a woodland stream; then a thunderstorm in the city; and finally the waterfalls and bird calls of a perfect early-spring day after the rain.
The Eastern Garter Snake is really quite a beautiful animal. It looks as if a graphic designer came up with it, following instructions from upstairs that we needed something zippy and modern-looking. Garter snakes are harmless to humans, but they are very good at reducing the numbers of small pests. These two snakes were wrapped together on a stream bank in the Kane Woods Nature Area in Scott Township.
The fountain (made by sculptor Edmond Amateis in 1927 or 1928) has been restored to working order, so Father Pitt gives you this opportunity to see the movement and hear the water.
From Motion Picture World, 1912.
Father Pitt does not know the exact location of either of these establishments. The fact that the Casino was remarkable for having been in the same place for eight years shows how temporary these early theaters often were. Pittsburgh, of course, invented the movie theater, and by 1912 no neighborhood was complete without one. The larger ones, like the Casino below, also booked vaudeville acts.
From Motion Picture World, 1912.
