Each of the 7,053 dog tags represents one soldier fallen in the War on Terrorism, defined as all the battles since September 11, 2001.
-
Soldiers and Sailors Hall with Memorial Dog Tags
-
Completing Plans for Hebrew Institute
From The Construction Record, September 26, 1914. The building was put up the next year, and still stands almost exactly as Mr. Cohen designed it.
-
Highland Building in Evening Sun
The Highland Building looms behind the tiny shops of Ellsworth Avenue.
-
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.
-
East Liberty YMCA
This glorious Renaissance palace was built in 1910; the architect was Thomas Hannah, who also gave us the Keenan Building. It is now a hotel.
Addendum: Here is a picture of the building when it was freshly built, from the June 1914 issue of The Builder, which is devoted to works of Thomas Hannah. The long side faced open space in those days.
-
Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh at Twilight
This rich little Beaux-Arts bank on Carson Street at 18th Street was built in 1902. We have a daylight picture of the Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh building from the same angle.
-
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral
Built in 1904 as the First Congregational Church, this building had a surprisingly short life with its original congregation; the Congregationalists left in 1921, and the Greek Orthodox congregation bought it in 1923. The church became a cathedral when Pittsburgh was elevated to a diocese. The architect was Thomas Hannah, who was at home in both classical and Gothic idioms. Here he went all in for classical, producing an ostentatiously Ionic front that looks like a Greek temple—which, oddly, is a style a Greek Orthodox congregation would never choose for its church if it were building one from scratch.
-
Werner Building, East Liberty
This beautiful building has a long and varied history. It seems to have been built a little before 1910 by a dry-cleaning company.1 After a while the East Liberty Chamber of Commerce moved in to preside over the slow decline of East Liberty. In 2001, when the East Liberty revival was barely beginning, the Werner Building became a performance-art space. Now, with East Liberty booming, it’s a profitable property.
The metalwork on top supported a billboard where artists spelled out messages, but in 2018 one artist posted a message so offensive that the building’s owner had it removed and shut down the billboard scheme. What was this offensive message? “THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE IN THE FUTURE.” That was all. Father Pitt can only say that, if you are offended by the idea that there are Black people in the future, then you can go off and get yourself your own future, because old Pa Pitt does not want to be part of it.
The whole building is lavishly festooned with terra cotta and stained glass.
- Addendum: The architect was Frederick Sauer, and the building was probably finished in 1908. “Among the Architects,” Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, June 11, 1907: “The same architect [Sauer] is taking bids for a four-story store and office building to be erected for Oswald Werner on 58×140 feet at Baum street and Highland avenue, East End. The building, which will be constructed of white enameled terra cotta, will cost about $60.000. It is expected to have it completed by April 1, 1908.” The building as it stands is two floors, although it looks as though it might have been designed for additional floors later. The white enameled terra cotta, however, is distinctive. And there’s no doubt about the owner, who is immortalized in terra cotta. Sauer had also designed a house for Oswald Werner in 1891, which still stands in Highland Park today. ↩︎
-
The Liberty Theater As It Was Built
Update: Once in a while old Pa Pitt has a chance to boast about his architectural instincts, and here is one of those occasions. In the original article, he wrote that he suspected Edward B Lee of having designed the remodeling of the theater into an office building. He was right. Source: The American Contractor, December 15, 1923: “Store & Office Bldg. (remod. from theater): $150,000. 5 sty. & bas. H. tile. Liberty av. & Strawberry Alley. Archt. E. B. Lee, Chamber of Commerce bldg. Owner The Fidelity Title & Trust Co., Wilson A. Shaw, chrm. of bd., 343 Fourth av. Gen. contr. let to Cuthbert Bros., Bessemer bldg.”
The original text of Father Pitt’s article follows.
Edward B. Lee was the architect of the Liberty Theater—or Theatre, as theatrical people often insist on spelling it—when it was built in 1912. These pictures were published in The Brickbuilder in 1913, so they show the theater as it was when it was new. Either the theater failed or the owners decided it would be more profitable as an office building, because only eleven years later, in 1924,1 it was remodeled into the Baum Building, and it still stands today.
The shell and outlines are the same, but quite a bit was changed externally. Old Pa Pitt suspects that Lee was the architect of these changes, too, and they were accomplished so elegantly that we would never know the building had not been planned that way from the beginning.
These small drawings (orchestra, first balcony, second balcony) show the aggressive adaptations Mr. Lee had to make to the irregular shape of the lot—a common difficulty for buildings on the southeast side of Liberty Avenue, where the two grids of the irrationally rationalistic eighteenth-century street plan collide.
Detail over the entrance. These decorations disappeared when the building was converted to offices.
Corner detail. The cornice and pilasters survive, but the elaborate terra-cotta decoration between the pilasters vanished in 1924.
- In the original version of this article, Father Pitt had given the date as 1920, following a city architectural survey. The listing from the American Contractor proves that the date was actually no earlier than 1924. ↩︎
-
Hunt Armory, Shadyside
This block-long palace is a startlingly imposing building to run across in the residential back streets of Shadyside. The dwellers in the houses surrounding it must feel a glow of confidence knowing they are well protected should the Prussians invade. The building was designed by the W. G. Wilkins Company, also responsible for the Maul Building and the Frick & Lindsay Company Building (now the Andy Warhol Museum). It opened in 1916.
