Tag: Abandoned

  • Mystery Mansion on Perry Hilltop

    Second Empire tower through bare branches

    Walking down Perrysville Avenue one day not long ago, Father Pitt spotted a distinctive outline through the branches. It was the tower of a Second Empire mansion.

    Mansion through the trees

    Old Pa Pitt was very excited. Here was a Second Empire mansion he had not known about before. That was very interesting. He started investigating, and found that the discovery was actually much more interesting than that.

    Historians of Perry Hilltop are earnestly invited to help us out with the history of this house, which has caught old Pa Pitt’s imagination. The house is in deplorable shape—especially the side you can see through the overgrown shrubbery from Perrysville Avenue, where billows of garbage seem to be spilling out of the building.

    2421 Perrysville Avenue

    But what is fascinating is that, where old Pa Pitt expected a Second Empire mansion, he found something much older. The shallow pitch of the roof and the broad expanse of flat white board underneath the roofline say “Greek Revival” in a loud voice.

    This appears to be the side of the house, although Father Pitt has reason for believing that it was originally the front. The large modern Perrysville Plaza apartment building is next to it, but walking around to the back of that building reveals the front of the house—with its distinctive Second Empire tower.

    Front of the house
    Front elevation

    The tower is pure Second Empire, but the roof still says Greek Revival. The house must have been Second Empired, probably in the 1880s. The attic windows in the gable ends were added then: they match the ones in the tower.

    Gable with attic windows
    Tower with matching windows
    Tower

    The Second Empire remodeling was not the last big change. You may have noticed that there is something a little off about the brick walls. This appears to have been a frame house originally. Old plat maps show it as a frame house through 1910; later maps show it as brick. A brick veneer must have been added at some time around the First World War. The new brick walls swallowed all the window frames and other trim that would have given us more clues about the original date.

    There was a house here belonging to the “Boyle Heirs” in 1872, the earliest plat map we have found. An 1882 map shows a carriage drive leading to the plank road that became Perrysville Avenue, with a circle at the end of the house near the road—bolstering old Pa Pitt’s guess that the end was originally the front.

    There are few Second Empire mansions remaining in Pittsburgh, and even fewer Greek Revival ones. This house ought to be preserved, but it probably will not be. The neighborhood is neglected enough that it has not even been condemned yet, which means that it will continue to decay until either it becomes an intolerable nuisance or the land becomes valuable enough to build something else on. Father Pitt will label it Critically Endangered.

    All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists, and Father Pitt has done the best he can do without trespassing.

    Tower
    Front of the mansion
    Bay
    Gable
    Perspective View of the House
    Bay, balcony, and porch
    Tower
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Allegheny Social Hall, Dutchtown

    Allegheny Social Hall

    This building has been neglected for decades, but it was solidly constructed and has suffered less than we might think from that neglect. It’s for sale right now, and it would be a splendid meeting hall for your lodge. All you have to do is found a lodge, and make sure to invite people with money to be your charter members.

    Front elevation
    Inscription: “Allegheny Social Hall”
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Father Pitt took some pictures of this building back in 1999, and it is surprising how little it has changed since then—either for the better or for the worse.

    Allegheny Social Hall in 1999
    Allegheny Social Hall

    Map.


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  • Endangered Buildings in Carrick

    Berg Place

    It is never pleasant, but old Pa Pitt feels as though he has a duty to document things that might be gone soon. Sometimes miracles happen, and we can always hope, but without a miracle we can only turn to the photographs to remember what has vanished.

    “Berg Place,” a group of three apartment buildings along Brownsville Road in Carrick, probably cannot be saved. It’s a pity, because the buildings, in a pleasant Arts-and-Crafts style flavored with German Art Nouveau, have a commanding position along the street, and their absence will be felt. They were abandoned a few years ago, probably declared unsafe, and since then they have rotted quickly.

    Berg Place
    Decorative brickwork and brackets

    Some of the simple but effective Art Nouveau decorations in brick and stone.

    Fire-damaged buildings

    These two buildings across the street from Berg Place, damaged by a fire, may possibly still be saved. At present one of them is condemned, but that is not a death sentence, and it looks as though prompt action was taken to secure the one on the corner after the fire. They are typical of the Mission-style commercial buildings that were popular in Carrick and other South Hills neighborhoods, and they ought to be preserved if at all possible. Carrick is not a prosperous neighborhood, but much of the commercial district is still lively, and with the increase in city property values the repairs might be a good investment.

    2554 Brownsville Road
    Art glass in the display window
    2546 Brownsville Road
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS

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  • House by Louis Bellinger in Beltzhoover

    House by Louis A. S. Bellinger

    For his entire career, Louis A. S. Bellinger was the only Black registered architect in western Pennsylvania. His most famous work today is the Pythian Temple, later the New Granada Theater, on the Hill. This is a much smaller project—a six-room house built in 1929 for a middle-class client.1 But the client got his money’s worth. It’s not a work of towering genius: it’s just the best house you could get for the money, designed by a man who knew how to take the ordinary Pittsburgh house and make it a little bit special.

    Arched entrance

    The house is abandoned and overgrown, and it will probably not last much longer. It would take a miracle to save it—a miracle that made the location suddenly valuable, since it will require a nearly complete gutting to put the house back in livable shape. All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists now, so that future historians will know that Louis Bellinger made it.

    85 Sylvania Avenue

    It appears that the house originally had an open porch with an arched entrance; later most of the porch was closed in to make another room. The large window opening in front was a good bit larger when it was an open porch, as we can tell by the slight difference in mortar in the bricks to either side of the window.

    House in context
    Nikon COOLPIX P100; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.
    1. Source: The Charette, January, 1929, p. 12. “602. Architect: Louis A. S. Bellinger, 525 Fifth Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: Robert T. Smith. Title: One family dwelling, six rooms and bath. Location: 85 Sylvania Ave. Contract awarded to Vincent Mingers. Contract price: $8700.00.” ↩︎

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  • Tenth Ward Public School No. 2, Observatory Hill

    Tenth Ward Public School No. 2

    Perched on the side of a steep hill, this tiny schoolhouse was built in 1874.1 After Allegheny was conquered by Pittsburgh, this was known as the Milroy School (after Milroy Street, which passes on the right side of the school). After it closed as a school in 1938, it was used as community center called Milroy House, and then a preschool; and now it is abandoned and waiting for its next life.

    Entrance

    The school appears to have had three classrooms: left, right, and rear.

    Milroy School

    A picture taken in 1923, when the building was already half a century old, shows how the school looked with its belfry and its real windows.

    Milroy School in 1923
    From Historic Pittsburgh. The photograph was digitized with a copyright watermark, but it has been out of copyright since 2019.
    Perspective view
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    1. A brief history of the building is at Historic Pittsburgh. ↩︎

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  • St. Henry Church, Arlington

    St. Henry Church, Arlington

    St. Henry Church has been abandoned for years, and it is slowly rotting away. Yet the neighborhood still remembers it as a point of pride: when Father Pitt was taking pictures along Arlington Avenue the other day, some locals stopped to talk and immediately asked, “Did you see our church?”

    West front

    And, of course, our utility cables.

    St. Henry was designed by Marlier & Johnstone and built in 1952, when the neighborhood was thriving.

    West front

    Each of those squares had a symbolic relief at its center, with a big metal cross in the middle of the façade. Those have all been taken away, because when Catholics abandon a building, they generally preserve whatever is unique and valuable about it and place it in another parish if possible. It does leave the building looking stripped, but we can understand the impulse.

    Entrance

    The entrance is sharply drawn in a style that flavors modern with just a bit of late Art Deco.

    Cupola

    An abstract cross-topped cupola.

    St. Henry Church

    An exhibition of utility cables.

    Rectory

    The rectory is older than the church; it is hard to guess the age of it, and it has been added to in various eras and various styles.

    Dormer
    Lintel
    Rectory
    Rectory
    School
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The school next to the church has been abandoned twice. It was a public primary school for a while after the parochial school closed, but the public school closed a few years ago.

  • Abandoned House in Homewood

    7809 Susquehanna Street

    Homewood is prospering now more than it has done in decades, but there are still many forgotten corners. This house, in the part of Homewood traditionally called Brushton, has been abandoned and forgotten for a very long time, though the other houses on the street are inhabited and well kept. Because it has been left alone for decades, it preserves details of crumbling shingle and woodwork that have been replaced on all its neighbors. It appears to have been built in the 1890s for J. M. Gruber, and it is a good example of how the Queen Anne style filtered down to the middle classes.

    Gable with shingles
    Gable and oriel
  • St. James Convent, Sewickley

    St. James Convent

    Even though it is on the grounds of a parish that is still open, with a school that is still open, this glorious Second Empire building is abandoned and crumbling, with scraggly Trees of Heaven—the badge of abandonment—taking root all around it. In its current state it looks like a drawing by Charles Addams.

    St. James Convent
    Roof woodwork
    Close-up of some woodwork
    Dormer
    Dormer from the side
    Dormer from the front
    Different dormer from the front
    St. James Convent
    St. James Convent
    St. James Convent
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
  • Columbus Avenue, Manchester

    1305 and 1307 Columbus Avenue, Manchester

    The far end of Manchester still has some work to do. A few houses have been restored; about an equal number are abandoned and condemned. A few have been restored, and then abandoned and condemned. A few have been renovated in a way that seems regrettable. We can only hope that someone will rescue the houses that need rescuing.

    Front door
    Window decoration

    It is always especially sad when we see that the last thing residents were able to do to their house was decorate it for Christmas.

    1313 Columbus Avenue

    Here we have a frame house refurbished to be habitable and comfortable. “Multipane” windows were used, of course, because is there any other kind? (Old Pa Pitt was shocked to visit a house with modern “multipane” windows and discover that the “panes” are really just cartoon lines drawn in plastic across a single sheet of glass.)

    1315
    Dormer
    1321
    1323
    1327
    1327
    1329
    1403
    Dormer
    1405
    1409

    This house suffered a fire years ago and appears to have been abandoned since then. At least some minimal work has been done to stabilize it. The dormer is distinctive; it would have been more so with its original decorative woodwork.

    1409
    1411

    We find some of the houses in better shape as we approach the western end of the street.

    1411
    1413
    1413
    1415 and 1417
    1415 and 1417
    1419 and 1421
    1421, front door
    1421, woodwork
  • Pittsburgh Tag Co. Building, North Side

    Allen Kirkpatrick & Co. building

    This building seems to have been put up for Allen Kirkpatrick & Co., but for years it was the home of the Pittsburgh Tag Co., as this ghost sign tells us. It has been vacant for some time.

    Pittsburgh Tag Co. ghost sign
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    The Pittsburgh Tag Company was founded in 1927, as we find in the Paper Trade Journal, December 15, 1927:

    Pittsburgh, Pa.—The Pittsburgh Tag Company, care of Charles F. C. Arensberg, 834 Amberson street, Pittsburgh, recently organized with a capital of $50,000, plans the operation of a local plant for the manufacture of paper tags and kindred specialties. Mr. Arensberg will be treasurer of the new company; James M. Graham and Jonathan S. Green will be directors.