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The Elgin Plasters
Dionysus, Demeter, and Kore. Ever since Lord Elgin bought the Parthenon sculptures and other bric-a-brac on eBay in the early 1800s, there have been debates about whether the Turks had any right to sell them, and whether they really ought to be where they are (in the British Museum), or whether they ought to be back in Athens. The arguments are still going on, and the United Nations has tried to sort out the dispute to no avail.
But here they are in Pittsburgh, and no one has to have a fight about it, because these are plaster casts of the originals. They are almost indistinguishable visually from the original art, and they can be experienced in three dimensions like the originals, and you don’t have to cross the Atlantic to see them.
In the late 1800s, the world’s great museums had the idea that it would be good for people to be able to experience the great sculpture and architecture of the world in three dimensions, just as if it were in their own city. The craft of making plaster casts had been brought to a peak of perfection, and museums eagerly bought up these casts and formed large collections.
Then, as the twentieth century rolled on, the collections became mortal embarrassments. Art was valuable only if it was original, and plaster casts are not original. Only three of the great plaster-cast collections survive, and this is one of them. It is the only one that was never kicked out of its original home.
Museum curators are beginning to wake up to the value of these collections. From a visual point of view, the experience of viewing them is almost exactly the same as the experience of viewing the originals. An art student can sketch them from different angles, can observe how the shadows fall across the drapery, can crane her neck to look at the bits that aren’t visible in photographs.
Artemis. Father Pitt is sure that someone, somewhere, can find a reason for being angry about these plaster casts. But for most sane people, here are some of the remaining glories of classical art for you to enjoy guilt-free and without a passport.
Hestia, whose usual epithet in Hesiod was Please Do Not Touch.
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The Stanley
The Stanley was designed as a silent-movie palace, but opened in 1928, just as talkies were making a revolution in the movie business. The architects were the Hoffman-Henon Company of Philadelphia. It was the biggest theater in Pittsburgh when it opened, and as the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts it is still our biggest theater now.
A picture of the Loew’s Penn, now known as Heinz Hall, that got stuck in here by accident. Father Pitt would have taken it out, except that a kind commenter identified it, and old Pa Pitt does not like to disappear his mistakes, 
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Nikon COOLPIX P100. The skyscraper behind the theater is the Clark Building, which was built at the same time and designed by the same architects as part of the same development package.
More pictures of the Stanley Theater.
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St. Richard’s School and Church, Hill District
St. Richard’s parish was founded in 1894 and immediately put up a temporary frame church. Two years later, a rectory—obviously meant to be permanent—was designed by J. A. Jacobs in a restrained version of the Queen Anne style.
In 1907, the parish started building a school, which would also have temporary facilities on the ground floor for the church until a new church building could be built. It was partly financed by “euchre and dance” nights.
Father Pitt has not yet succeeded in finding the name of the architect, but he has found a lot of newspaper announcements of euchre and dance nights.
The permanent church was not yet built in 1915 when this convent, designed by Albert F. Link, was put up. Although the second-floor windows have been filled in with much smaller windows, and the art glass has been replaced with glass block, the proportions of the building are still very pleasing.
We note a pair of stained-glass windows in one of the filled-in spaces on the second floor. If Father Pitt had to guess, he would guess that they came from one of the central windows that are now filled in with glass block.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. It turns out that the permanent church was never built. The dwindling congregation continued to meet for Mass on the ground floor of the school until the parish was suppressed in 1977. The school became St. Benedict the Moor School, and the ground floor was finally converted into the classrooms it had been designed for. Later the school moved to larger facilities at the former Watt Public School, but the parish kept up the old building as an events center.
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First Christian Church, Allegheny West
This interesting modernist church was built in 1963, as we find from the attractive plaque by the entrance:
The balance of modern design and hand-crafted artisanship in the lettering is very appealing.
The architects of the church were Williams & Trebilcock.1 The church was dedicated on April 5, 1964; it replaced a building that had been next to the old Presbyterian Hospital. This building now belongs to Living Word Ministry.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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Tudor Manse by Henry Gilchrist in Highland Park
Henry Gilchrist designed many fashionable mansions for the rich and the upper middle classes. This 1904 Tudor house on Callowhill Street is typical of the “English style” of the time, but the details of the half-timbering are unusually rich. The house is very similar, but not identical, to one Gilchrist designed two years later in Schenley Farms. In this house, though, the small-paned Tudor windows have been preserved, and they add to the picturesque old-English effect.1
Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. This HDR picture of the house, made up of three different exposures, looks a bit artificial but brings out the details in the woodwork.
- Source for the attribution: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, August 31, 1904, p. 563. “Mr. E. E. Arensburg will erect a dwelling on Callowhill street, from plans prepared by Architect H. D. Gilchrist, Frick Building.” Confirmed by a 1923 plat map, where the house belongs to “M. Arnesburg” (note spelling). ↩︎
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Steel Plaza Subway Station
Following the example of Montreal, Pittsburgh had each of its subway stations decorated by a different artist. The neon installation in Steel Plaza, called “River of Light,” is by Jane Haskell.
The style of the station itself combines Brutalism with Postmodernism.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Trolley Number One, the very first car in the sequential numbering of current Pittsburgh trolleys.
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Community College of Allegheny County
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. An abstraction with part of Milton Hall and the campus library at the Allegheny Campus of CCAC. Tasso Katselas was the architect.
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Grand Staircase at the Carnegie
The building was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow; the murals were painted by John White Alexander.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
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