Tag: Apartment Buildings

  • Bayard Manor, Oakland

    Bayard Manor entrance

    The Bayard Street face of Bayard Manor. Yes, that odd little half-timbered projection on the roof really is skewed in relation to this side of the building. That is because Craig Street and Bayard Street do not meet at exactly a right angle; the roof projection (it probably holds elevator mechanics) is oriented at right angles to every side of the building except the Bayard Street front.

    Bayard Manor
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

    More pictures of the Bayard Street front of Bayard Manor, the main entrance, and the Craig Street side.


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  • Harry, George, Matilda, and Laura, plus Hilda and Herbert

    Matilda and Laura

    That sounds like the title for a very complicated farce, but these are actually the names of six apartment buildings in Oakland, all of which share a common style. First, on Oakland Avenue, we have Harry, George, Matilda, and Laura, which look like four buildings but are really two identical buildings, each divided in two parts. The romantic battlemented fronts give tenants the chance to imagine themselves as medieval lords and ladies fresh out of a Walter Scott novel. These fantasies were effective in selling apartments, and probably still are.

    Harry, George, Matilda, and Laura apartments
    Harry
    Harry in perspective
    Matilda and Laura

    Around the corner on Dawson Street are two other buildings that share many of the same details. They had the same owner—John Dimling (note the sign for the private alley Dimling Way in the picture above)—and we can guess that they were probably drawn by the same pencil. These are called Hilda and Herbert.

    Hilda

    Here the architect has responded to the challenge of a lot that is not rectangular with a pair of asymmetrical designs that resemble but do not repeat Harry, George, Matilda, and Laura.

    Herbert
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    John Dimling was also the owner of the rainbow terrace on Dawson Street, and it is a good guess that the same architect was responsible for that as well. That architect was almost certainly Frederick Sauer, who is best remembered for his churches (like St. Stanislaus Kostka and St. Stephen Proto-Martyr) and his backyard whimsies, but who was very busy with all kinds of work. Father Pitt has not found these particular buildings in construction listings yet; but John Dimling was responsible for quite a bit of development in this part of Oakland, and in looking through the trade magazines for Mr. Dimling’s name, we find that, whenever an architect is mentioned, it is always and without exception F. C. Sauer during the period when these buildings went up (around the turn of the twentieth century). We therefore attribute them to Sauer until someone proves otherwise.


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  • Storefronts and Apartments by Sylvanus W. McCluskey, Bloomfield

    4519 and 4519 Liberty Avenue
    Olympus E-20N.

    This building is probably the work of Sylvanus W. McCluskey, a Lawrenceville architect. Our source spells the name “McCloskey,” but that is within the usual limits of Linotypist accuracy. From the Pittsburg Post, October 9, 1900:

    Another apartment house is to be built in the Sixteenth Ward. It will stand on a plot at Nos. 4517 and 4519 Liberty street, Bloomfield, and will be owned by Michael McKenna. It will be a three-story brick building with storerooms on the first floor. Architect S. W. McCloskey designed it and has awarded the contract for its erection to Frank McMasters. Work on it will be started at once. The building without the interior finish will cost about $15,000.


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  • Homer Apartments, Highland Park

    Homer apartments

    A trio of bay-fronted apartment buildings on Jackson Street. The design is not out of the ordinary, but it is a neat and elegant implementation of the ordinary. The bays, as Father Pitt likes to point out, are not mere decoration: they really do suck in the light, which is valuable for people who like natural light.

    Homer No. 2
    Entrance
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • New Granada Apartments, Hill District

    New Granada Apartments

    The patchwork-quilt style of architecture has been popular in the last decade, but this is by far the most colorful implementation of it old Pa Pitt has seen. The whole block that includes the New Granada has been redeveloped, and these cheerful apartments, with ground-floor storefronts, make this section of the Hill seem lively and inviting again.

    Perspective view
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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  • The Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, Highland Park

    Howard, Norfolk, and Delaware from up the street

    When we last saw this triple building, it was getting a fresh coat of paint. The new color scheme looks much better, and old Pa Pitt offers his congratulations to the people with taste at Mozart Management.

    The Norfolk

    The three connected buildings were put up in 1901 as the Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, and we can just barely make out the ghosts of the inscriptions above the entrances. The architect was William E. Snaman.1 The Norfolk, above, preserves the original appearance. In the other two, the balconies have been filled in to make closets, and they looked forbiddingly blank with the old paint scheme; the more artistic new scheme at least emphasizes the surviving trim.

    Eaglemoor Apartments
    Pediment of the Norfolk
    The Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk
    1. Source: Pittsburg Post, September 25, 1900. “It developed yesterday that ex-Mayor Bernard McKenna and a syndicate of local capitalists will be the owners of the three apartment houses now in course of erection in the Highland avenue residence district, particulars of which were announced in this column last week. They were designed by Architect William E. Snaman, and the contract for their erection has been let to L. E. Umstead, of Allegheny. Each will stand on a lot 40×100 feet each at Highland avenue and Bryant street, and will be of brick and stone, and three stories high. When completed and ready for occupancy the houses will represent an investment of over $100,000.” Thanks to David Schwing for finding the clipping. ↩︎

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  • Ritz Apartments, Brookline

    Ritz Building

    Perhaps not quite as ritzy as they would be in another neighborhood, but for prosperous working-class Brookline this is a fine building. The stone-fronted ground floor is topped by two floors of stone-colored white Kittanning brick, making a rich impression; and clever little decorations made from what look like terra-cotta remnants brighten what might otherwise be a monotonous façade.

    Cornice
    Terra-cotta diamonds
    Nikon COOLPIX P100

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  • Wendover Street Apartments, Squirrel Hill

    Gable end

    The distinctive Flemish gables of these apartments catch our attention as we come down Beacon Street. They were probably designed by Perry & Thomas, a Chicago firm responsible for a number of apartment buildings in Shadyside and Squirrel Hill. Although some ill-advised changes have been made, for the most part the unusual details—Flemish Renaissance filtered through an Art Nouveau lens—have been preserved.

    Wendover Street apartments
    2010–2000 Wendover Street
    2010 Wendover Street
    2010 Wendover Street
    2006 Wendover Street
    Entrance to 2006
    Entrance to 2010
    Wendover Street apartments
    Windows
    Wendover Street apartments
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Highland House, Highland Park

    Highland House

    Designed by Tasso Katselas, this 22-storey apartment tower opened in 1962. It has reverted to its original name, Highland House, after some years as “the Park Lane.”

    Highland House

    Many projects for skyscraper apartments or hotels were proposed for Highland Park, but this is the only one that ever succeeded. “A dramatic use of the Miesian glass cage formula applied to a 22 story apartment house” was how James D. Van Trump described it in “The Stones of Pittsburgh.” “Located on the edge of Highland Park it seems to float above a nearby reservoir.”

    Ground floor

    Miesian is a good term for it: the building adopts the colonnade of stilts that became the signature of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Many imitators of Mies seem to lose courage and make the peripteral colonnade a narrow and useless space; see, for example, the Westinghouse Building. Katselas, on the other hand, if anything exaggerated the width of the porch, so that the ground floor is reduced to a little entrance cage, leaving a big broad outdoor space under the shelter of twenty-one floors of steel and glass.

    Base of Highland House
    Stilts
    Highland House
  • Skyscraper Apartments for the Postwar Era

    Doubletree Hotel
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    This was one of the major developments in postwar Pittsburgh—a $5,500,000 skyscraper apartment house financed by the FHA. Tennyson & Van Wart were the architects—a partnership of Arthur Tennyson, of Mount Lebanon, and John Van Wart, a successful New York architect who had been lured here in the 1930s by a job with Westinghouse. For many decades it has been a hotel under various owners, currently as the Doubletree.

    From the Pittsburgh Press, March 3, 1950.

    “The Federal Housing Administration has insured a mortgage loan to build a 19-story, H-shaped structure on Webster Ave. on the site of St. Mary’s High School and Home for Girls at Webster Ave. and Tunnel St,” the Press reported.

    “It will cost approximately $5½ million and provide housing for 465 families. Construction is expected to begin in June and be completed by June, 1951.”

    Mr. Van Wart died unexpectedly in June of 1950, while this building was under construction. Tennyson continued the practice alone, and would end up designing many more modernist apartment blocks in the Pittsburgh area. We’ll see more of his work.


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