Tag: Dithridge Street

  • The Roof of Hampton Hall, Oakland

    Gables of Hampton Hall

    Views of the roof of Hampton Hall, a large Tudor apartment building in Oakland designed by H. G. Hodgkins. We also have views of the entrance and courtyard, the lobby, and the front and a perspective view.

    Gables and roof
    Gables and roof
    Gable from the ground
    Gable
    Gable
    Gable
    Gable from the ground
    Roof detail
    Chimney
    Chimney with starling
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Sony Alpha 3000.

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  • Entrance to Hampton Hall, Oakland

    Hampton Hall shield

    Hampton Hall is a grand Tudor apartment palace in Oakland designed by the Chicago architect H. G. Hodgkins.

    Hampton Hall, front elevation

    A while ago one of the residents mentioned to old Pa Pitt that the long canopy that usually leads from the courtyard entrance to the street had come down for work, which—our correspondent pointed out—would make some of the previously hidden details accessible to a camera. Here, from about two and a half years ago, is how the canopy usually looks:

    Hampton Hall in 2023

    And here is the courtyard without the canopy:

    Courtyard
    Hampton Hall courtyard
    The main entrance

    Father Pitt ended up spending an hour or more taking pictures all over the building, and since he has so many pictures, he will split them into multiple articles to avoid wearying his visitors. Today we see the courtyard and the main entrance.

    Main entrance
    Front door
    Crest above the door
    Left bear
    Right bear
    Right bear from above
    Entrance from above
    Lantern
    Lantern and ornaments
    Shield with “Hampton Hall” in the center
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.

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  • Galliot Center for Newman Studies

    Galliot Center for Newman Studies
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    As seen from the roof of Hampton Hall. The architect was David J. Vater; the building was put up in 2007.

    We also have more pictures from ground level.


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  • Row of Houses on Dithridge Street, Oakland

    Houses on Dithridge Street

    This row of seven houses presents a pleasingly varied streetscape, but the houses were clearly all part of the same development. Old Pa Pitt is fairly sure the architects were Rieger & Currier, and for the obsessive historians in the readership, here is his evidence. In the Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide for February 27, 1901, p. 136, we find this item:

    Rieger & Currier, Smith Building, have prepared plans for four brick dwellings to be erected on Ditheridge [sic] street for Mr. J. Friday.

    A plat map from about 1903 shows that J. Friday owned land along Dithridge Street on which at least eleven houses, some possibly doubles, were built. Three were on the east side of the street where the Latter Day Saints church is now. The others were on the west side and still stand. Numbers 229–253, part of the Friday property, clearly form a group, and probably the only group in which four houses could have been built together at one time. If we assume that they were built in one group of three and one group of four, these are all Rieger & Currier houses.

    249 North Dithridge Street

    The houses have been divided into apartments, and a couple of them have had porch amputations or reductions, but on the whole the look of the row is well preserved.

    237 North Dithridge Street
    237
    241
    Houses on Dithridge Street

    And now a bonus house, just past the Friday row, a fine center-hall house in the free turn-of-the-twentieth-century version of Georgian.

    255 North Dithridge Street
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.

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  • Galliot Center for Newman Studies

    Clock tower

    David J. Vater designed this distinctive Gothic building, built in 2007 from modern materials in a style we might call “postmodern Gothic.” It’s the home of the National Institute for Newman Studies, one of those fascinating cultural treasures few Pittsburghers even know about. The Institute is devoted to the study of the works and teachings of John Henry Newman (1801–1890), an English convert to Roman Catholicism who rose to become a cardinal in the Catholic Church. In 2019, Newman was canonized as a Catholic saint, and just three months ago (on November 1, 2025) he was declared a Doctor of the Church, one of only 38 people so far whose teachings are regarded as so extraordinarily important that they merit that title.

    Galliot Center for Newman Studies
    Entrance
    Arms of Cardinal Newman

    The arms of Cardinal Newman, with his motto: Cor ad cor loquitur—“Heart speaks to heart.”

    Porch
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

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  • Dithridge Towers, Oakland

    Dithridge Towers

    Built in 1929, this eight-storey apartment tower has a newer ninth floor sheathed in what appears to be corrugated metal. Father Pitt has some advice for architects contemplating asymmetrical additions with cheap materials to symmetrical Renaissance palaces like this:

    Like several other apartment buildings in the area, this one is festooned with grotesque whimsies.

    Brackets
    Bracket
    Bracket
    Bracket
    Griffin
    Lion
    Rear section

    The rear section has a bay rising the entire height of the building, with a corrugated-metal hat on top.

    Addendum: A kind correspondent has found an advertisement for the Dithridge Apartments when they were new, which supplies us with a definite date (1929; they were to be ready for occupancy in April) and shows us the building as it looked before the top was altered.

    Dithridge Apartments, in the social, educational and art center of Pittsburgh
    From the Pittsburgh Press, March 17, 1929.