Father Pitt

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Southminster Presbyterian Church, Mount Lebanon

Two grand Presbyterian churches stand at the two ends of Uptown Mount Lebanon. But they are different kinds of Presbyterians. The one to the north was the United Presbyterian church, but it has now become Evangelical Presbyterian. This one is now Presbyterian Church (USA).

“In these days of mergers,” James Macqueen (himself one of our notable architects) wrote in the Charette in 1930, “one wonders why theological differences stood in the way of unity, and that these Presbyterians did not build one great building in this community instead of two with their attendant extra overhead involved. However, both of these two churches are worthy of a visit, as they show the great advance that has been made in Church work during the past few years…”

Southminster was designed by Thomas Pringle and built in 1928.

These quatrefoil ornaments at the top of the tower can be properly appreciated with a very long lens.

The office and education wing is done in a complementary Jacobean style. The arcade makes both a visual and a practical link to the main church.

Appropriately for a building dedicated to Christian education, the Reformation slogan VDMA—Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum (“The word of God endureth for ever,” 1 Peter 1:25)—is engraved in an open book.

We have more pictures of Southminster Presbyterian from a couple of years ago.

Cameras: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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July 21, 2024
Tasselflowers

Common weeds in more tropical climes, these flowers are valued here for their hot, bright colors. They resemble our common hawkweeds and were once classified in the same genus, but are now put in the genus Emilia. Sorting out the species is more than poor old Pa Pitt can handle.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

July 20, 2024
Two Moderne Apartment Buildings in Mount Lebanon

On Florida Avenue, a street that runs behind the Uptown business district in Mount Lebanon, two apartment buildings in a toned-down version of Moderne streamlining face each other. The most striking feature of number 666 is the stairwell set into a tall groove with a two-floor window of glass blocks.

The decorative brickwork at the corners suggests quoins, but in a modernistic manner.

Across the street is a pair of identical buildings with less streamlining and no abstract quoins.

Both buildings would probably have had windows with more character when they were new.

Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

July 20, 2024
Robin Hill, Moon Township

Robin Hill was designed for Francis and Mary Nimick by Henry Gilchrist. He gave them a classic Georgian country house, and, like many country houses, it is really meant to be enjoyed from the garden side.

The house was built in 1926, and for nearly half a century the Nimicks enjoyed it. When Mary died in 1971, she willed the whole estate to the township to be preserved as a park.

The front of the house presents a dignified appearance to the visitor.

Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z981; Sony Alpha 3000; Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

July 19, 2024
St. Paul of the Cross Monastery Church, South Side Slopes

Charles F. Bartberger designed this magnificent church, one of only a very few large churches in this area still standing from before the Civil War (it was built in 1854). It is not that we had no large churches; it is only that the ensuing age of prosperity made most of the large ones even larger—or kicked them out of the way to make room for skyscrapers, as happened with the old St. Paul’s Cathedral downtown, also designed by Bartberger, which was bought and demolished by Henry Frick.

This one has had good luck. It belongs to a still-active monastery in a neighborhood that, by its topographic nature, will probably never become prosperous enough to displace the church. It dominates the view up Monastery Street and Monastery Avenue.

A relief of Christ stumbling on the way to Calvary is over the main door.

St. Paul of the Cross reminds us that our way to God lies through the passion of Christ. He wears a benevolent expression, but he is a ferocious terror to pigeons.

Cameras: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

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July 18, 2024
Cosmos sulphureus After the Rain

Another bright Victorian favorite coming back into favor after a period of eclipse.

Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

July 17, 2024
Coventry Log Cabin, Moon Township

A two-century-old log cabin preserved in a Moon Township park. The Moon Township Historical Society gives us its history: it was built about twelve miles from here in 1825 for John Coventry, a Revolutionary War veteran who would already have been fairly old when he built this house. It was inhabited until the later twentieth century, but by the middle 1970s it was abandoned. It was carefully taken apart, with every piece labeled, and reassembled here in Robin Hill Park on the grounds of the old Nimick mansion (about which more soon).

Note the tool marks on the stone slabs used as steps. Barry Fell would probably have read them as Celtic inscriptions.

A lot of care went into shaping the logs to lock together at the corners.

The chimney is made of irregular local stones skillfully arranged.

You may have noticed this tombstone in front of the cabin if you were looking at the pictures above closely. Father Pitt does not know its story—whether it was moved here with the cabin, or whether it was here before the cabin was reconstructed. Perhaps someone from the Historical Society can enlighten us. The inscription is quite legible in spite of a few missing letters:

HENRY ATEN
DIED
APRIL 11, 1877,
AGED 63 YEARS,
6 MOS. & 16 DA[YS.]

[Ble]ssed are the dead who die in the
[Lo]rd, for they rest from their labors
[a]nd their works do follow them.

Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

July 17, 2024
Coraopolis Train Station

Built in the late 1890s, this Pittsburgh & Lake Erie commuter station was designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, one of at least three firms that claimed to be the successors of the great H. H. Richardson, and perhaps the one with the most direct claim, since Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge were the ones who completed Richardson’s outstanding jobs when he died. It is a temple of locomotion in the high Richardsonian style that may remind you of another Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge building in Pittsburgh, Shadyside Presbyterian Church.

After many years of raising money and praying, the community is working on restoring this landmark to pass down to future generations.

Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Most of these pictures are stacks of three different exposures, so that detail is preserved in both the highlights and the shadows.

July 16, 2024
Stone Schwartz Building, Allegheny West

Sony Alpha 3000.

This Romanesque warehouse appears from old maps to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Allegheny Transfer Company. It later belonged to Donaldson Transfer, as a ghost sign at the top of the building testifies (enlarge the picture to examine it closely). It has been a few things since then, and it was for sale when old Pa Pitt visited it. If you want a distinctive commercial or even residential space in one of our most pleasant neighborhoods, here is your opportunity.

A few years ago, Father Pitt took a picture of this building in sunset light, but it looks as though he never published it. So here it is now.

Composite of three pictures from a Canon PowerShot A540.

July 15, 2024
Bastille Day

Canon PowerShot A530.

A Pittsburgh house celebrates liberté, égalité, fraternité.

July 14, 2024