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.
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.
Our source for the date and architect is the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, September 21, 1892: “Charles Bickel…has prepared plans for a three-story engine house to be erected on Second Avenue, at a cost of $20,500.” That suggests a date of about 1893. Before the First World War, what is now the Boulevard of the Allies was Second Avenue; and three-storey engine houses are unusual. ↩︎
Maximilian Nirdlinger, who is on old Pa Pitt’s short list of architects whose names are most fun to say, designed this little store building in 1914, and we would guess it was completed by 1915. It was a very small and inexpensive project for downtown, but Nirdlinger made sure it was a tasteful one; and it has been updated without losing its essential character, which is classical by way of German-art-magazine modern.
Originally Ukrainian Greek Catholic, this church, built in 1906, was designed by Titus de Bobula with an extravagantly broad range of materials that no sane architect would attempt to harmonize. We are tempted to say it was fortunate that De Bobula was no sane architect; at any rate, he has pulled the rabbit out of his hat and made harmony out of dissonance.
Next door to the church is a parochial hall. If we interpret our sources correctly, the architect was Harry H. Lefkowitz, and the building was put up in 1928 or shortly after.1 It successfully matches the church by incorporating some of Titus de Bobula’s most distinctive quirks—the freakishly tall and narrow arches at the sides of the façade, the stonework at the top of the two-storey entrance arch, the horizontal scores in the brickwork around the entrance.
Father Pitt, who admits he does not speak Ukrainian, would translate “Ukrainska Parochiyalna Galya” as “Ukrainian Parochial Hall.”
“SS. Peter and Paul Church Takes Bids,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 27, 1928, p. 45. “The SS. Peter and Paul Greek Catholic Church is taking bids for a school and auditorium in James street, Carnegie. H. H. Lefkowitz is the architect.” “James Street” must be a mistake for “Jane Street,” the old name of Mansfield Boulevard, though there is a James Street a block away. The two names would be indistinguishable over the telephone. ↩︎
Charles W. Bier was a fairly successful Pittsburgh architect, especially busy with medium-sized churches, who flirted with Art Nouveau in the days before the First World War, but retreated into a more traditional style in the 1920s (see, for example, his 1923 Mount Lebanon Methodist Episcopal Church). Here we find him at his most radically modern in a line of three identical double duplexes, built in about 1915 or 1916.1
These broad entrance arches with strong vertical lines show up on Mr. Bier’s churches of the period as well.
The geometrical brickwork ornaments remind us of the decorations in German art and architecture magazines of the period, and they may be where our architect got his ideas. (According to Martin Aurand, Frederick Scheibler took much inspiration from those German magazines, so they were available here.)
The building at the right end of the row seems to be stuck in the middle of a refurbishing project, with new windows installed and new wood framing inside. We hope the work can continue, because these three striking buildings really are unusual in Pittsburgh and ought to be preserved.
Source: The Construction Record, September 11, 1915: “Bids are in for the erection of three two-story brick veneered and hollow tile double duplex residences, on Murtland avenue and Idlewild street, for Mrs. W . J. Burkhard, Mrs. Josephine Friday and Mrs. Mary A. Saupp, Blackadore Avenue Extension. Cost $45,000. Plans by Architect Crarles [sic] Bier, Pittsburgh Life building.” ↩︎
If you have ever come up the Ohio or across the McKees Rocks Bridge, chances are you have noticed this gold-domed tower rising from the McKees Rocks Bottoms. You would not have had time to appreciate the details, but appreciate them now. Just the tower is a remarkable piece of work. But the whole church is something extraordinary, and worth a visit to the Bottoms to see. Since the Bottoms is a neighborhood of surprising architectural riches, you will probably find yourself distracted by a dozen other wonders before you leave.
Holy Ghost Greek (now Byzantine) Catholic Church is a startling outcropping of Art Nouveau in a neighborhood where we never expected to find it. The design was the work of McKees Rocks’ own John H. Phillips, as we know from the cornerstone.
Here we have the date, the name of the architect, and the name of the contractor, along with the name of the pastor. There was one other church architect in Pittsburgh who routinely put his own name and the name of the contractor on cornerstones in florid Art Nouveau lettering, and that was Titus de Bobula. Looking at the style of this church, with its radical and constantly surprising Art Nouveau ornamentation, Father Pitt forms the hypothesis that Phillips knew of Titus de Bobula’s work and was strongly influenced by the eccentric Hungarian.
The corner cross picked out in bricks is wildly different from anything you have seen before. To the right of it we also see a variant of the square above a downward-pointing triangle that seems to have been a kind of signature for Phillips, appearing on at least three of the four buildings of his that Father Pitt has so far identified.
The church behind the front is more conventional—which is also true of Titus de Bobula’s churches. Both de Bobula and Phillips relied on elaborate fronts to make their grand impression.
Certainly this tower makes a strong impression. There is nothing else quite like it in Pittsburgh. The variation of detail in the bricks is remarkable. But the forms are harmonized very cleverly, with each level echoing shapes from the other two.
Phillips also designed the Ukrainian National Home around the corner, and Father Pitt hopes to identify more buildings by him in McKees Rocks. He has joined Pittsburgh’s exclusive little club of early modernists, and old Pa Pitt is delighted to make his acquaintance.
