A row of smokestacks from the vanished Homestead Works looms over a parking lot for the gigantic Waterfront shopping center that replaced the factories.
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Rowhouses on the South Side
Until the 1890s, rowhouses were the characteristic housing of Pittsburgh, as they were in most large Northeastern cities. These elegant rowhouses on the South Side are among the last of the rowhouse era in Pittsburgh. Soon the well-to-do merchant classes who built these houses would begin to demand detached houses, even if they were detached by only two or three feet.
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B. M. Kramer Building
A masterpiece of industrial architecture, the Kramer Building is a block long and beautifully proportioned. Each of the arches on the first floor is divided into two sub-arches, creating a pleasing and interesting rhythm that makes the building feel much less like a huge slab of brick. The neighborhood across the street is residential, and the building manages not to overwhelm the rowhouses facing it.
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More Autumn Colors in Mellon Park
There is no need for explanation: just beautiful November colors in every shade.
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World’s Largest Analog Clock
So they say in Pittsburgh. This clock on the old Duquesne Brewery may or may not be the world’s largest, but it’s huge (compare it to the houses in the foreground). From across the Mon on the Boulevard of the Allies, it’s the most obvious thing on the South Side. [Update: It should be noted that, since this article was written, at least two larger clocks have been built: the largest in Mecca, and a very large one somewhere in Turkey. This is still the largest clock in the Americas, the Western Hemisphere, the English-speaking world, and a number of other categories one could think of.]
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Alley Houses
A break from fall in Mellon Park to take a walk on the South Side.
It’s the common pattern in the old rowhouse neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. Alleys were built between the main streets to serve the backs of the houses. But then the real estate became so valuable that people sold their back yards, and houses sprung up along the alleys. Here on the South Side, impossibly narrow alleys are full of small houses, some making up in dignity what they lack in size, others more utilitarian.
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A Niche in Mellon Park
What this niche really needs is a statue of Diana, or of some other chaste goddess who appreciates nature. Not one of those urban party-girl goddesses.
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November Colors in Mellon Park
Leaves in colors from bright gold to deep mahogany; ornamental grasses in browns, yellows, and oranges; a perfect day.
All these photographs in Mellon Park were taken with a Kodak Retinette, whose Schneider-Kreuznach lens and Compur-Rapid shutter make it a fine choice for a light, compact 35-mm camera. It has no rangefinder, which has the salutary effect of forcing the photographer to think clearly about focus and depth of field.
