Tag: Apartment Buildings

  • Weber Apartments, Dormont

    Weber Apartments
    Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

    The striking patterned brickwork of an apartment building in Dormont captured in glorious monochrome.

    We also have color pictures of this building and its neighbors.

  • The Fairfax, Oakland

    Entrance to the Fairfax

    Designed by Washington (D. C.) architect Philip Morison Jullien, the Fairfax was one of the grandest apartment houses in Pittsburgh when it opened in 1927. It certainly isn’t our biggest apartment building now, but it still makes a strong impression as you walk past on Fifth Avenue.

    The Fairfax
    Arms over the entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

    More pictures of the Fairfax.

  • Apartment Buildings on Broadway Avenue, Dormont

    2850–2844 Broadway Avenue, Dormont

    The northwest side of Broadway Avenue in Dormont is lined with small to medium-sized apartment buildings and duplexes. There’s a variety of styles, but we suspect more than one of them came from the pencil of Charles Geisler, who designed many apartment buildings in Dormont and Mount Lebanon, and who lived not far away in Beechview.

    2848 Broadway Avenue
    2844
    2844
    2832
    2830
    2822
    2808–2816
    2808–2816
    2750
    2755
    2730 and 2728

    These two are exceptionally convenient to transit: their front doors open right across from the Stevenson stop on the Red Line.

    2728
    2728
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
  • Neville House, Oakland, in Black and White

    Port cochere of the Neville House apartments

    We saw Neville House in color earlier. These three monochrome pictures were taken with a Kodak Retinette made in the middle 1950s. Above, the exit from the porte cochere under the building. Below, the main entrance, including the porte cochere and the patio in front of it.

    Entrance to Neville House
    Entrance to Neville House
    Kodak Retinette with Kentmere Pan 100 film.

    Thanks to Bodega Film Lab for developing the film and making it worth taking the Retinette out for a walk.

  • The Yards at Three Crossings, Strip

    The Yards at Three Corssings
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

    This large apartment development between Railroad Street and the Allegheny opened in 2016. WTW Architects were the architects of record, and this is a good example of the type of patchwork-quilt architecture that has been fashionable in the last decade or two. On the one hand old Pa Pitt thinks these buildings are much more interesting than the plain brick boxes that were fashionable after the Second World War. On the other hand, bricks last, whereas Father Pitt fears some of these other materials will begin to look a bit scraggly in about fifteen years.

  • Glasshouse Apartments, Station Square

    Glasshouse apartments with skyscrapers in sunset light
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    With skyscrapers in sunset light.

  • Apartment Buildings on Voelkel Avenue, Dormont

    Weber Apartments 2

    On the southeast side of Voelkel Avenue in Dormont are three eye-catching apartment buildings. Since patterned brickwork was a favorite trick of Charles R. Geisler, the most prolific designer of apartment buildings in Dormont and Mount Lebanon, old Pa Pitt suspects he was responsible (but of course would be happy to be contradicted by someone with real information). The building above has kept its original art glass in the stairwell, but the front windows of the apartments have been replaced with modern picture windows.

    Weber and D’Alo Apartments
    Weber Apartments

    This one has a different configuration of apartment windows, possibly more like the original. It has lost its art glass in the stairwell, however.

    D’Alo Apts.

    The entrance to the D’Alo, on the corner of Voelkel and Potomac Avenues.

    2910 Voelkel Avenue
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    Across the street are two smaller apartment buildings with a similar riot of patterned brick. We suspect Geisler has struck again.

  • Neville House, Oakland

    Neville House

    Tasso Katselas designed this apartment building, which opened in 1959. James D. Van Trump described it a few years later: “Glass, brick and concrete cage raised into space on arched stilts in the manner of Le Corbusier and at the time it was built the most ‘advanced’ apartment house in Pittsburgh.”

    Entrance portal

    The drama of the building is in those arched stilts. They make approaching the building from the street an event. In typical Katselas fashion, they also solve a practical problem: they make room for a useful porte cochere while allowing the rest of the building to take up as much of its lot as possible.

    Front
    Entrance
    Neville House
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
  • Fancy Bricks in Stowe Township

    261 McCoy Road

    In spite of considerable alteration, much of what makes this building on McCoy Road distinctive has been preserved. Most noticeable, of course, is the patterned brickwork that reminds old Pa Pitt of some buildings known to have been designed by Charles Geisler, prolific architect of small and medium-sized apartment and commercial buildings. He was also fond of this style of roof, which would originally have been covered with tile. And Father Pitt thinks the slightly clashing juxtaposition of a round arch in the middle with extremely broad Jacobean arches is also very Geislerian.

    Balconies
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The building was originally a store with two apartments above; the store has been filled in with Permastone (or the equivalent) and made into a third apartment.

  • Walnut Apartments, Shadyside

    Walnut Apartments
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    A complex grouping of windows and a variety of textures make this building more interesting than many. It has probably changed over time. The overhangs would originally have had tile rather than asphalt shingles. The sunrooms under them were probably balconies. The central stairwell windows probably had art glass in them.

    Instead of one central entrance, the building has three entrances, and it appears to have been divided that way for a long time if not originally. It is possible that the ground floor was originally storefronts, which could have created a complex arrangement of entrances when the storefronts were adapted as apartments.