Father Pitt

Tag: Classical Architecture

Rowe’s Department Store, East Liberty

Here is a drawing of Rowe’s department store that was published in 1907, when East Liberty was booming as it became the business hub for rapidly developing East End neighborhoods. The building, put up in 1898, still looks much the same today, though it has been many years since it housed a department store. By choosing Alden & Harlow, the most prestigious firm in the city, as his architects, Mr. Rowe declared to East End residents that he would offer them as high a class of merchandise as they could find anywhere downtown.

The drawing came from a lavishly illustrated book published in 1907 by the Pittsburg Board of Trade—a book that, oddly, has two titles: Up-Town: Greater Pittsburg’s Classic Section/East End: The World’s Most Beautiful Suburb. Here is what the book tells us about Rowe’s:

C. H. ROWE CO.

To the residents of the East End the department store of C. H. Rowe Company, at Penn and Highland avenues, is a household word. Little can be said of it which every woman and child does not already know, yet no history of the development of the East End would be complete without mention of this enterprising company.

It was in 1898 that C. H. Rowe Co. began to relieve the residents of the East End of the necessity of going down town to meet any requirements they had in the matter of dress goods, undermuslins, white goods of every description, millinery, children’s outﬁttings, all that the feminine domestic economy required.

Such enterprise as the ﬁrm of C. H. Rowe Co. has shown has naturally received a hearty response from the residents of the East End. The aim of this section of the city is to provide every want that its citizens require. So far as the dry goods business is concerned that is what this company has done.

It takes a modern four-story establishment, with 58,000 square feet of ﬂoor space to accommodate the company’s stock of goods. It requires 125 persons in the dullest season to attend the wants of the customers of C. H. Rowe Company and many delivery wagons are employed in distributing the goods to such customers who prefer that accommodation.

The directors of the company include Messrs. C. H. and W. H. Rowe, D. P. Black, H. P. Pears and J. H. McCrady. James S. Mackie is the general manager.

It is little wonder with such attention to all the requirements of the East End public that C. H. Rowe Company’s store has become the veritable center of the East End trade, and that its growth is so much a matter of pride not only to the members of the ﬁrm but to the residents of the entire East Liberty community.

More pictures of the Rowe’s or Penn-Highland Building.

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July 21, 2025
Ingram Public School

Press C. Dowler, who designed several other schools and public buildings in the Chartiers Valley, was the architect of this school, which was built in 1914. It is no longer in use, but the building is in good shape.

Throughout his long career, which went from Romanesque through classical through Art Deco to modernism, Dowler used simple materials to weave interesting geometric decorations.

Olympus E-20N; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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July 19, 2025
Renovating the Natatorium Building, Oakland

The last time Father Pitt took a picture of the Natatorium Building, later the Strand Theatre, was ten years ago. Since then tenants have come and gone, and murals have appeared on the side. When old Pa Pitt walked past recently, some internal construction was going on, suggesting that the building is getting ready for its next adventure.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

The architect of the original building, put up in 1907, was R. B. Melvin, who designed the high-class bathhouse with obvious references—especially in the arch over the entrance—to the Baths of Caracalla. Later, the building was remodeled as a movie theater by architect George Schwan.

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July 18, 2025
Rowe Building (Penn-Highland Building), East Liberty

Built in 1898 for Rowe’s department store, this building has been called the Penn-Highland Building for years now. The architects were Alden & Harlow.

Lions stare back at you from all over the building.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans f/1.4 35mm lens.

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June 21, 2025
Frick Annex

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

Built in 1906, this skyscraper was designed by Daniel Burnham, architect of the neighboring Frick Building, as the second part of Henry Frick’s architectural tantrum that cut off the light and air from the Carnegie Building. The Carnegie Building was demolished to make way for the nearly windowless Kaufmann’s Annex; this building, which gets plenty of light, is now luxury apartments.

June 20, 2025
City-County Building

Edward B. Lee won the competition for the design of the City-County Building in “association” with Palmer & Hornbostel. Lee’s was the name in the headlines, and Lee was the only architect mentioned in the ordinance ratifying the results of the competition. But years later Lee explained that the design was Henry Hornbostel’s, with Lee just executing drawings from Hornbostel’s design. As flamboyant as he could be, Hornbostel was also generous and encouraging to his colleagues.

Front page of the Pittsburgh Post, January 20, 1914.

But old Pa Pitt has a suspicion that there might be more to the story than mere generosity.

In 1904, Hornbostel had won the competition for the Carnegie Tech campus, beating—among others—the famous Cass Gilbert.

In 1907, Hornbostel had won the competition for Soldiers and Sailors Hall, beating—among others—Cass Gilbert.

Now he was entering another really big competition, and the judge was Cass Gilbert, who had been selected to “prepare and conduct” the competition.¹ Perhaps Hornbostel calculated that his design would have a better chance with somebody else’s name on it.

Reliefs by sculptor Charles Keck depict the arms of the City of Pittsburgh (above) and the County of Allegheny (below). Keck also contributed sculptures for Soldiers and Sailors Hall.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

The three enormous arches are the most distinctive features of the building. Comparing the preliminary elevation above with the finished building, we can see that they were made even larger later on in the planning.

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June 18, 2025
Jr. O. U. A. M. Building, Oakland

The Junior Order of United American Mechanics is a fraternal order that was originally the young people’s division of the Order of United American Mechanics. Since it has its own Wikipedia article, old Pa Pitt will send you there for information about the order. For this building, however, he is happy to be your source of information. It was built to be the national headquarters of the organization, which had previously been in the Wabash Building downtown. “The new five-story building of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics at Forbes and Halket sts., was completed last June at a cost of about $350,000, exclusive of the site. The national headquarters of the order, which formerly were in the Wabash building, occupy the entire fourth and fifth floors of the new building, while the lower floors are given over to offices and store rooms.” (Pittsburgh Press, Monday, January 4, 1926.) This building was designed by Louis Stevens, best known for elegant homes for the well-to-do, but also the designer of all the public buildings in the borough of Overbrook (now part of the city of Pittsburgh).

The cornerstone was laid in 1924, but the building was completed in 1925.

It will come as no surprise that the building now belongs to the University of Pittsburgh.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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June 17, 2025
Hartje Brothers Buildings

Two nearly identical buildings side by side on Wood Street, both built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Hartje Brothers, a big paper company. Charles Bickel was the architect, and here he compressed the usual American skyscraper formula of base-shaft-cap into seven floors.

The corner building has a long front on the Boulevard of the Allies; we saw it about a year and a half ago, but here is the same picture again.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

A short time after these buildings went up, the Hartje Brothers called on Bickel again to design a twelve-storey skyscraper a block away at Wood Street and First Avenue, which we have used as a textbook example of the Beaux Arts skyscraper.

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June 14, 2025
Soho Public Baths

Built in 1907–1908, this splendid bathhouse was designed by Carpenter & Crocker,¹ who did the whole ground-floor front in terra cotta.

This bathhouse served Soho, once a crowded neighborhood of tiny houses, many without indoor plumbing; long lines would form on Saturday nights as the working classes took their one chance to get clean. Almost all the houses are gone, and most of the other buildings, leaving overgrown foundations; this stretch of Fifth Avenue is spookily deserted. Even the neighborhood has ceased to exist in Pittsburghers’ imaginations. Soho once referred to the area around the north end of today’s Birmingham Bridge, but there is no such place now on city planning maps. What used to be Soho is divided officially between “Bluff,” “West Oakland,” and “South Oakland.” Soho is generally mentioned only when Andy Warhol comes up, because he was born there; but if you ask where Soho was, Wikipedia will tell you it is a synonym for Uptown, which it will also tell you is the same as the Bluff. (In fact the house where Andy Warhol was born, now a patch of woods on a deserted street, is in the part designated West Oakland by the city.)

This building was in use more recently than most, but it, too, has been left to rot. It is one of only three or four standing public baths in the city, only one of which—the Oliver Bathhouse—is still serving its original purpose.

Old Pa Pitt painted out the close-up graffiti in this picture, because they were distracting, and because if street gangs want to advertise on his site, they can pay for it.

Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

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June 6, 2025
Engine Company No. 8 and East End Police Station, East Liberty

City architect Richard Neff designed this palace of public safety in the style old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist, which combines classical detailing with an Art Deco sensibility. It is currently getting a thorough renovation.

It’s Construction Safety Week! But don’t worry. You still have fifty-one weeks in the year to be careless.

Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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June 4, 2025