The statue of Edward Bigelow by Giuseppe Moretti, with the Cathedral of Learning in the background.
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Waterfront Building
Built in about 1872, the Waterfront Building is one of the unique row of surviving riverside commercial buildings Pittsburghers call Firstside. It dates from the time when the Monongahela wharf was a chaotically busy place, with steamboats lined up at every available space to load and unload. Now it is separated from the river by a boulevard and an expressway. Above, the First Avenue side; below, the river side.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
Some Houses on Beaver Street, Sewickley
Sewickley is known for its grand houses, and some of the grandest are along Beaver Street, the main street of the village.
Addendum: This one is the Edward O’Neil house, designed by Rutan & Russell.1
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1281; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
- It is pictured in the February, 1904, issue of The Builder, page 20. ↩︎
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The Patterned Bricks of West Park
West Park is a pleasant neighborhood in Stowe Township and McKees Rocks, whose absurd border runs diagonally through the neighborhood, slicing through a number of buildings along the way. If you wander through the area, as old Pa Pitt was doing the other day, you will doubtless be struck by a certain characteristic look of the architecture around you. A surprisingly large number of buildings are decorated with patterned brickwork in hand-me-down Art Nouveau patterns. There is also a strong preference for the buff and yellowish shades of Kittanning brick. We suspect that one or two very local architects were responsible for most of these buildings, which give the neighborhood such a distinctive look that you could probably guess where you were right away if you woke up on Broadway Avenue with no memory of how you got there.
Father Pitt was taken with this distinctive corner entrance.
This terrace is particularly interesting for a number of reasons. It seems to have been build a little after 1923, filling in a gap between two existing terraces (both of them in buff Kittanning brick). There was room for seven houses in the row, from which the architect created an impression of four-part symmetry. Mathematically and geometrically, it is an impressive feat.
The decorations are also remarkable. The buff-brick stripes certainly stand out (and remind us of several other buildings we’ve seen above), and the Stars of David are, as far as Father Pitt knows, unique in Pittsburgh rowhouses. Father Pitt does not know the history of these houses, but he does note that they are an easy stroll from a large Jewish cemetery.
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z981; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
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W. E. Laughner House, Coraopolis
Old Pa Pitt knows exactly two things about the architect W. E. Laughner: first, that he had his office in the Ohio Valley Trust Building; second, that he designed this house for his own home. Both facts come from one small listing in the American Contractor for July 14, 1923: “Coraopolis, Pa.—Res. 2½ sty. & bas. Ridge av. Archt. W. E. Laughner, Ohio Valley Trust bldg. Owner W. E. Laughner, Ridge & Chestnut sts. Brk. veneer. Drawing plans.”
At any rate, this is an interesting variant on the Dutch Colonial style, with Arts-and-Crafts details that make it stand out from its neighbors. It was a good advertisement for Mr. Laughner’s architectural practice, and we suspect there are many Laughner houses lurking here and there waiting for us to discover.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. -
Kinder Building, Allegheny West
Thomas Scott, who lived around the corner and designed some of the neighborhood’s best houses, was the architect of this Beaux Arts gem in the heart of the Allegheny West business district.1
Scott was also the architect of the Benedum-Trees Building, and we can see the same extravagant but tasteful elaboration of ornament here on a smaller scale.
Canon PowerShot SX 150 IS. - Source: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, January 27, 1904. “Mr. Joseph Kinder will erect a brick store and apartment house on Western avenue and Grant avenue, Allegheny, from plans prepared by Thomas H. Scott, Empire Building.” Grant Avenue is now Galveston Avenue. ↩︎
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Old Coraopolis Municipal Building
Shoved against the hillside in Coraopolis, the old borough municipal building gains a floor’s worth of height from back to front. It had all the borough government services under one roof, including the police and fire departments. It now belongs to “Fabricator’s Forge,” a hobby and gaming emporium.
The Art Deco tiles on the fire tower make us suspect it was built or rebuilt later than the rest of the building.
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm PinePix HS10.
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Pitas Leaving the Oven at Pitaland, Brookline
Pitaland has been a fixture on Brookline Boulevard for decades now. It is a store where you can find all kinds of Lebanese specialties. It is a lunch counter with a national reputation. And it is a bakery supplying pitas to supermarkets and restaurants all over the Pittsburgh area. Here is where the pitas come from: sixteen seconds of pitas rolling out of the oven, all puffed up and steaming.
You can go to Wikimedia Commons for a full HD version of the video.
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Market Street, Before and After
Before.
After.
Preservationists fought a losing battle to save these buildings, not because any one of them was an architectural masterpiece, but because the 100 block of Market Street was one of the few remaining blocks downtown lined with mid-Victorian buildings on both sides. They predated not only the skyscraper age but also the age of six-storey commercial palaces that preceded the skyscrapers.
If there is any silver lining to the demolition, it is that the open space allows a full view of the buildings on the other side of the street, without resorting to too much photographic trickery.
Not that old Pa Pitt has ever been above photographic trickery, as he demonstrated a few months ago with a picture of the whole block of condemned buildings before they came down:
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Wood Street
The entire length of Wood Street, from Fort Pitt Boulevard in the foreground to Liberty Avenue at the other end.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
