Father Pitt

Tag: Egyptian Revival

  • Green Tree, Land of the Pharaohs

    In Pittsburgh, the Egyptian style is almost always associated with the death business, so it is no surprise to learn that this little building was a monument dealer before it became Green Tree’s oddest office building. The fact that it sits directly across the road from the entrance to Chartiers Cemetery is another clue. It is right on the border of Green Tree, at the edge of a little neighborhood called Rook, which once had a station on the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, and still has a large freight yard belonging to the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway.

  • Sphinx in the Snow

    The Emil Winter mausoleum, a bit of Cecil B. De Mille Egyptian fantasy in the Allegheny Cemetery, was designed by John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial and the National Archives in Washington. It is almost an exact duplicate of the Woolworth mausoleum in Woodlawn, the Bronx, which means that—believe it or not—there are two of these things in the world. The sphinx guardians are probably its most striking feature.

    Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

  • Greentree’s Little Egypt

    This spectacularly odd building houses the headquarters of M. S. Jacobs & Associates, an engineering firm. But the Egyptian style, and the location right across the street from the Chartiers Cemetery, tell us that it was originally in the death business; in fact, according to the all-knowing Internet, it was built in 1920 for a monument dealer.