Father Pitt

Tag: Academy Avenue

  • Collect ’Em All!

    Maywood

    This small apartment building on Overlook Drive in Mount Lebanon is the Maywood.

    Entrance to the Maywood

    If you’ve spent any time walking around in the Great State of Mount Lebanon (as Peter Leo used to call it), you might recognize it. But you might not have seen it here. Perhaps you saw it over there:

    Meadowbrook

    This is the Meadowbrook on Meadowcroft Avenue.

    Meadowbrook

    Or maybe you saw…

    140 Academy Avenue

    The Wil-O-Be on Academy Avenue. Or…

    El Ronson

    This one on McCully Street was called El Ronson, which is old Pa Pitt’s new favorite name for an apartment building.

    Entrance to El Ronson

    Or perhaps you saw…

    266 Beverly Road

    It seems that this one on Beverly Road had only its address for a name. The lintels are slightly different, and the roof is flat.

    266 Beverly Road

    And then there’s…

    The Harmon

    The Harmon, on the left. The Shirley, next to it, is the same basic design, but its variation of the detail strikes us as almost daring after all the others we’ve seen.

    We have not exhausted the incarnations of this apartment building, but this should be enough to start your collection. Now you can go out into the streets of Mount Lebanon and keep an eye open, and eventually you may be able to collect the complete set.

  • Apartment Buildings on Academy Avenue

    140 Academy Avenue

    Academy Avenue in Mount Lebanon has a mixture of single-family homes and small to medium-sized apartment buildings. We have seen some of the apartment buildings before; here are a few more.

    44 Academy Avenue

    We saw the building above once before; here it is in a different light at a different time of year. The architect was probably Charles Geisler, and buildings in variations of this same basic plan are all over Mount Lebanon and Dormont.

    36 and 34 Academy Avenue

    This is a tidy double duplex in very close to original condition. The little details make all the difference in its appearance: the tile roof overhangs, the proper windows for the era, and the little German-art-magazine ornaments in the brickwork.

    28 Academy Avenue

    Cameras: Nikon COOLPIX P100, Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

  • The Berkshire, Mount Lebanon

    The Berkshire

    We have seen the Berkshire before, but those pictures weren’t very good, so old Pa Pitt went back and got better ones. It’s a courtyard apartment building in the Mount Lebanon Historic District; as Father Pitt said the first time he visited, this building is in a simple but attractive Jacobean style, where a few effective details carry all the thematic weight.

    Gate and entrance
    Front door
    Lantern and gatepost

    Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Nikon COOLPIX P100.