Father Pitt

Tag: Carson Street

  • FBI Building, South Side

    FBI building

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Pittsburgh field office, officially the Martha Dixon Building, looks like a Hollywood producer’s idea of a building FBI agents would work in. It is an outstanding example of the style old Pa Pitt calls neoneoclassical, in which the symmetry and forms of classical architecture are stripped of all ornaments like carved capitals or sculptured pediments that would shock the sensibilities of moderns. “To glamorize the four-story, 160,000 sq ft (15000 m2) structure, precast concrete components were used on the façade of the building.” So says an article in PCI Journal for November–December 2002, and Father Pitt would like to mark it as the first time he has seen the word “glamorize” applied to anything having to do with precast concrete. The result is a building that is designed to offend no one’s taste, and if you think that is easy you should try it some time. The architects were DRS Architects of Pittsburgh, who have also done offices for the DEA as well as some prominent buildings for local universities.

    Central section
    FBI building
    FBI building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Italianate House on Carson Street, South Side

    2120 East Carson Street

    This little house is one of the few survivors from the days when much of Carson Street in East Birmingham was residential. It preserves most of its fine mid-Victorian Italianate detail, so it is worth a closer look than most pedestrians on the busy sidewalk of Carson Street usually give it.

    Front door

    One unfortunate change is the entrance. Instead of double doors with an art-glass transom, we have a stock door from the home center and pieces of plywood around it. But the elaborate woodwork surrounding the entrance is still intact.

    Transom and lintel
    Woodwork
    Lantern
    Downstairs window

    It is typical of Italianate houses that the downstairs windows are very tall. This is the bright and cheerful branch of Victorian domestic architecture.

    Bracket

    The windowsills rest on ornate iron brackets.

    Bracket
    Lintel
    Upstairs window
    Upstairs windows and cornice
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Swift & Co. Warehouse, South Side

    2026 East Carson Street
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    According to a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1924, this warehouse was built in 1917 with fireproof construction, brick curtain walls, concrete floors and roof. It belonged to Swift & Co., a wholesale meat dealer; later it seems to have passed to a produce dealer, and that 1924 Sanborn map has “Produce W. Ho.” neatly pasted over whatever was marked on the outline of the building before.

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  • Second Empire on the South Side

    Carson at 18th

    These two very similar buildings are some of the most splendid Second Empire architecture in Pittsburgh. The Second Empire style is so called from its popularity during the Second French Empire: that is, the reign of Napoleon III. The most distinguishing mark of the style is the mansard roof, which supposedly became popular in Paris because buildings were taxed by the number of floors, but the attic didn’t count as a floor—thus you could have a floor’s worth of free space under a mansard roof. In its other details, the Second Empire style is a species of Renaissance revival closely related to the Italianate style that overlapped it in fashion.

    1739
    1739
    Windows
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Finials and Brackets on Carson Street, South Side

    Decorations at the top of a Victorian building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

  • Sixteenth Ward War Memorial, South Side

    Sixteenth Ward World War I memorial
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    Since old Pa Pitt has made it a rule to record all the names on every war memorial he photographs, this picture is huge—about 50 megapixels. If you enlarge it, all the names should be legible, from Abbott to Zorn.

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  • United Baking Company, South Side

    United Baking Company, South Side
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    A former bakery, now called “Birmingham Place,” between 23rd and 24th Streets on Carson Street. The adaptation was handled with good taste, preserving the attractive proportions of the building, including the huge windows that flood the place with natural light. According to the date at the top of the building, the main section was built in 1919; the section to the left was added after 1924, to judge by a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from that year on which the left wing does not appear.

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  • Elias Kauffeld Building, South Side

    Elias Kauffeld Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    A particularly splendid mid-Victorian building from 1881, as we can see by the beehive date stone in the middle of the façade.

    The architect would probably have told you that the style was Renaissance, but mid-Victorian architects were much freer in their interpretation of historical styles than the next generation would be.

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  • Your Carson Street Snow Globe

    1602 and 1600

    Carson Street on the South Side is reputed to be one of the best-preserved Victorian commercial streets in North America. Mere snow cannot deter old Pa Pitt from his duty of documenting the city around him, so here is a generous album of Carson Street buildings, most of Victorian vintage, with falling snow for added picturesque effect.

    1713 and 1715
    (more…)

  • Goettler Building, South Side

    Goettler Building

    Carson Street on the South Side is known as one of the best-preserved Victorian streetscapes in North America. Father Pitt loves to photograph those Victorian buildings, with their lavish yet careful attention to detail; but in a spirit of contrarian perversity, old Pa Pitt also likes to point out the post-Victorian additions to the streetscape. This building was probably put up shortly before 1910 in a very modern style for its time. The front is unusually well preserved, with big display windows wrapping around properly inset entrances.

    Perspective view of the Goettler Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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