A few of the commercial buildings on Fifth Avenue, the mainest of the main streets in Coraopolis. We begin with a curious building that reveals its secret as we move along the street: it is a Second Empire building from the late 1800s with a later commercial front added.
An interesting roofline and a bit of Art Nouveau terra-cotta decoration enliven this little storefront.
These splendid marquees with their Art Nouveau lettering in glass welcome us to the Princess Ann, an apartment building in the Colonial Heights plan in Mount Lebanon. Many of the external details of the building are beautifully preserved and maintained, including the art glass on the marquees and in the stairwells.
The Pittsburgh Meter Company building was put up at some time between 1910 and 1923, right beside the Brushton railroad yard, with a siding to serve the factory. It has been beautifully restored as the Sarah B. Campbell Enterprise Center, and it is filled with artists’ studios. One of the wonders of the big city is that we can find many buildings this size filled with artists’ studios; it reminds us why the word “civilization” means life in cities.
In the days when this building went up, it was usual for companies like this to make their main factory buildings as attractive as possible. The building itself was one of the chief advertisements for the firm, and an engraving of the building—sometimes exaggerated if the building was not as impressive as the company would like—appeared in advertisements and brochures as a guarantee that this was a solid and respectable business. Thus the entrance and the corners of this building are decorated with up-to-the-minute Art Nouveau geometric patterns in terra cotta.
Unlike the adjacent church, St. Francis de Sales School found a new use when it closed, and it is still maintained. The alterations were heavy and unsympathetic, but we can still see enough of the original design to imagine the rest. The original part of the school was built in 1909; it appears to have been expanded later. This is the Margaret Street end, with the original inscription.
This end of the school appears to be a later expansion.
The open belfry in this entrance tower, and the entrance below it, suggest some Art Nouveau influence.
Of the 130 municipalities in Allegheny County, Neville Township is the only one entirely surrounded by water. It is coextensive with Neville Island, the largest river island in the area, which is mostly industrial but has a small town at its western end.
This is a charming little building that would have been even more charming with its original windows, doors, and roof brackets. Old Pa Pitt is especially taken with the starburst window above the main entrance and the decorative bowling pins framing the inscription.
A commercial block where someone had a lot of fun with bricks. The storefronts appear to have been updated at some point in the Moderne era.
William P. Hutchins was the architect of this church, built in 1924. It takes its inspiration from ancient Roman basilicas, with a light overlay of Art Nouveau. Most architectural historians would probably just say “Romanesque” and leave it at that, but it is a more interesting building when we recognize its ancient sources.
A pair of identical apartment buildings, now known by their addresses (5758 Howe and 5754 Howe). They were built in 1908; the architect was C. J. Rieger. Though they have lost their cornices (which, to judge by the size of the scars, must have been elaborate), the rest of the details are well preserved, showing a Renaissance or Baroque style flavored with Art Nouveau.
For their client Godfrey Stengel, Kiehnel & Elliott took the basic form of a typical Pittsburgh Renaissance palace, which gave them a box to work with—Richard Kiehnel’s favorite shape. To that canvas the architects applied their trademark Jugendstil-infiltrated-by-Prairie-school decorations. The house was built in 1913, and it must have looked very modern—yet it fits perfectly in Schenley Farms, where other more traditional Renaissance palaces have almost the same shape without the Jugendstil.
Given an improbably narrow L-shaped lot to work with, Charles Bickel1 did not despair. Instead, he had fun drawing two quite different but obviously related fronts for the same firehouse. Above, the Boulevard of the Allies front; below, the Smithfield Street front.
The style is rich Renaissance with more than a hint of Art Nouveau. Bickel was probably the most prolific architect Pittsburgh ever had, but he did not fill the city with identical boxes. He dabbled in a surprising range of styles.
It never hurts to put your client’s coat of arms on the front of the building—in this case, the arms of the City of Pittsburgh.
The side of the building is exposed now along the Boulevard of the Allies, showing that it was not very deep, in addition to being very narrow. By 1923, according to old maps, the building was in private hands; the city had built a pair of engine houses half a block away that were probably more suitable for the new horseless fire engines.
Addendum: A city architectural survey dates this firehouse to about 1900 and attributes it to William Y. Brady. Brady was architect of Engine Company No. 1 down the street, which is in a much heavier style; Father Pitt’s evidence is all in favor of attributing this one to Mr. Bickel.
