Father Pitt

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

C. S. Hixson Candy Co., Manchester

Old Pa Pitt knew absolutely nothing earlier this morning about the C. S. Hixson Candy Company, but neither does the rest of the Internet. This article, therefore, immediately becomes the Internet’s leading and only source of information on the subject.

The building was put up in 1917, to judge by listings in the American Contractor. Excavations had begun by April 28:

Factory: $25,000. 4 sty. 59×96. Adams & Fulton sts, Priv. plans. Owner C. S. Hixson Candy Co., 1024 Vickroy st. Gen. Contr. C. E. Murphy & Sons, 516 Federal st. Carp. & conc. work by gen, contr. Brk. mas, to C. B. Lovatt, 1203 Federal st. Plmg, to Walter Gangloff, 2471 Perrysvilie av. Excav.

Brick work had started by June 9.

The company, however, did not prosper long. Its charter as a Delaware corporation was repealed in 1921 for failure to pay taxes. In 1926, The International Confectioner reported that “There will be a meeting of the stockholders of the C. S. Hixson Candy Co., Pittsburgh, Pa., Jan. 17, to consider the question of selling or leasing the business, or to liquidate it and close up.”

And there you have everything Father Pitt was able to find out in twenty minutes, which is twenty minutes more than anyone else on the Internet has ever devoted to the subject.

This old industrial building is tumbling to bits, and if the neighborhood were more valuable it would have been gone years ago. It is not a work of outstanding architecture; the construction listings specified “private plans,” which probably means “We can do without an architect.” The borders of the Manchester Historic District were carefully drawn to exclude it while including the modest Italianate houses next to it. The work going on at the top may be part of a demolition; at any rate, the cornice was intact a few years ago. But it is an interesting little bit of history, and it preserves a record of its original owner on the eastern face of the building.

The old painted sign is still visible, and nearly legible with the help of some heavy manipulation. This is what it appears to say:

C. S. HIXSON
CANDY CO.
MANUFACTURES [sic] OF
HIGH GRADE
CHOCOLATES

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

May 2, 2024
More of Seminole Hills, Mount Lebanon

We’ve seen some of the houses in Seminole Hills already, but we need no excuse to look at a few more. Like the other similar plans in Mount Lebanon, this one delights us with its wide variety of excellent designs.

A demonstration of the variety of scales found in Mission Hills. Above, a grand mansion with a whole village of outbuildings; below, just around the corner, a modest but richly stony Cape Cod.

This typical Colonial, probably from the 1930s, has a typical little round window above the front door. But what do you do if you don’t want a window there anymore?

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens, except for the picture of the clock, which was taken with the Nikon COOLPIX P100.

May 2, 2024
Front Doors of Monterey Street, Mexican War Streets

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

May 2, 2024
The Big Rooster

On DeLuca’s diner in the Strip.

Nikon COOLPIX P100.

May 1, 2024
Anderson Manor, Manchester

Few of the great Greek Revival mansions that surrounded Pittsburgh before the Civil War have survived. This one has, and that alone would make it important. But this one also has a place of high honor in the intellectual history of the United States. This was the home of Colonel James Anderson, the book-lover, who opened his personal library to working boys on Saturday afternoons. One of those boys was Andrew Carnegie, who attributed his later success to the education he got from reading Col. Anderson’s books. When Carnegie established his first public library in Allegheny, he donated a memorial to Col. Anderson to stand outside and remind the city that Carnegie was only following his benefactor’s example. A plaque, set up by somebody who did not understand how quotation marks work, duplicates the original inscription:

The original house was built in about 1830; additions were made in 1905—a fortunate time, since classical style had come back in fashion, and the additions were in sympathy with the original.

The house has belonged to various institutions over the years, but many of the details remain intact.

The colonnaded porch-and-balcony has Doric columns below, Ionic above—a scrupulously correct treatment. Doric was regarded as weightier than Ionic, so the lighter-looking columns are supported by the heavier-looking ones. If there were a third level, the columns would be Corinthian, the lightest of the three Greek orders.

May 1, 2024
St. Thomas Memorial Church, Oakmont

The outsized corner tower of this Episcopal church defines the rich and splendid building, designed by R. Maurice Trimble and built in 1906. Old Pa Pitt is especially happy that the clock is keeping time, because it’s an extraordinary clock.

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

April 30, 2024
West End Bridge

April 30, 2024
Smallman Street, Strip District

The broad plaza of Smallman Street in the Strip, looking toward downtown from 21st Street.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

April 30, 2024
Dandelion Seeds

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

April 29, 2024
The Dormont Park Plan

The Dormont Park Land Company was incorporated in 1927 and almost immediately began offering lots in a little square of land laid out as the Dormont Park plan, right next to Dormont Park, the one big open space in the borough of Dormont. It was an attempt to give the middle classes what the upper classes got from Mission Hills, Virginia Manor, and similar plans in Mount Lebanon: a classy neighborhood of attractive houses of high architectural merit.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 1, 1927.

“Fully restricted, high-class and exclusive”—but within an easy stroll of the streetcar line (as it still is today).

The neighborhood largely delivered on its promise. A few lots remained unbuilt till after the Second World War, and the houses on them are not up to the high standard of the rest. But the majority are designs of merit, obviously designed by some of our best domestic architects. They are more modest than the ones in the big Mount Lebanon plans, but all the same styles are represented, just on a smaller scale.

Many of the houses retain their charming original details, like these deliberately irregular roof slates.

Old Pa Pitt has undertaken to document every house in the plan, and he is already more than two-thirds of the way to the goal. We’ll be seeing some more of Dormont Park, but meanwhile, Father Pitt has established a category for the Dormont Park plan at Wikimedia Commons, where you can see dozens more pictures.

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000, Nikon COOLPIX P100.

One response

April 29, 2024