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Mt. Lebanon Professional Building
First of all, old Pa Pitt hopes these aluminum letters are insured at replacement value, because it would be a crime against design to lose their cool perfection.
Arthur Tennyson, a Mt. Lebanon native, was an architect who flourished in postwar Pittsburgh, when “modern” was the buzzword and simplicity was in demand. This building was designed in 1956 for medical offices. It opened in 1958, and although its population has diversified a little and a few minor alterations have been made, it remains, sixty-six years later, mostly unaltered and mostly in use for its original purpose.
From his preliminary sketch, we can see that the building grew a bit from Mr. Tennyson’s original conception. Because of the sloping lot, it would be hard to say exactly how much it grew; it would be safest to say that roughly a floor was added.
Pittsburgh Press, September 23, 1956. The most eye-catching feature is the facing of mint-green glazed brick laid in a stack bond (that is, gridwise) rather than the usual running bond. The stack bond adds to the impression of horizontality and stability on a site where the lot plummets diagonally two floors.
The building was a bit unusual in that the doctors who originally had their offices here were shareholders in the building as well as tenants. “The idea of constructing the building,” said the Press article, “originated with the doctors themselves, who are share owners in Mt. Lebanon Professional Building, Inc., the backer of the project.”
Nikon COOLPIX P100. One response
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National Bank of Western Pennsylvania
The Penn Avenue front is now a restaurant, but it would not be hard to guess from the Ninth Street side that this used to be a bank: the National Bank of Western Pennsylvania. Addendum: The architects were George S. Orth & Brother; the bank was built in about 1897.1
- Source: Pittsburg Post, May 22, 1896, p. 9. “D. H. Wallace yesterday broke ground at Sheridan, Center and Highland avenues for a $50,000 building. George S. Orth is the architect. The building will be three-storied, and on the first floor will be storerooms, with flats on the other floors.” ↩︎
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Krebs Building, Beechview
This building on Beechview Avenue is good training in urban archaeology. We can see the changes it has gone through and guess at what it might have looked like when it was new.
We notice, for example, that the windows on the third floor are rectangular, but the holes for them are arched. Likewise, the windows on the second floor are too small for their holes. Luckily the window-replacement project was done without serious alterations to the underlying wall, so it will be possible for a prosperous future owner to install windows that fit the holes.
We can also see that the ground floor was originally a storefront. It has been turned into another apartment, as often happens in neighborhoods where the commercial district has shrunk.
What are we to make of those wood shingles that hang over the first floor? They probably were installed in the 1970s, when such things were popular; they would have served the two purposes of covering the original signboard above the store and giving both entrances of the building a bit of key-fumbling shelter.
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Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church, Mount Lebanon
Built in about 1930, this rich stone Perpendicular Gothic church was designed by J. L. Beatty.
It was not old Pa Pitt who left that tripod sitting around by the entrance. 
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Rachel Carson Bridge
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. The Rachel Carson or Ninth Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, seen from six floors up on Liberty Avenue.
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Bell Telephone Building
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. At the corner of Seventh Avenue and William Penn Place is a complicated and confused nest of buildings that belonged to the Bell Telephone Company. They are the product of a series of constructions and expansions supervised by different architects. This is the biggest of the lot, currently the 25th-tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh, counting the nearly completed FNB Financial Center in the list.
The group started with the original Telephone Building, designed by Frederick Osterling in Romanesque style. Behind that, and now visible only from a tiny narrow alley, is an addition, probably larger than the original building, designed by Alden & Harlow. Last came this building, which wraps around the other two in an L shape; it was built in 1923 and designed by James T. Windrim, Bell of Pennsylvania’s court architect at the time, and the probable designer of all those Renaissance-palace telephone exchanges you see in city neighborhoods. The style is straightforward classicism that looks back to the Beaux Arts skyscrapers of the previous generation and forward to the streamlined towers that would soon sprout nearby.
Hidden from most people’s view is a charming arcade along Strawberry Way behind the building.
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PNC Park
A large composite picture (7.6 megabytes, in case you’re on a metered connection) of the ballpark as seen from the Andy Warhol Bridge.
