Father Pitt

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Hornbostel Goes Maya in South Park

The Maya produced some of the great architectural geniuses of the ancient world. In 1907, the architect Henry Hornbostel made a trip to Yucatan, where he was one of the first people to photograph the ancient Maya structures. In 1938, when he was director of parks for Allegheny County, Hornbostel produced this startling corbeled arch—a distinctive feature of Maya architecture—for the golf clubhouse in South Park.

Reliefs cleverly assembled from bricks show men and women having fun on the golf course. When old Pa Pitt visited, the men playing golf outnumbered women by at least ten to one, but in these reliefs the sexes come in equal numbers. In half the men swing and the women watch, and in the other half vice versa.

The interior decorations continue the abstract-Maya theme.

In his much-quoted talk on “American Style,” the eccentric genius and flimflam artist Titus de Bobula advised his fellow architects, “Go back to our own archeological excavations of Yucatan and Mexico,” where they would find inspiration for a truly American style. He earned some applause, but only a very few American architects followed that advice, producing a small treasury of “Mayan Revival” architecture. This may be the only unambiguous example in Pittsburgh. It took Hornbostel three decades from the time he visited Yucatan to the time he drew this Maya-inspired building, and it was at the end of his career. Perhaps the Maya style was too adventurous for Pittsburgh. But it gave us this one memorable clubhouse, and we can be thankful for that.

Sony Alpha 3000.

October 14, 2024
Milgate Street, Bloomfield

Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

These frame houses were built in the 1880s and 1890s. They are detached houses—detached by just enough room for an average person to walk between them. As a group, they form a good document of the things ambitious salesmen could sell to middle-class homeowners in the twentieth century. Not a single one retains its original details: they have all had their siding replaced, and most have smaller windows than the originals. And, of course, several have sprouted aluminum awnings.

October 14, 2024
Union Church, Robinson Township

Father Pitt thinks this is the most picturesquely sited church in Allegheny County. On a day of rapidly changing lighting, he captured it in multiple moods.

The cemetery is stuffed with Revolutionary War veterans, and several of them will be appearing over at Pittsburgh Cemeteries.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

October 13, 2024
Neville House, Oakland, in Black and White

We saw Neville House in color earlier. These three monochrome pictures were taken with a Kodak Retinette made in the middle 1950s. Above, the exit from the porte cochere under the building. Below, the main entrance, including the porte cochere and the patio in front of it.

Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

Thanks to Bodega Film Lab for developing the film and making it worth taking the Retinette out for a walk.

October 12, 2024
Railroad Street, Strip

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

In the old days, many streets in Pittsburgh had trains running right down the street—even Liberty Avenue downtown. Railroad Street in the Strip is one of the few streets left with an active railroad. From this long-lens picture, we can see that the idea of “gauge” in tracklaying allows for a good bit of literal wiggle room.

By state law, streetcars in Pennsylvania were not allowed to use standard-gauge track, because legislators very sensibly worried that some backroom deal between the transit company and the railroad would suddenly have freight trains rolling down residential streets everywhere. Even now, the streetcars in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia run on “Pennsylvania broad gauge.”

October 12, 2024
Episcopal Church Home, Lawrenceville

James T. Steen designed this building, whose cornerstone was laid in 1892. It was a home for orphans and aged women, at a time when Pittsburgh’s industry was mass-producing widows and orphans. It is still a home for the aged under the name Canterbury Place.

The most striking feature of the building is its flamboyantly Baroque entrance. Old maps show us that it was once in the middle of a nearly symmetrical façade, but the right wing was demolished to make way for the modern high-rise section.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

The local historians Joann Cantrell and James Wudarczyk have written a book on Pittsburgh’s Orphans and Orphanages that gathers firsthand memories of many of these institutions and shows us that, in spite of the inevitable institutionalism of the facilities, most of them were not the Dickensian nightmares we imagine when we hear the word “orphanage.”

October 12, 2024
Arlington Streetcar Loop

This odd little building in the middle of a gravel lot is a remnant of the largest streetcar system in the United States.

Arlington Avenue on March 30, 1968, with Route 48 streetcar coming out of the streetcar loop, by David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

We’ve already seen this picture of Arlington Avenue with the Route 48 streetcar poking its head out of the streetcar loop. That loop is still there, though the tracks have been taken up. You can see this little shelter right behind the trolley in the 1968 picture.

In the 1960s. Pittsburgh had the largest remaining streetcar system in the country. We had lagged behind other cities in converting to bus transit, but the Port Authority, newly responsible for the transit system, was canceling streetcar lines right and left. (Some lines have survived—the lines that had their own right-of-way for most of the route, and thus would have been expensive or impossible to convert to buses.) The Arlington line would not survive long after that picture; the Route 48 streetcar became the Route 48 bus.

Here the Route 48 bus passes a mural with a picture of its predecessor, the Route 48 streetcar. The “Arlington Memories” murals are fading and will soon be memories themselves. The Route 48 streetcar line used to make a loop around the shelter and head back inbound on Arlington Avenue.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

October 11, 2024
Arlington Avenue, 1968 and Today

Arlington Avenue on March 30, 1968, with Route 48 streetcar coming out of the streetcar loop, by David Wilson from Oak Park, Illinois, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Arlington Avenue was already looking a bit bedraggled in 1968, when David Wilson, a streetcar fanatic who documented the streetcar lines of Pittsburgh with hundreds of pictures, caught the Route 48 car peeking out of the streetcar loop.

Most of the buildings in this picture are still there on Arlington Avenue, but the Arlington business district has mostly been abandoned by business. The storefronts that are not empty have been filled in for apartments.

This one, with a much-altered ground floor, is still going as a convenience store. Because the street plan in Arlington is irregular, many of the commercial buildings on Arlington Avenue are odd shapes.

This little storefront has been filled in by a contractor who had no need of a busybody architect to tell him what to do. The original building is a pleasing little composition by someone who might have seen some of the German art magazines that circulated among architects in Pittsburgh.

A little of the Kittanning brick facing has come down from the front of this building, revealing the cheaper ordinary brick behind it.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Now, about that streetcar loop: we’ll be seeing that very soon, because it is still there as well, or at least partly so.

October 11, 2024
Firehouse in West Park

A charming little firehouse that has been converted into a woodworker’s shop. Windows and doors have been filled in or replaced, but the outlines of the building have not been disturbed.

Father Pitt knows the important facts about this building because they are marked right on the building, which should be mandatory for every building project. It was built in 1926, and the architect…

…was Joseph Pock, a name old Pa Pitt has not run across before. It will not be surprising if we find that many of the characteristic buildings of West Park were designed by Mr. Pock.

The original firehouse lanterns still have their original shades.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

October 11, 2024
The Imperial Bank

The bank for the little mining town of Imperial occupied a building that accomplished its architectural mission perfectly. It was small, but it gave the impression of being respectable and substantial—a place where your money would be safe.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

October 11, 2024