Except for the replaced and filled-in porch, this house is in remarkably good shape, with most of its characteristic details intact. By chance the Pittsburgh City Photographer happened to capture it on May 27, 1910, while it was still under construction, so we can compare its current state to what it looked like when it was new.
Pittsburgh Railways, the streetcar conglomerate, had a big facility here in Glenwood (the southern end of what city planning maps mark as Hazelwood) with a car barn and this station and offices. The complex was adjacent to the Glenwood station on the B&O, where there was a large railroad yard with a roundhouse.
The building is now the Hazelwood Healthy Active Living Community Center, so it has been restored and is kept in exceptionally neat condition.
A typical Pittsburgh Foursquare, just like hundreds of others in Beechview and thousands upon thousands in the city and inner suburbs, except that by random chance we happen to know the architect of this one: William Wolfshafer (or Wolfschaffer; like many German architects in Pittsburgh, he had a German and an Anglicized spelling of his name). He was a fairly successful architect, to judge by the occasional substantial apartment buildings we find with his name attached, and he was obviously capable of delivering just the kind of conservative but up-to-date house merchant-class Pittsburghers craved. Note the well-preserved classical details in the dormer.
Four different houses in four different styles. We begin with the biggest: a Georgian mansion with a gambrel roof, built a little before 1910.
A classic foursquare on a generous scale, with “modern Ionic” porch columns and classical detailing in the dormer and oriel.
This “old English” design has some fancy brickwork and even fancier woodwork in the gable, partly obscured by vines.
Finally, an eclectic design of the type Pa Pitt often calls “center-hall foursquare,” with a harmonious mixture of influences from Georgian to Prairie Style.
Built as a branch bank, this tidy little modernistic building seems to be succeeding in its second life as a little neighborhood grocery. It is one of several “flatiron” buildings in Sheraden, and old Pa Pitt had to stand in the middle of a fairly busy intersection to get this picture of the sharp end:
Espy Avenue is perhaps the highest-toned street in Dormont, lined with fine houses by distinguished architects. We’ve seen a bunch of them before; here are four from the other side of the street.
The beautiful birches make it a little hard to photograph the house behind; old Pa Pitt did the best he could.
A giant standing skeleton was very amusing when it was the first one on your block. It tends to stand around forever, because otherwise you have to figure out where to put it.
We’ve seen this double before, with the sun behind it. Here it is again in cloudy weather, when the details may be a little easier to see.
The Skinny Building, possibly the world’s narrowest commercial building, has returned to its roots as a lunch counter.
One of the hidden beauties of downtown Pittsburgh: you have to go back behind the Bell Telephone Building on Strawberry Way, a tiny alley, where you will find an unexpectedly elegant arcade. Look up and you discover the ceiling of Guastavino tile in subdued greenish shades—a gem hidden from everyone who refuses to go wandering in back alleys.
The distinctive arched top of the CNG Tower, now known as EQT Plaza, one of old Pa Pitt’s favorite postmodernist buildings in the city.
Thomas Cox McKee was the architect of this school, built in 1901. This Renaissance palace is probably his most important remaining work, now that the Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church is gone. The school is no longer in use, so Father Pitt assigns it the Vulnerable label on his scale of Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Demolished.
A modernistic entrance is out of character with the main school, but it is probably better than a halfhearted attempt to match the original style.
