The history of the Horne’s building is a complicated one. The original building was one of the last works of William S. Fraser, one of the most prominent Pittsburgh architects of the second half of the nineteenth century. Only a few years after it opened, a huge fire burned out much of the interior. Some of the original remained, but, since Fraser had died, Horne’s brought in Peabody & Stearns, a Boston firm that also had an office in Pittsburgh, to design the 1897 reconstruction. Another fire hit the building in 1900, but most of it was saved. You can see a thorough report on the fire, with pictures, at The Brickbuilder for May, 1900.
In 1922, a large expansion was added to the building along the Stanwix Street side, with the style carefully matched to the 1897 original. The new building was taller by one floor, but all the details were the same, including the ornate terra-cotta cornice.
The Horne’s clock, a later addition, is not as famous as the Kaufmann’s clock, but it served the same purpose as a meeting place for shoppers. It is once again keeping the correct time.
A splendid industrial building on Penn Avenue. The offices and showrooms were placed in a single row in the front, making an impressive and ornamental face for what would otherwise be a drab factory building.
N. G. Pollock of Cleveland was the architect of this small but rich-looking bank, which was built in about 1916.1 It seems likely that some sort of ornate classical crest is missing from the corner above the name “First National Bank,” but otherwise the building is in good condition and still in use as a bank.
There’s something pleasingly simple about this little apartment building just off the Potomac Avenue business district in Dormont. There are almost no decorative details, but the simple pilasters that frame the front give the building enough texture to carry itself with dignity. The stone lintels over the windows on the side of the building are a clue to its history: the front is probably a later addition, replacing open balconies with extra rooms. But the matching white brick makes the change hard to detect without some concentration.
The entrance (we are able to peer into the shadows by combining three different exposures in one picture) surprises us with classical woodwork and ornamental leaded glass—another clue that this building is older than we would have thought from a glance at the front.
This small but grand pumping station, or some sort of utility building, sits by the reservoirs behind the Waterworks shopping center. Thomas Scott was the architect of most buildings for the Pittsburgh water system in the era when this one was built, and this is certainly in his style, so we attribute it to him with some confidence. The windows that would have flooded the building with light have been blocked in, possibly for security reasons, but more likely because no one could see the point of maintaining glass windows when plywood covers the holes just as well.
On city planning maps, the waterworks, the Waterworks shopping center, and St. Margaret’s Hospital are in the Lincoln-Lemington-Belmar neighborhood, which is otherwise on the other side of the Allegheny—one of those neighborhood-boundary absurdities that no real Pittsburgher would recognize. Pittsburghers would say they are at Aspinwall, although they belong to the city and not the borough of Aspinwall.
Behind the encroaching jungle of vines and utility cables we can just make out a pair of classical dolphins—always the emblem of a water-related building—and a cartouche with the city arms.
Oscar Wenderoth was director of the Office of the Supervising Architect, which was responsible for designing federal buildings all over the country. Even though he was in office for only about three years, from 1912 to 1915, those were very productive years, and the nation is littered with post offices that bear his name. This one is typical of the buildings put up under his supervision—respectably classical, with big arched windows to let light pour into the main lobby. The post office has moved into a much duller building down the street, but as the Carnegie Coffee Company this building is beautifully kept and a lively gathering place for the town.
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.
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.
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.
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.
