Father Pitt

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Billy Baxter’s Letters

In the late nineteenth century Pittsburgh had a thriving publishing industry, nourishing some writers who would make names in the world. Mr. William J. Kountz, Jr., might well have become one of America’s most popular humorists, except that he died at the age of not quite thirty-two, having written only enough to fill a little book of less than a hundred pages.

But that little book of Billy Baxter’s Letters went everywhere. It was distributed as a promotion by the Duquesne Distributing Company of Harmarville, a maker of liver tonics, or what Pittsburghers today would call “pop.” Father Pitt himself has two copies, and Project Gutenberg has helpfully digitized the book here:

Billy Baxter’s Letters (Project Gutenberg)

A good scanned copy of the book can also be found at Google Books:

Billy Baxter’s Letters (Google Books)

The sketches are in the form of letters from “Billy Baxter” of Pittsburg (so spelled in those days) to his friend Jim. Mr. Baxter writes about the ordinary things that might happen to a Pittsburgh gentleman of 1899, such as getting drunk and spending a good deal of money:

Yesterday at 2:30 I had a hundred and ten dollars; this morning I’m there with a dollar eighty, and that’s the draw out of a two-dollar touch. If there is any truth in the old saying that money talks, I am certainly deaf and dumb to-day. Besides I have a card in my pocket which says I’ve opened up a running account of thirty-two forty at George’s place. I wonder if this George is on the level, because I’ll swear I don’t think I was in there at all. I’ll bet he stuck the forty on anyway. You know me, Jim; I am one of those bright people who tries to keep up with a lot of guys who have nothing to do but blow their coin. I stood around yesterday and looked wise, and licked up about four high-balls; then I kind of stretched. Whenever I give one of those little stretches and swell up a bit that’s a sign I am commencing to get wealthy. I switched over and took a couple of gin fizzes, and then it hit me I was richer than Jay Gould ever was; I had the Rothschilds backed clear off the board; and I made William H. Vanderbilt look like a hundred-to-one shot. You understand, Jim, this was yesterday.

Looking at the Google Books version, Father Pitt turned up a strange anomaly. Several good illustrations are included in the book, all in the same style. Here’s one:

This is from the Google Books copy. Father Pitt’s copy has this illustration:

Why a new illustration? All the others are the same in both editions. In fact the only other difference is that Father Pitt’s copy has a letter, missing in the Google Books copy , from Admiral Dewey, thanking the publishers for the book, along with this notice:

We also sent a copy to His Royal Highness, Albert, Prince of Wales, and, having heard nothing from him, it now looks as though Al were going to snub us. Under the circumstances, when he runs for King we can’t be for him.

The change in illustrations is a mystery; both are good, and there was no reason to abandon one for the other. The only explanation Father Pitt can come up with is that perhaps the original plate was damaged, and the original artist was not available to replace it.

August 13, 2012
Sidewalks of Allegheny West

It may be that old Pa Pitt will offend every resident of every other street in Pittsburgh by saying so, but he believes that Beech Avenue in Allegheny West is the most beautiful residential street in the city.

August 2, 2012
Stained Glass in the Union Dale Cemetery

This gorgeous Pre-Raphaelite window is at the back of the George J. Schmitt mausoleum in the Union Dale Cemetery, where the rich and influential of Allegheny City went to slumber in eternal style. Its Grail imagery seems to combine two forms of the Grail legend (the Grail as cup of the Last Supper and the grail as mystical jewel). The legend below reads, “Unto thee O Lord do I lift up my soul.”

Anyone worth knowing in the Union Dale cemetery has stained glass in his mausoleum. In fact, for a while in the early 1900s, it was fashionable to have a portrait of the deceased rendered in glass.

Here, for example, is Mr. William H. Walker (1841-1904), who was apparently a proud Shriner. His portrait has deteriorated a little, but not so much that you would not recognize him at once if you met him in the street.

Mr. William H.Teets (1845-1906; perhaps stained-glass portraits were offered only to men named William H.) has also deteriorated a little, but the portrait is still lifelike enough that you can almost feel the macassar oil.

Cherubs and lilies adorn the mausoleum of the McLain family. The cherubs’ faces seem to be executed with a degree of skill that the rest of the composition lacks; perhaps they were ordered from a catalogue.

The Enlow-Schwer mausoleum, built in the late 1930s, affects a more abstract symbolism.

Finally, a Good Shepherd window, which could probably be ordered in standard sizes from national dealers, adorns the Short mausoleum.

There are some who would question the wisdom, or the taste, of building an extravagant monument to the memory of the deceased. Father Pitt would like to suggest, however, that money laid out on art that is still giving us pleasure after a century is hardly misspent.

July 28, 2012
What Mr. Carnegie Did for You

The name “Carnegie” is everywhere in Pittsburgh: four museums, libraries everywhere, a great university, among other things. Just how much did Andrew Carnegie spend on gifts to the people of Pittsburgh? A 1915 guide to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon) tallies it up:

It sounds like quite a bit of money. But how much was that worth in 1915? The same guide gives us an interesting point of comparison:

July 24, 2012
Primitive Science, Modern Science

These bronze reliefs by Sidney Waugh stand over what was once the main entrance to the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science (to give its full title). From loincloths to lab coats is less of a distance than you might think: Waugh took pains to illustrate the remarkable cleverness of the “primitive” American Indians who had long-distance communication (via smoke signals) and snowshoes, an invention Waugh chose specifically because it arose only in North America and nowhere else. As for Modern Science, we should not underestimate the difficulty of imparting dignity to a figure in a lab coat, a feat Waugh has carried off with aplomb. To a world used to the opposition of modern science against primitive superstition, Waugh presents the two figures as engaged in exactly the same enterprise.

July 17, 2012
Col. James Anderson, Founder of Free Libraries

Who was the founder of free libraries in Western Pennsylvania? You might say Andrew Carnegie, but Mr. Carnegie himself will be the first to correct you. As a boy, he spent his Saturdays in the library of Colonel James Anderson, whose selfless example inspired Carnegie to become the greatest patron of libraries in the history of civilization. This monument, put up by Carnegie in 1904 near his Free Library in Allegheny, may look humble at first glance, but for the art Carnegie engaged possibly the greatest American sculptor of all time, Daniel Chester French. It still stands beside the Buhl Planetarium, just across the plaza from the old Carnegie Free Library in Allegheny Center.

The inscription is obviously more recent than the monument, but probably duplicates the wording of a lost plaque:

Allegheny Center is a short walk from the North Side subway station.

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July 16, 2012
Carnegie Free Library, North Side

Update: Since this article was written in 2012, the library building has been taken over by the Children’s Museum. Its future now seems assured.

Andrew Carnegie gave this library to the city of Allegheny, where it was built at the main intersection of the city in 1889. By some standards this was America’s first public library. Carnegie had given Braddock a library earlier (that library, in spite of the collapse of the town around it, still stands), and other philanthropists had given libraries to the public, like Enoch Pratt’s in Baltimore. But those were run as private charities with money from an endowment given by the philanthropist. Allegheny’s was built by Carnegie, but run by the city government.

In the 1960s, the library and its neighboring music hall were among the very few buildings spared when the rest of central Allegheny was demolished to make way for an ambitious urban-fantasy project called Allegheny Center. The redevelopment was not very successful, and today the concrete plazas that replaced downtown Allegheny are unnaturally quiet in the middle of the day. After the building was damaged in a lightning strike a few years ago, the library itself moved to a new building a few blocks up Federal Street. The music hall is still active as a theater, and there are a few offices in the library building, but this grand entrance is no longer in use.

Allegheny Center is a short walk from the North Side subway station.

July 16, 2012
Carnegie Hall, North Side

Allegheny’s own Carnegie Hall was built in 1890, right next to the library Carnegie gave to the city a year earlier. The library building still stands, though the library has moved a few blocks up Federal Street; the music hall is now used as the “New Hazlett Theater,” a venue for miscellaneous performances. The library and music hall were among the very few buildings spared when the heart of Allegheny was demolished in the 1960s for the “Allegheny Center” project, which was either an ambitious attempt at creating the modern ideal of a city or an audacious stab at the heart of Pittsburgh’s conquered rival, depending on how you look at it.

Carnegie Hall is a short walk from the North Side subway station.

Addendum: The architects were Smithmeyer & Pelz.

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July 15, 2012
Birds at the National Aviary

UPDATE: Thanks to a kind correspondent from the National Aviary (see the comments below), we have corrected some misinformation about the penguins you see in these pictures.

The National Aviary is one of Pittsburgh’s most unexpected treasures. This is the largest collection of birds in America, and it exists only because of a series of curious historical accidents.

Henry Phipps gave the city of Allegheny a conservatory (he would later give the much more famous one in Schenley Park to Pittsburgh). In 1952, the city of Pittsburgh added birds and made it into a “conservatory and aviary.”

In 1991, Mayor Masloff, faced with a funding crisis, decided to close the aviary and transfer the birds to the zoo. Old Pa Pitt himself called the mayor’s office to protest: he made a very pretty little speech about how the aviary was not just a local amusement but a unique national treasure, ending by saying that he wanted one voice to be recorded in favor of keeping the aviary.

“One voice?” squeaked the beleaguered secretary who had answered his call.

It turned out that most of Pittsburgh had called the mayor’s office that day; and, like a good public servant, Mayor Masloff listened to us. She found a way to turn the aviary over to a private foundation. Not long after, the United States Congress designated it the National Aviary, and since then it has doubled in size.

Father Pitt could blither on about how important the National Aviary is, how it houses some species that are entirely extinct in the wild, how it sponsors vital conservation programs, and so on. But what he really wants to do is show you pictures of birds.

The African Rockhopper Penguins have their own section called Penguin Point, where you can see them under the water as well as on the rocks. The fuzzy, unkempt-looking penguin is going through what a correspondent from the National Aviary calls a “catastrophic molt,” in which it gains a lot of weight, sheds all its feathers, and looks just awful for a while.

Aptly named Scarlet-Headed Blackbirds perch in the Grasslands free-flight room. There are three big free-flight rooms in which the birds are at liberty to fly around the human visitors.

Black Kites dive for tasty bits of chicken in the Skydeck show on the roof. Here birds of prey are allowed to fly free, though they have tiny radio-telemetry units to track them just in case they should decide to fly a bit too far. No bird has ever been lost from this show, however, because the birds, being no fools, always come back to where the food is.

The National Aviary is a short walk from the North Side subway station.

July 11, 2012
Tufa Bridge in Schenley Park

This bridge on one of the bridle paths in Schenley Park is actually made of concrete covered with tufa (a kind of underwater limestone formation), but it looks as if it simply grew over the Phipps Creek. It was built in 1908, and over the century since has had ample time to grow a lush coating of moss.

July 10, 2012