Though it currently houses a real-estate agency, the terra-cotta reliefs tell us that this was built as a medical office. The splendid Art Deco eagle made it a very patriotic medical office.
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More Art Deco in Mount Lebanon
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Art Deco Vegetation
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Fifth Wood Building
This is classicism walking the knife edge between Art Deco on the one side and modernism on the other. The architect was George H. Schwan, a Pittsburgher whose only other major commission in town that old Pa Pitt knows about is the Twentieth Century Club in Oakland. [Update: The Twentieth Century Club is usually attributed to Benno Janssen. Schwan may also have designed the Natatorium Building in Oakland, or the renovations that made it into a movie theater.] Schwan did not starve, however: he was a much-employed designer of attractive smaller houses, and his most famous commission was designing practically all the original buildings in the model Akron suburb of Goodyear Heights.
Addendum: Father Pitt knows of more works by Schwan than he did when he wrote this article. See the Great Big List of Buildings and Architects for old Pa Pitt’s latest research.
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Carvings on the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building
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Home Land Building, Mount Lebanon
Uptown Mount Lebanon is one of the best Art Deco neighborhoods in the Pittsburgh area, and this building—otherwise a rather severe late-classical style—stands out for its bright Art Deco marquee.
Addendum: The architect was Charles R. Geisler, according to a listing in a local architectural magazine. Source: The Charette, Vol. 7, No. 2 (February 1927): “185. Chas. R. Geisler, 205 Ferguson Building, Pittsburgh, Pa. Contract for Stephenson [sic] & Williams Apartment and Office Building was let to Fred K. Becker, Dormont. Approximately $80,000.00. Plans out on reserved plumbing, heating, tile and composition work.”
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Deco Gothic in Mount Lebanon
Though old Pa Pitt has not yet found any documentary evidence, he identifies this building with some confidence as an old neighborhood movie house. The marquee, the Hollywood Gothic fantasy terra-cotta front, and the shape of the building (it is fairly long from front to back) all suggest a movie theater of the silent era.
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Webster Hall
Webster Hall was designed by Henry Hornbostel, Pittsburgh’s favorite architect in the early twentieth century. It was built as a luxury hotel [Update: in fact it was originally bachelor apartments, but that venture soon failed, and it was converted to a hotel] in 1926, and we can see Hornbostel moving from his flamboyant classical style (as exemplified in the City-County Building) to a sort of restrained Art Deco.
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Brighton Theater, California-Kirkbride
One of the most exuberantly gaudy Art Deco façades in Pittsburgh is in a neighborhood almost no one ever visits. Fortunately things are looking up in California-Kirkbride—or Calbride as it’s called by denizens—which was once a notoriously bad neighborhood. Restoration mania has taken root in the Old Allegheny Rows Historic District, spilling over from the Mexican War Streets and Allegheny West nearby. Meanwhile, this building is preserved by lucky economics: it houses a letter-carriers’ union and some other tenants who will keep it standing without spending the money to change its appearance significantly. According to comments on this page at Cinema Treasures, the theater was built in 1928, replacing an earlier Brighton Theater on Brighton Road (this one is on the parallel Brighton Place).
The architect’s scheme called for three masks to decorate the central section, so we have one Comedy and two Tragedies. And don’t miss the thoroughly Art Deco elephants on the corners:
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Koppers and Gulf Towers
Our two most splendid Art Deco skyscrapers, as seen from Crawford Street in the Hill. This view is made possible by the demolition of the old Civic Arena, and will disappear when the currently vacant lot is filled again.
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Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building
Mount Lebanon is a township, technically speaking; but it feels more like a city of its own. Post-Gazette columnist Peter Leo always referred to it as “the Great State of Mount Lebanon,” which sums up how Pittsburghers think Mount Lebanese think of themselves. The central business district is “uptown”—a word that means an area outside downtown in most cities (even Pittsburgh itself), but in southwestern Pennsylvania usually means a downtown area that happens to be on a hilltop. Uptown and the surrounding area is now a national historic district, and this 1930 Art Deco building is one of its gems: it is the masterpiece of its architect, William Henry King, Jr.
A decade-old article from the Trib has quite a bit of good information about the building.
Camera: Canon PowerShot S45. The picture of the whole building above is a composite of four photographs.
