Father Pitt

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St. Paul of the Cross Monastery Church, South Side Slopes

Charles F. Bartberger designed this magnificent church, one of only a very few large churches in this area still standing from before the Civil War (it was built in 1854). It is not that we had no large churches; it is only that the ensuing age of prosperity made most of the large ones even larger—or kicked them out of the way to make room for skyscrapers, as happened with the old St. Paul’s Cathedral downtown, also designed by Bartberger, which was bought and demolished by Henry Frick.

This one has had good luck. It belongs to a still-active monastery in a neighborhood that, by its topographic nature, will probably never become prosperous enough to displace the church. It dominates the view up Monastery Street and Monastery Avenue.

A relief of Christ stumbling on the way to Calvary is over the main door.

St. Paul of the Cross reminds us that our way to God lies through the passion of Christ. He wears a benevolent expression, but he is a ferocious terror to pigeons.

Cameras: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

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July 18, 2024
Cosmos sulphureus After the Rain

Another bright Victorian favorite coming back into favor after a period of eclipse.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

July 17, 2024
Coventry Log Cabin, Moon Township

A two-century-old log cabin preserved in a Moon Township park. The Moon Township Historical Society gives us its history: it was built about twelve miles from here in 1825 for John Coventry, a Revolutionary War veteran who would already have been fairly old when he built this house. It was inhabited until the later twentieth century, but by the middle 1970s it was abandoned. It was carefully taken apart, with every piece labeled, and reassembled here in Robin Hill Park on the grounds of the old Nimick mansion (about which more soon).

Note the tool marks on the stone slabs used as steps. Barry Fell would probably have read them as Celtic inscriptions.

A lot of care went into shaping the logs to lock together at the corners.

The chimney is made of irregular local stones skillfully arranged.

You may have noticed this tombstone in front of the cabin if you were looking at the pictures above closely. Father Pitt does not know its story—whether it was moved here with the cabin, or whether it was here before the cabin was reconstructed. Perhaps someone from the Historical Society can enlighten us. The inscription is quite legible in spite of a few missing letters:

HENRY ATEN
DIED
APRIL 11, 1877,
AGED 63 YEARS,
6 MOS. & 16 DA[YS.]

[Ble]ssed are the dead who die in the
[Lo]rd, for they rest from their labors
[a]nd their works do follow them.

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

July 17, 2024
Coraopolis Train Station

Built in the late 1890s, this Pittsburgh & Lake Erie commuter station was designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, one of at least three firms that claimed to be the successors of the great H. H. Richardson, and perhaps the one with the most direct claim, since Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge were the ones who completed Richardson’s outstanding jobs when he died. It is a temple of locomotion in the high Richardsonian style that may remind you of another Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge building in Pittsburgh, Shadyside Presbyterian Church.

After many years of raising money and praying, the community is working on restoring this landmark to pass down to future generations.

Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Most of these pictures are stacks of three different exposures, so that detail is preserved in both the highlights and the shadows.

July 16, 2024
Stone Schwartz Building, Allegheny West

Sony Alpha 3000.

This Romanesque warehouse appears from old maps to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Allegheny Transfer Company. It later belonged to Donaldson Transfer, as a ghost sign at the top of the building testifies (enlarge the picture to examine it closely). It has been a few things since then, and it was for sale when old Pa Pitt visited it. If you want a distinctive commercial or even residential space in one of our most pleasant neighborhoods, here is your opportunity.

A few years ago, Father Pitt took a picture of this building in sunset light, but it looks as though he never published it. So here it is now.

Composite of three pictures from a Canon PowerShot A540.

July 15, 2024
Bastille Day

Canon PowerShot A530.

A Pittsburgh house celebrates liberté, égalité, fraternité.

July 14, 2024
First United Presbyterian Church, Coraopolis

This is a fine building in a good neighborhood, and you could buy it right now and move in. You might have to spend another million or so fixing it up, but the structure is sound and the interior of the sanctuary, from what we can see on that real-estate site, is intact in the most important details. It does need work, but the best parts of the interior are still there. If you are a congregation looking for a sanctuary, you can put your teenage members to work. That’s why you have youth groups, after all.

The church was built in 1915; the architect was Thomas Hannah, a big deal in Pittsburgh architecture. Comparing the church today to an old postcard, we can see that nothing has changed on the outside.

Well, one thing has changed. The church accumulated decades of industrial grime, turning it into one of our splendid black-stone churches, and the blackness, though fading, has not been cleaned off. Father Pitt hopes the church will pass into the hands of someone who appreciates it in its current sooty grandeur.

The other thing that is different is the long-gone building behind the church in the postcard. It was almost certainly the older sanctuary, probably kept standing as a social hall. It has been gone for years now.

The style of the church is what we might call Picksburgh Perpendicular, the common adaptation of Perpendicular Gothic to the more squarish auditorium-like form of Protestant churches that emphasized preaching over liturgy. Old Pa Pitt will admit that he does not like the stubby secondary tower on the left. It is probably very useful in providing space for a stairwell, but the two towers are too widely separated, as if they are not on speaking terms. The emphatic corner tower is the star of the show, and the other tower seems to be making an ineffectual attempt to upstage it. In spite of that quibble, though, this is a beautiful building that deserves appreciative owners.

July 14, 2024
World War I Memorial, Coraopolis

The World War I memorial in Coraopolis has been cleaned and polished and looks new. The statue of an advancing doughboy is probably a stock item—it appears on war memorials in other towns—but it is well executed. It does not stand up to the Lawrenceville Doughboy, but nothing does.

Old Pa Pitt has been making it his usual practice to record all the names on any war memorial he photographs, because even well-maintained memorials like this one can suffer accident or decay. The names will be quite legible if you enlarge the picture.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

July 13, 2024
905 Penn Avenue

Most of us walk right by this building without giving it much thought, but it stands for a momentous transition in the history of the city. According to the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, it is probably the last building constructed as a single-family house in downtown Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh began in the small triangle that is downtown today, and through the first half of the 1800s, a large part of the population remained within those limits. The city was a warren of narrow streets and narrower alleys where little houses crowded with stores and workshops. After the Civil War, though, the land downtown simply became too valuable to build houses on. The family who built this Italianate house on Penn Avenue, where a number of well-to-do families still lived, could not have guessed that they would be the last to build a house in the Triangle, but they would certainly have been aware that the city was changing rapidly.

The Italianate details need a bit of polishing up, but they are still well preserved.

July 12, 2024
Coraopolis YMCA

Now the Historic State Avenue Apartments, this old YMCA was designed by MacClure & Spahr and built in 1910. The style is a rich Georgian that makes the place look like a high-class resort hotel.

Even the alcoves for trash and utility equipment have a rich Colonial look.

Cameras: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

July 11, 2024