Father Pitt

Would you like to see a random article?
Of course you would.

A Normandy in Shadyside

James A. Cornelius was a developer and builder who designed his own houses. This is what Pittsburghers call a Normandy—a house in the fairy-tale style with a turret entrance. It was meant to be one of a whole block of houses built on the old Liggett estate in Shadyside.

From the Pittsburgh Press, June 15, 1930.

Note the photograph of this house, and the house circled on the perspective map. The houses were meant to have their main fronts facing inward, where a landscaped common would make them into a garden community.

Only this house and the one next door were built, however. It appears that the project fell on hard times—1930 was not the best year to begin a development of luxury houses. The rest of the property, according to researcher David Schwing, was eventually sold to Herman Kamin, who developed apartments on it.

Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

September 14, 2024
Gateway Towers

Gateway Towers was designed by Emery Roth & Sons. It was built in 1964, which tells us that it was the & Sons who were responsible for it, since Emery Roth died in 1948.

From a distance, this has never been one of old Pa Pitt’s favorite buildings to look at, although he is going to give it a fair chance by presenting multiple angles. Up close, however, it has a sharp classicism in its spare details that makes it much more attractive.

Good landscaping helps a lot, and all of Gateway Center has very good landscaping. The modernist ideal of towers in a park was never better implemented, and it is because the park part of the scheme was not neglected.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

September 13, 2024
Mushrooms

Deep in the woods in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

September 13, 2024
Front Door on Sarah Street

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

September 13, 2024
Point Fountain

September 12, 2024
Coraopolis Junior High School

Edward Stotz, who also designed Fifth Avenue High School and Schenley High School (the country’s first million-dollar high school), was the architect of this staid and respectable school, now turned into apartments.

The inscription over the door was hand-painted by someone with a distinctive idea of quotation marks.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

September 12, 2024
Mellon Hall, Duquesne University

Composite of four photographs from the Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Built in 1968, this is the only design in Pittsburgh by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; it was one of his last works. (The IBM Building at Allegheny Center was designed by Mies’ firm after Mies died.) This is a composite of four long-telephoto photographs taken from the back streets of the South Side across the Monongahela River. At full magnification, atmospheric distortion makes the straight lines slightly wavy.

We also have some closer pictures of Mellon Hall.

September 12, 2024
A Gift from Henry Phipps

When Phipps Conservatory opened in 1893, Henry Phipps donated this statue, which has has sat in the Palm House ever since.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

September 12, 2024
Mother of Sorrows Church, Norwood

Mother of Sorrows Church was sold to a nondenominational congregation some time ago, and when Father Pitt took these pictures some maintenance work was being done, so we hope the building will stand for a long time to come. But old Pa Pitt misses the original parish for one very selfish reason: every year it had a festival, and every year it advertised the festival with banners stretched across Island Avenue at the bottom of the hill proclaiming in big, cheery letters, “MOTHER OF SORROWS FESTIVAL!” If Father Pitt had known the parish was closing, he would have bought those banners and donated them to the History Center.

Note the round apse in the rear.

The rectory was built from matching Kittanning brick; a later extension just about doubled the size of it.

The rectory was connected to the church by this little infill decorated with patterned brickwork.

The tower terminates in a cross-topped dome teetering on the brink of Art Deco.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

September 11, 2024
Highland Building, East Liberty

Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. This picture is more than 13 megabytes if you enlarge it; be careful on a metered connection.

Designed by Daniel Burnham, this is the only skyscraper left in East Liberty; another one, designed by Frederick Osterling, was demolished decades ago when the neighborhood’s fortunes were sinking. Now the neighborhood is once again bustling, and the Highland Building, after years of abandonment, is beautifully restored.

September 11, 2024