Father Pitt

Tag: Clocks

  • Some Details of Horne’s Department Store

    Inscription: Joseph Horne Co., with dates 1849 and 1897

    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.

    Horne’s department store

    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.

    Cornice meets cornice
    Entrance to the 1922 section of Horne’s
    Inscription with dates 1849 and 1922
    Horne’s clock
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    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.

  • Sewickley United Methodist Church

    Sewickley United Methodist Church

    The most striking feature (in two senses of the word “striking”) of this church is the great clock tower, which gives time to the whole village. In fact, the borough took over responsibility for maintaining the clock, as the church tells us in its page of Village Clock Tower Facts. The tower was finished in 1884, and in 1996 a thorough rebuilding was finished that included a new electronic clock to replace the replacement clock that had replaced the original clock many decades previously.

    Steeple
    Sewickley United Methodist Church
    Tower entrance
    Sanctuary entrance

    Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

  • Ohio Valley Trust Company, Coraopolis

    Ohio Valley Trust Company

    A small but very rich classical bank still in use as a bank.

    Corner entrance
    Clock with zodiac

    The clock suggests that the bankers will consult an astrologer before investing your money.

    Ionic capital
    Trust

    Stock-photo sites will charge you good money for patently metaphorical pictures like these. Yet old Pa Pitt gives them to you for free, released with a CC0 public-domain donation, so there are no restrictions on what you can do with them.

    Trust
    Ohio Valley Trust Company

    Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285 (HDR stacks of three photographs); Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • St. Thomas Memorial Church, Oakmont

    St. Thomas Memorial Church

    The outsized corner tower of this Episcopal church defines the rich and splendid building, designed by R. Maurice Trimble and built in 1906. Old Pa Pitt is especially happy that the clock is keeping time, because it’s an extraordinary clock.

    Clock face
    Tower
    Tower
    Tower
    Ornament
    St. Thomas Memorial Church

    Cameras: Sony Alpha 3000; Nikon COOLPIX P100.

  • Art Deco Clock in the Koppers Building

    Clock in the Koppers Building

  • Do You Know This Face?

    If you are a Pittsburgher, you have probably seen it many times, but you may not have paid it much attention.

    It belongs to one of the atlantes—Atlas figures—on the Kaufmann’s clock.

  • Duquesne Brewery Clock Illuminated

  • The Iroquois

    The Iroquois Building

    The Iroquois Building, which takes up a whole block of Forbes Avenue, was designed by Frederick Osterling, Pittsburgh’s most consistently flamboyant architect. Osterling designed in a variety of styles: he had his own ornate version of Richardsonian Romanesque, and his last large commission was the Flemish-Gothic Union Trust Building. Here, as in the Arrott Building downtown, he adapts Beaux-Arts classicism to his own flashier sensibilities. The building was finished in 1903.

    This clock sits in front of the central light well—a typically ornate Osterling detail.

    A naked brick front would never do for Osterling; it must be constantly varied in shape and texture. These grotesque reliefs help.

  • Duquesne Brewery Clock

    Duquesne Brewery Clock

    It is difficult to convey a sense of the scale of this enormous clock, but seeing it looming behind the rowhouses of 21st Street gives us some idea.

  • Kaufmann’s Clock from Fifth Avenue

    The famous Kaufmann’s clock, seen from the east on Fifth Avenue.