Built as a branch bank, this tidy little modernistic building seems to be succeeding in its second life as a little neighborhood grocery. It is one of several “flatiron” buildings in Sheraden, and old Pa Pitt had to stand in the middle of a fairly busy intersection to get this picture of the sharp end:
Espy Avenue is perhaps the highest-toned street in Dormont, lined with fine houses by distinguished architects. We’ve seen a bunch of them before; here are four from the other side of the street.
The beautiful birches make it a little hard to photograph the house behind; old Pa Pitt did the best he could.
A giant standing skeleton was very amusing when it was the first one on your block. It tends to stand around forever, because otherwise you have to figure out where to put it.
We’ve seen this double before, with the sun behind it. Here it is again in cloudy weather, when the details may be a little easier to see.
The Skinny Building, possibly the world’s narrowest commercial building, has returned to its roots as a lunch counter.
One of the hidden beauties of downtown Pittsburgh: you have to go back behind the Bell Telephone Building on Strawberry Way, a tiny alley, where you will find an unexpectedly elegant arcade. Look up and you discover the ceiling of Guastavino tile in subdued greenish shades—a gem hidden from everyone who refuses to go wandering in back alleys.
The distinctive arched top of the CNG Tower, now known as EQT Plaza, one of old Pa Pitt’s favorite postmodernist buildings in the city.
Thomas Cox McKee was the architect of this school, built in 1901. This Renaissance palace is probably his most important remaining work, now that the Shady Avenue Cumberland Presbyterian Church is gone. The school is no longer in use, so Father Pitt assigns it the Vulnerable label on his scale of Least Concern, Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered, Critically Endangered, and Demolished.
A modernistic entrance is out of character with the main school, but it is probably better than a halfhearted attempt to match the original style.
In the dense back streets of Oakland, now mostly given over to student housing, these elegant double houses stand out. They were built in the late 1880s as Coltart Square, which seems to have been conceived by a Philadelphia developer named Wood. Construction began in 1887, with four doubles (eight houses) on Forbes Avenue and thirteen (twenty-six houses) on Coltart Square, now Coltart Avenue. The ones on Forbes have long since disappeared; eleven of the original thirteen remain on Coltart Avenue.
An item in the Commercial Gazette for March 5, 1888 gives us a thorough description of the houses as they were built.
Seeing the need of good, serviceable and complete houses, thoroughly improved and of latest style of architecture, at reasonable prices and in desirable locations, Mr. Wood, of Philadelphia, Pa., came here and had erected on Forbes street and Coltart square, in the most desirable part of Oakland and one of the very beautiful sections of our city, complete and desirably-arranged brick houses of 11 and 13 rooms, with cement cellar, heater, steel range, open grates all fitted for natural gas, cabinet mantels of choice woods and designs, crystal gas fixtures, electric gas lighting and electric bells, bathrooms, all artistically decorated with fine paper and stained-glass, and compactly built and with abundant closets, showing complete and thorough workmanship, streets and sidewalks well improved and good sewerage, within one square of the cable line [cable cars had just begun to run between the East End and downtown] and on the best drives to and from the city. The lots front Forbes street 23×150 feet and Coltart square, which is 50 feet wide, 35×90 feet. These houses are being sold at a very reasonable price and on very easy payments, and the agents, W. A. Herron & Sons, report that two of these houses have been already sold, one on Forbes street and one on Coltart square. A few will be rented to prospective buyers. Any desiring to purchase a complete house at low figures should call at W. A. Herron & Sons, 80 Fourth avenue, and examine plans and gain full particulars.
The houses have been under separate ownership from the beginning, so they are in varying states of preservation; but several of them retain some fine original details.
It seems that the houses sold quickly, and for a while the Coltart Square community was the haunt of well-to-do upper-middle-class families whose names were often mentioned on the society pages. Not until the second quarter of the twentieth century did the rest of Coltart Avenue become the densely crowded line of rowhouses and small apartment buildings it is today. But this one block still retains an echo of its High Victorian elegance.
The Hall of Sculpture in the Carnegie (as seen by the ultra-wide auxiliary camera on old Pa Pitt’s phone, so don’t expect too much if you enlarge the picture), designed in imitation of the interior of the Parthenon.
For most of its history, this pleasing façade with its ornamental brickwork was blocked off by taller additions in front. Now that those have been removed, we can enjoy the front of the building the way it was meant to be seen. Indovina Associates designed the renovation and adaptation for an Asian supermarket.
The former College Club, designed in 1931 by Lamont Button, now in use as Whitfield Hall of Carnegie Mellon University. This is a phone picture from a few weeks ago, with the usual exaggerated colors that come from using the default Samsung camera app. In fact old Pa Pitt toned down the radioactive greens considerably, but the picture still looks a bit clownish. However, the colors of the trees and bushes were at least almost as bright as they appear, and you might as well have the picture, clown makeup and all.
We have more pictures of the College Club in slightly more subdued colors.
