Built in 1927, this was a lodge for the Knights of Malta, one of those Masonic orders that old Pa Pitt has never sorted out. Most North Siders remember it as the Salvation Army building. It narrowly escaped demolition in 2008, and now it is in good shape again and ready for its next life.
Addendum: The architects were Beltz & Klicker, as we learn from their own drawing of the building as it was published in the Press on September 11, 1927.
“Knights of Malta bldg., now being erected at North ave. West, and Reddour st., Northside, one block west of Federal st., as it will appear when completed. The building and site will represent an expenditure of about $140,000. It is being erected by the four North Side Malta commanderies, numbering 1,200 members, who hope to have the new building ready for dedication about Christmas. The building committee consists of Arthur Stambaugh, Louis Falck, Albert Gawinske, and M. Landsdale. Beltz & Klicker were the architects.”
Mission Hills is a neighborhood where every house is an individual work of art. It has a special charm in the snow. Here is a short stroll on Orchard Drive, taking in a wide variety of styles.
This article is a first attempt at a history of the Mercantile Library, and it is doubtless riddled with errors and misapprehensions. It is the product of two afternoons of obsessively trawling the depths of old newspapers, and Father Pitt will correct and improve it as better information comes in.
On June 2, 1845, the Pittsburgh Gazette ran this little item:
☛Thomas H. Perkins of Boston has presented $2500 to the Mercantile Library Association of that city. We wish some of the rich men about Pittsburgh would take it into their head to give a handsome sum toward a Library Association of that kind in this city.
It is possible that a movement was already afoot when the unknowing editor wrote those words, because only two years later we find officers being elected for a Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association and Mechanic’s Institute (Pittsburgh Gazette, July 31, 1847, p. 2). On September 20, 1847, we find an advertisement in the Post that “The Young Men’s Mercantile Library and Mechanic’s Institute is open to subscribers from this date. ☛Hall in Gazzam’s Buildings opposite Philo Hall.”
At this point you may be wondering why the name Carnegie is stuck in your mind as the founder of public libraries in Pittsburgh. The answer is in those little words “open to subscribers.”
In the early and middle 1800s, big cities had circulating libraries open to the public, but most of them were subscription services. You had to pay for the privilege of checking out books. Thus, even though the library was ostensibly aimed at the education of young men, there was a barrier to entry. Andrew Carnegie remembered the charity of Col. Anderson in Manchester, who had a large library and opened it for free to working boys on Saturday afternoons, meaning that even the poorest could educate themselves if they were motivated. There is a reason “FREE TO THE PEOPLE” is engraved over the entrance to the main Carnegie Library in Oakland: that was Carnegie’s great ideal.
Still, a public library was a good thing to have in a growing city, even if you had to pay for a subscription. It was consistently difficult to keep that subscription money coming in, though; reports from the directors usually showed about a quarter of the subscribers in arrears. Nor was there ever a very large number of subscribers; the numbers, as far as old Pa Pitt can determine, never went much above 500. A report in 1852, for example, showed 305 subscribers, including 10 life members.
From the start, “lectures of a popular and scientific character”—one of the primary forms of intellectual entertainment in Victorian times—were an important part of the program at the Mercantile Library. The admission charge was supposed to help pay for the library establishment, but even with a program of popular and talented lecturers, it was hard to fill the seats. In that same 1852 report, the directors took the opportunity to chastise the taste of the public.
The Board of Directors do not like to complain, but it some times happens, when complaint is made, that the proper remedy is provided and a cure effected.
They therefore state—yet with regret and mortification—that in this city, noted for the enterprise and industry of its citizens, lectures got up for their gratification and improvement, the proceeds arising from them, to be applied to an object so praiseworthy as a public library, have not been fully sustained, whilst thousands of dollars are annually taken from their pockets to line those of strolling musicians, and mountebanks of every grade. The fact is bad enough, and we forbear comment on the subject.
Buried in this item, by the way, is a priceless glimpse of the lively Pittsburgh street life in the 1850s.
After the Civil War, there was a general sense of unbounded prosperity in Pittsburgh, and in 1868 the ambitious directors of the Mercantile Library Association undertook to give the Mercantile Library a magnificent new home—the building you see at the head of the article. From a report of the directors published in January of 1869:
“The plans for the building submitted by the architect, (Leopold Eidlitz, of New York) were adopted by the Board of Managers in May last, and Messrs. Barr & Moser of this city, were appointed superintending architects…”
Leopold Eidlitz was one of the most important American architects of the middle 1800s. Among other projects, he had designed P. T. Barnum’s eccentric Orientalist mansion Iranistan (which burned nine years after it was built). Barr & Moser were probably the most important Pittsburgh architects at the time; among their surviving works are the Armstrong County Courthouse in Kittanning and Old Main at Pennsylvania Western University, California.
The building was expected to cost $175,000—a prodigious sum in those days. To put it in perspective, the same report of the directors tells us that “the receipts for the past year, including $201.78 balance in Treasury, January 1st, 1868, were $4,608.21.” However, wealthy investors were persuaded to put up the money, and the building went up. The 1869 report contained a long description of the building as it was expected to be constructed, which you can find at the bottom of this article.
In order to separate the business of the building from the business of the library, a separate company called the Mercantile Library Hall Company was chartered to take charge of the building. The investors who financed it were financing this company on the expectation of getting a good return on their investment. Once those investments had been paid off, the building would become the property of the Library Association.
The profit was expected to come from rentals. The library would occupy the second floor; the ground floor would include storefronts and a magnificent auditorium. “It will be constructed upon the plan of a theatre, with a single gallery and will seat comfortably about 1,400 persons.” (For comparison, the Byham Theater today has a seating capacity of 1300.) This auditorium could be rented for a theater when it was not in use as a lecture hall, and an 1883 guide (from which the picture of the hall was taken) describes the building as “Library Hall, frequently called Penn Avenue Theatre.” By the late 1880s the theater was known as the Bijou.
Program from 1888 (a performance of The Jilt with Dion Boucicault), one of several at Historic Pittsburgh.
An 1890 article in the Dispatch tells us that the Panic of 1873 was very destructive to the fortunes of the Mercantile Library Hall Company. We forget today that the depression of the 1870s used to be called the Great Depression until we had a greater one. It was a bad time to be trying to pay off an extravagant building. Instead of making a profit, the company accumulated debts, and it could not dig itself out of the hole even when better times came. In 1889 the building just escaped a sheriff’s sale, and again in 1890.
“Street Scene, Penn Avenue,” from Pittsburgh Illustrated, 1889. Library Hall is the prominent building in the middle of the picture. Enlarge the photograph to see a poster for the Bijou with an illustration of a dramatic scene.
Meanwhile, the theater that rented the auditorium was thriving, and its managers had their eye on the building. “As theater managers they have made a record of conducting the most successful and profitable theater yet known in Pittsburg,” says that 1890 article in the Dispatch. The directors of the library fought long legal battles with the theater managers, accusing them of plotting to force the Library Association into bankruptcy and acquire the building.
And at the same time, Andrew Carnegie was plotting the Mercantile Library’s downfall from another direction, although he had nothing against the institution. Construction of the Carnegie Library for Allegheny began in 1886, while the battles over the Mercantile Library were raging. In 1890, while the Mercantile Library was facing a sheriff’s sale, the city was occupied with the question of what to do with the magnificent gift Carnegie proposed to offer for the construction of a public library for Pittsburgh.
Small wonder that, though the Library Hall Company managed to avoid the auction block at the last minute, the stockholders were receptive to offers. In December of 1890, it was announced that the theater managers had purchased a controlling interest in the company. They had acquired the building.
In theory the Library Hall Company was still obliged to turn the building over to the Pittsburgh Library Association (as it was renamed at some point) when the investors had been repaid. In practice, that was never going to happen. The Association quivered on the brink of dissolution for several years, and in 1899 it moved out of the building. Rescued by the generosity of a rich resident of the up-and-coming borough of Knoxville, the books were moved to the Knoxville Public School, and in May of 1899 a gala opening was held for the new location.
After that Father Pitt has lost track of the library for now. It was still going in 1910, when it was mentioned among the area’s many public libraries as “the Mercantile Library upon the South Hills, rich in Shakespeareana.” But the fact that, on this list, it came after the main Carnegie Library, all the branches, and the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny shows that the old Mercantile Library had sunk into at best local relevance for the Hilltop neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, the theater in old Library Hall flourished for many more years as the Bijou, and then in a larger building on the same spot as the Lyceum. Most of its patrons probably forgot or never knew that a library had once been there.
The building will occupy a ground space of 120 feet front on Penn street by 160 feet deep along Barker’s alley. Its architectural style is Byzantine, with a Manzard roof. The front will be of dressed stone, the sides and rear of brick, with stone dressings. The town story will be divided into six compartments. That which is nearest to St. Clair street [Sixth Street today] will be occupied for the main entrance and staircase to the Library and auditorium. That on the east side will be arranged for a confectionary and restaurant for ladies and gentlemen, and the four intermediate, will be handsome store rooms extending back the entire depth of the building. At the northwest and north east corners will be additional staircases leading from the auditorium.
On the first floor (or second as we are accustomed to call it [that is, the floor above the ground floor]) in front will be the accommodations for the Library. The Library hall will be one hundred feet by forty, and forty-six feet high, with a gallery surrounding it at seventeen feet above the floor, the gallery to be ten feet wide and to have a handsome cast iron railing. It will be reached by ornamental iron staircases.
At the west end of the hall is a special reading room for ladies, forty by eighteen feet two inches, Including small dressing apartment. Over this room, and accessible from the galleries, is a room of corresponding size for gentlemen.
In the rear of the east end is the Librarians room 54 feet 4 inches by 17 feet 2 inches, which ls entered from the main floor and has also a door opening to the delivery room. Over the Librarian’s room is the Directors’ room of the same size, reached from the gallery. Both of these front on Barker’s alley.
Adjoining the north side of the library, and between the last mentioned rooms and the staircase, is the Book Delivery room, 79 feet by 84 feet four inches, which it is proposed shall be used also as the newspaper reading and for conversation. It will be lighted by skylights, and a part of the floor will be of slate glass, so as to convey additional light to the stores below.
In the rear of these apartments will be the Auditorium, 116 feet by 78, inches, [sic] inclusive of stage and foyer. It will be constructed upon the plan of a theatre, with a single gallery and will seat comfortably about 1,400 persons. The seats and all the arrangements of the hall are proposed to be of the most approved kind.
On the third or upper story, immediately over the auditorium, is a space 118 feet long by 68 feet wide and 17 feet high, which can be divided as may seem best for the uses to which it may be devoted, A portion of it will be required for a small hall for the ordinary meetings of the association, and it has been suggested that the north half of this space, or a part of it, would be admirably adapted to the requirements of the Academy of Design.
In the front part of the building, over the library, is a room 116 feet long by 40 feet wide, and 16½ feet high, which at some future time will be needed in connection with the library, but which until then may be devoted to other uses. It would make a very good gallery for the exhibition of pictures. By introducing the light from above (a modification easily made,) it would be particularly well suited for that purpose. The objection to a location on the upper story, which would be of force in other cities, would be more than counterbalanced in our dark atmosphere by the advantage of being free from any other obstruction to the light.
This building was probably put up shortly after the Great Fire of 1845, to judge from the fact that it appears in an engraving of the Diamond as it was before 1852. Few buildings from before the Civil War are left downtown, and this is almost certainly the largest.
The building in the engraving is not quite the right dimensions, but the engraver (at the firm of John C. Bragdon, Pittsburgh’s busiest engravers) was probably working from hasty sketches.
Note the volutes and incised decorations in the lintels over the windows, bringing the building up to date with the latest trends in Greek Revival style.
Charles Geisler, who lived in the South Hills neighborhoods all his working life, was a successful architect who specialized in small to medium-sized apartment and commercial buildings. Much of his work had a tint of the Spanish Mission style. The ground floor of this building, put up in 1923, has probably changed, but the upper floors are unusually well preserved, with tiled overhang, nine-over-one windows, and carved wood brackets, making this an excellent example of Geisleriana.
This little building looks like the little brother of the building next door. Father Pitt has no direct evidence that Geisler designed it, but the two properties were under the same ownership in 1923. Given the notable similarity in the treatments of the rooflines, it is reasonable to suspect Geisler, even if we cannot yet convict him of the design.
The Rex is attributed to Geisler in city architectural surveys, although it has been remodeled more than once, and old Pa Pitt would not be surprised if one of those remodelings was under the direction of Victor A. Rigaumont, who had a prosperous practice converting the silent generation’s movie houses to up-to-date Art Deco palaces for the talkie era.
An assortment of styles from a block and a half of North Avenue facing the Commons in old Allegheny. These houses are now included in the Mexican War Streets Historic District. First, a tall and narrow Queen Anne house built in the 1880s.
This Queen Anne has a larger lot and thus more room to spread out and grow picturesque projections.
These three houses probably go back to the Civil War era; they are typical of the larger sort of houses that grew all over Pittsburgh from the beginning until the middle 1800s, when more elaborate styles came into fashion.
It is not easy to guess the age of these little houses. Old Pa Pitt’s best speculation, judging from old maps, is that they also go back to the Civil War era, but had their fronts modernized at some time around 1900. The one on the left may have had its front replaced more than once before it finally ended up with this Craftsman-style stucco treatment.
Finally, another house from the 1880s, this one with particularly elaborate woodwork.
This house looks quite traditional on the outside, but inside it used the most up-to-date construction methods for 1928. Instead of the ordinary timber framing, it was built on a steel frame like a skyscraper. It was such an innovation that Carnegie Tech architecture students made a field trip to inspect the construction.
Pittsburgh Press, October 14, 1928.
When a technological institute of the standing of Carnegie Tech expresses interest in a construction project to the point of sending a class to inspect the work, then it may be regarded as a certainty that the project is basically sound and worthy.
Forty Tech students, part of whom are shown above, headed by Prof. T. D. Mylrea, assistant to the head of the building construction department of the Institute, last week made a tour of inspection of the new type, steel framed, fire proof home being built in Mission Hills, Mt. Lebanon, for W. H. Shaffer, Jr.
This home, designed by Lyon and Taylor, New York architects, is such a departure from past methods of construction that a number of builders’ and architects’ magazines have published exhaustive articles concerning it. It is primarily a product of Pittsburgh, the National Steel Fabric Co., Steel Frame House Co. and Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. having collaborated with L. Brandt, Pittsburgh housing engineer, in working out the details of construction.
St. Vladimir’s has been in this building (the older one on the left, that is) for nearly a century, but if you think it doesn’t look like the sort of building a Ukrainian Orthodox congregation would build for itself, you’re right. If you’ve seen as many churches as old Pa Pitt has, you might think right away that this one has an Episcopalian look about it, and indeed it was built as St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The Ukrainian congregation moved in in 1926. Here we see it in the middle of a snowstorm.
It occurred to old Pa Pitt this afternoon that he had never seen a complete picture of the front of this building. It took several photographs and some technical fussing to get the composite picture above, but here you are.
