Father Pitt

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House by Louis Bellinger in Beltzhoover
For his entire career, Louis A. S. Bellinger was the only Black registered architect in western Pennsylvania. His most famous work today is the Pythian Temple, later the New Granada Theater, on the Hill. This is a much smaller project—a six-room house built in 1929 for a middle-class client.¹ But the client got his money’s worth. It’s not a work of towering genius: it’s just the best house you could get for the money, designed by a man who knew how to take the ordinary Pittsburgh house and make it a little bit special.

The house is abandoned and overgrown, and it will probably not last much longer. It would take a miracle to save it—a miracle that made the location suddenly valuable, since it will require a nearly complete gutting to put the house back in livable shape. All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists now, so that future historians will know that Louis Bellinger made it.

It appears that the house originally had an open porch with an arched entrance; later most of the porch was closed in to make another room. The large window opening in front was a good bit larger when it was an open porch, as we can tell by the slight difference in mortar in the bricks to either side of the window.

Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
1. Source: The Charette, January, 1929, p. 12. “602. Architect: Louis A. S. Bellinger, 525 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: Robert T. Smith. Title: One family dwelling, six rooms and bath. Location: 85 Sylvania Ave. Contract awarded to Vincent Mingers. Contract price: $8700.00.” ↩︎
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March 20, 2025
Two Victorian Rows on Craig Street

Two rows of houses that have adapted to the trendy business atmosphere of South Craig Street. The row above has been adapted with minimal external modifications.

Since old Pa Pitt is a connoisseur of breezeways, he could not neglect this exceptionally fine example.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

This row has been altered a bit more, though some care was taken to preserve its distinctive outlines.

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March 20, 2025
St. George’s Church, Allentown

Seen from Climax Street in Beltzhoover. Old Pa Pitt will disclose that there were bunches of utility cables in the way, but to make an idealized view of the building rather than the utility grid, he took them out. If there are blackouts in your idealized Beltzhoover, you know why.

We have many more pictures of St. George’s in another article.

March 19, 2025
Hoffstot Building

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Originally a building with five floors, built in 1886; a sixth floor was added in 1892 with considerable skill. We have more pictures of the building from two years ago; the picture above is a composite of six different photographs, so it is very big if you enlarge it.

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March 19, 2025
Daffodil

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March 18, 2025
United Baking Company, South Side

Sony Alpha 3000.

A former bakery, now called “Birmingham Place,” between 23rd and 24th Streets on Carson Street. The adaptation was handled with good taste, preserving the attractive proportions of the building, including the huge windows that flood the place with natural light. According to the date at the top of the building, the main section was built in 1919; the section to the left was added after 1924, to judge by a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from that year on which the left wing does not appear.

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March 18, 2025
Gateway Station

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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March 17, 2025
International Socialist Lyceum, Dutchtown

This was called Perry’s Hall when it was built in 1898, according to a historic marker on the side. A retail store occupied the ground floor; the second floor was used for lodge meetings—a common arrangement in lodge buildings. Thus the rather grand side entrance, which would lead directly to the stairs up to the meeting hall.

By the 1920s, we see on the plat maps that the building was in use as an International Socialist Lyceum—which makes a much grabbier headline than “Perry’s Hall,” don’t you think?

From a 1925 Hopkins plat map digitized at Historic Pittsburgh.

We notice, incidentally, that the small frame buildings next door are marked as belonging to “F. Fabian.” We wonder whether that is a misunderstanding, and the property really belonged to the American Fabian Society, or whether it is one of those amusing coincidences in which history abounds but which would be too implausible for a novelist to invent.

Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

In more recent times, the building was the site of the lamented James Street Tavern, a venue for traditional jazz, for many years. It has just been splendidly restored, and the owner is offering it for lease. So there is no reason it could not be an International Socialist Lyceum again. All it needs is a socialist with enough money.

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March 17, 2025
Inside the Second United Presbyterian Church, Highland Park
We have seen pictures of the outside of this church before—here, for example, is a picture from May of 2021:

The other day the current inhabitants, the Union Project, were kind enough to turn old Pa Pitt loose in the sanctuary to take as many pictures as he wanted.

The architect was John L. Beatty, who designed the building in about 1900. A newspaper picture from 1905 (taken from microfilm, so the quality is poor) shows the exterior looking more or less the way it does now.

Pittsburg Press, April 29, 1905.

After a disastrous fire, much was rebuilt in 1915, again under Beatty’s supervision.¹ Another fire in 1933 would necessitate rebuilding part of the tower.

The church was built for the Second United Presbyterian congregation, which had moved out to the eastern suburbs from its former location downtown at Sixth Avenue and Cherry Way (now William Penn Place)—exactly one block from the First United Presbyterian Church, which moved to Oakland at about the same time. Later it became the East End Baptist Church, and then was renamed the Union Baptist Church. When that congregation folded, the church was bought by a Mennonite group that founded the Union Project. It is now a community center for pottery, because “everyone should have access to clay.” The sanctuary—which has been preserved mostly unaltered, except for the removal of pews and other furnishings—is available for large events.

The sanctuary is roughly square, which is typical of many non-liturgical Protestant churches in Pittsburgh at the turn of the twentieth century. Above, looking up at the center of the ceiling.

The stained glass was restored as part of a remarkable community effort in which people in the neighborhood learned the art of stained-glass restoration themselves. It would have cost more than a million dollars to have the work done professionally, but volunteers learned priceless skills, and the glass is beautiful.

The vestibule includes some of the original furniture from the church, and some smaller stained-glass windows.

Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
1. Source: The Construction Record, January 16, 1915: “The Second United Presbyterian Congregation has selected Architect J. L. Beatty, 146 Sixth street, to prepare plans for repairing the church on Stanton and Negley avenues.” ↩︎
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March 16, 2025
Crocus Time

March 15, 2025