Father Pitt

Tag: Centre Avenue

Adding a Third Floor to the Painter-Dunn Company, Shadyside

This picture from The Builder, April, 1919, p. 28, shows the Painter Dunn Company building—identified as an Overland service station (it later moved up to Pierce-Arrow)—as it was built. The architects were the Hunting Davis Company, architects and engineers who specialized in industrial buildings. Later a third floor was added—probably supervised by the same architects, since it is as well integrated as it could be with the design of the original building, and Hunting Davis remained, through various exchanges of partners, one of Pittsburgh’s leading industrial architectural firms for decades.

The building is on Centre Avenue opposite Millvale Avenue, and after years of neglect it was beautifully refurbished for another century of use.

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February 13, 2025
Irene Kaufmann Settlement Auditorium, Hill District

Edward Stotz was the architect of this auditorium, built in 1928. It was the centerpiece of the Irene Kaufmann Settlement, which was founded by the Kaufmanns of Kaufmann’s department store to memorialize a daughter who died young; its purpose was to serve the poor immigrants of the Hill.

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January 7, 2025
An Odd Corner in East Liberty
Highland Avenue crosses Centre Avenue in East Liberty at an odd angle, creating an opportunity for two typically Pittsburghish odd-shaped buildings. First, the Wallace Building, shoved into a sharp corner and coming to a point at the intersection. The building was designed by George S. Orth in 1896.¹

Old Pa Pitt hopes his readers will forgive a slightly imperfect composite of three photographs.

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On the opposite side of Centre Avenue, the Stevenson Building fills in an oblique angle. Its prominent corner entrance makes the most of its location.

The original building was designed by William Ross Proctor and built in 1896. In 1927, the three bays at far left in the picture above were added under the supervision of O. M. Topp, who matched the style of the original so carefully that Father Pitt had not noticed the seam, and therefore was confused about the architects in an earlier version of this article.²
1. Source: Pittsburg Post, May 22, 1896, p. 9. “D. H. Wallace yesterday broke ground at Sheridan, Center and Highland avenues for a $50,000 building. George S. Orth is the architect. The building will be three-storied, and on the first floor will be storerooms, with flats on the other floors.” ↩︎
2. This is what old Pa Pitt wrote, which he preserves in a footnote to show how wrong he can be, which would not have happened if he had paid more attention to the stated dimensions: “There is some uncertainty about the design of this building. It is listed by the city as a building designed by William Ross Proctor and built in 1896. However, Father Pitt finds a 1927 listing in the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club, that matches this building perfectly and assigns it to O. M. Topp: “313. Architect: O. M. Topp, Jenkins Arcade, Pittsburgh, Pa. Owner: James B. Stevenson. Title: Store and Office Building. Location: Highland and Center Avenues. Approximate size: 25×100 ft.; three stories and basement. Cubage: 100,000 cu. ft. First story: Amherst buff sandstone; second and third stories: Roman brick and terra cotta.” Nevertheless, a building of exactly these dimensions stood here long before 1927, and we have not been able to find any newspaper stories about its destruction or replacement. It is possible that Topp only supervised renovations, and the editor of the Charette misunderstood the information he was given. As of now, therefore, Father Pitt assigns the building to O. M. Topp, but with the understanding that Proctor might have been the original architect.” ↩︎
September 7, 2024
Wesley Center AME Zion Church, Hill District

A striking modernist Gothic church whose clean lines are lovingly preserved by the congregation. Below, we add some bonus utility cables to prove that this is Pittsburgh.

March 27, 2024
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Hill District

Elise Mercur was an extraordinary woman. The first female professional architect in Pittsburgh, and one of the first anywhere, she had a prosperous career for about a decade between 1894 and 1905. Then she retired, and most of her buildings have been crushed by the steamroller of time—or by university presidents who need them out of the way to make room for some donor’s vanity project.

This church remains, however. It was built for the St. Paul’s Episcopal congregation; later it passed to the Church of the Holy Cross, a Black Episcopal congregation that eventually moved to Homewood. Right now it belongs to the Christian Tabernacle Kodesh Church of Immanuel.

Those little triangular dormers are imitated from Richardson, who used them in his famous Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Allegheny West.

The Wikipedia article on Elise Mercur is unusually thorough, so old Pa Pitt will not repeat its information here. He will add, however, that he has been scanning old trade journals to see whether any other buildings by Mercur have survived, and he will publish any findings in this spot.

As the only known remaining work of our first female architect, this church has a historical significance that makes it a preservation priority. Father Pitt assigns it to the Near Threatened category in his classification of our vulnerable landmarks.

The most striking feature of St. Paul’s is the octagonal cupola.

March 17, 2024
Warren United Methodist Church, Hill District

The Warren United Methodist Church might qualify for Rundbogenstil were it not for the very slight pointing of the arches, which takes away the Rund part of Rundbogenstil. With its battlemented roofline, it gives the impression of a chapel built into a castle. The attached parsonage is more interesting and more striking than the church when we see it from the street, and our only legitimate complaint about it would be that it draws too much attention toward itself and away from the church.

Addendum: The architects of the church, and probably the parsonage as well, were Milligan & Miller of Wilkinsburg; it was built in about 1908. Source: Ohio Architect and Builder, July, 1907. “PITTSBURG.—Architects Milligan & Miller, of Wilkinsburg, are drawing plans for a brick and stone church to be erected on Center avenue, for the Warren Methodist Episcopal congregation. Cost $3,000.” A zero has probably been left out of the cost; you could not get a brick and stone church for $3,000, but this could easily be a $30,000 church.

March 15, 2024
Store and Apartments by J. E. Cole, Hill District

So far this is the only building old Pa Pitt has identified as designed by J. E. Cole, about whom he knows nothing other than that Cole designed this building. The storefront has been modernized, but otherwise the building is in near-original condition. The corner is an obtuse angle, and Father Pitt wonders whether the unusual seam at that corner was the result of the architect’s original plan, or of the low-bidding contractor’s refusal to trim the bricks properly without an extra payment. It was imitated many years later by whoever added the modern storefront.

March 9, 2024
Ewart House, Hill District

Short of a miracle, nothing can save this rambling manse from the middle 1800s, so we can only remember that it was here with these pictures. It was built in various stages by the Ewart family, who once owned all the land on both sides of Centre Avenue in this part of the Hill. The earliest part was probably built in the 1850s or 1860s; the frame addition may be as late as the twentieth century. The whole building will be demolished when the city gets around to it: it is only blocks from million-dollar houses in Schenley Farms, but those blocks make the difference.

March 7, 2024
The A. Leo Weil Elementary School, Hill

Marion Steen was staff architect for the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education for two decades, from 1935 to 1954, and in that time he gave us some striking Art Deco schools. One of the most striking things about them was how different each of them was. Someday soon old Pa Pitt will take a tour of Mount Lebanon to photograph Ingham & Boyd’s schools there, and when he does, you will see that they all have a certain Ingham & Boyd sameness to them—which is not a bad thing: they are good variations on a good theme. But Marion Steen was like a jazz musician who could never play the same solo twice.

The most striking thing about the 1942 Weil School, which is still in use as a charter school, is the four-storey vertical that marks off the main entrance.

Old Pa Pitt does not know who is responsible for the strongly Deco allegorical figure pouring out floral treasures for the delighted children below. But he is certain that education is supposed to look something like this.

The auditorium is an exercise in Deco classicism. Note the textures in the brickwork.

We hope someone will put some effort into preserving the wavy Art Deco metalwork in the railings at the Centre Avenue end of the building.

September 10, 2023
Stevenson Building, East Liberty

Update: More recent research finds that the architect O. M. Topp was hired for a building at this site in 1927, but Father Pitt does not yet know whether it was a complete replacement of the Proctor building or merely some renovations. The article as originally written follows.

This classical building was designed (in 1896) by architect William Ross Proctor to preside over this corner as if it owned both streets. By placing the entrance at the corner, Mr. Proctor refuses to decide whether the building is on Centre or Highland. “Both,” says that entrance.

Look up as you pass to appreciate the elaborate detail of the cornice.

September 8, 2023