Father Pitt

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Dormont Methodist Episcopal Church

Built in 1920 in an angular modern-Gothic style, this church served its original congregation until 2013, the year of the great collapse of Dormont mainline churches, when the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Baptists all threw in the towel. The building became a Buddhist temple for a while (the Buddhists gave it the current paint scheme), but it seems not to be active right now. It is, however, kept up well.

Thanks to the Gazette Times of September 13, 1920, we have a picture of Bishop McConnell of the M. E. Church laying laying “a copy of the Gazette Times containing announcement of the corner stone laying, coins of the present day, a list of trustees and a list of members of the Dormont and Banksville churches, recently combined” in the cornerstone.

This cornerstone is a top contender for the coveted title of Most Awkward Word Break on a Stone Inscription Outside a Country Graveyard.

It seems that another capsule was laid in 2009, four years before the church dissolved.

None of the news stories we found mentioned an architect, but we hope to find a name eventually.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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June 1, 2025
Passenger Jet Overhead

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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May 31, 2025
Marine Bank Building

Built in 1890, this rich feast of stonework was designed by Frederick Osterling in his Richardsonian Romanesque phase.

The carved ornaments are by Achille Giammartini, including old Pa Pitt’s favorite gargoyle in the city.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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May 31, 2025
Detective Building, East Liberty

Built in 1972 for the Bureau of Police Investigations, this building sat vacant for a long while. It was restored in 2019 with a very sensitive eye for its original modernist style.

Those steps in the front were part of the restoration. They make a very attractive composition. To old Pa Pitt’s eyes, they look like a liability lawyer’s every architectural fantasy come true.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens.

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May 30, 2025
Steel Plaza

Some pictures of Steel Plaza taken on a weekend when it was momentarily almost empty. The largest and most complex of our subway stations, Steel Plaza was built as a transfer station between the main line and a short spur to Penn Station—which, although it is not in regular service, is still kept up for special events and emergency detours. In the picture above, the Penn Station spur is in the foreground.

Here we see the two lines converging toward their junction in the tunnel beyond the station.

To add to the complexity, the station was designed to take the old PCC cars as well, which had only street-level doors. These lower-level platforms have been out of use since 1999, when the last PCC cars were retired, but the space isn’t useful for anything else, so the platforms are still there.

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May 29, 2025
The Falls at Ohiopyle

The falls of the Youghiogheny at Ohiopyle have long been pointed out as one of America’s natural wonders.

A cut from the Columbian magazine in 1787 shows us a picture that has hardly changed in the intervening 238 years, except that these days the view is less likely to include tricorn hats.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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May 28, 2025
Crafton Borough Building

Built in 1938, the Crafton Borough Building was designed by Vincent L. Schoeneman and H. L. Carter.

This is about the peak of Art Deco modernity in Pittsburgh, and it impressed its neighbors enough that Munhall’s borough building (which old Pa Pitt really needs to visit soon) is very obviously influenced by it. Nor do we have to rely on the evidence of our own senses: it turns out that the Munhall council sent its architect over to inspect the Crafton Borough Building, telling him, “We want something like that.” The story about it in the Press was headed “Crafton Serves as ‘Model.’ ” “Munhall’s proposed new municipal building, to be erected at West Field, will be constructed along the lines of the one at Crafton. Adam G. Wickerham has been retained as architect.”

So here is the building that hit late-1930s suburbanites as the ideal of a borough building, and old Pa Pitt can see why.

“God is in the details,” as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said, and here the details are perfectly harmonized, and we might add scrupulously kept by the borough. The windows have been replaced, which was probably necessary, but they were replaced with windows of the right size (which is regrettably unusual around here), and all the other trimmings are still there and mostly in good shape.

The clock is not keeping time right now. Does anyone in the borough want to take up a collection for a new movement?

Olympus E-20N; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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May 28, 2025
5 and 6 PPG Place

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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May 27, 2025
Philadelphia Avenue, Dormont

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

A typical streetscape of a typical prosperous middle-class streetcar suburb in the Pittsburgh area.

May 27, 2025
World War I Monument, Carnegie

Dedicated in 1931 to veterans of the Great War, this monument, with a new inscription, was rededicated to all who have served their country.

Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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May 26, 2025