This neighborhood firehouse stands where Damas Street, Homer Street, Buente Street, Walz Street, and Steine Street meet on Spring Hill, just across Damas Street from the spring that gives the hill its name. It was built in 1929, designed by city architect Richard Neff.
Four of the streets at this complicated intersection are paved roads. The fifth, Steine Street, is a stairway, rising just opposite the front of the firehouse, so that we can get this fine front elevation from second-floor level. (Some utility cables were sacrificed for this picture, but old Pa Pitt promises to restore power to the neighborhood one of these days.)
Lake & Davidson were the architects of this rich building for the rich borough of Edgewood. In 1932, when it was dedicated, it was the subject of a photo feature in the Sun-Telegraph.
The recently completed structure, which resembles a large, handsome residence, will be dedicated informally today and tomorrow. The committee desired a building for a community of self-governing citizens who regard the law as a positive civic expression rather than an agent of punitive repression.
Consequently, Lake and Davidson, the architects, selected the domestic architecture of the law-abiding English. The Tudor style fulfills the conditions governing the design which required that many individual activities be housed. This style consistently permits the incorporation of happily rambling units into a decorative sequence.1
When this building was put up in 1932, the Depression was hitting its stride, and prices for construction had fallen. A borough full of rich people could afford quite a luxurious municipal hall. “The building, moreover, was constructed at a time when prices were low enough to give this community double the value in materials.”
These elaborate lanterns at the entrance are a good example of the materials the borough could afford.
“A unique triumph of the building,” says that same Sun-Telly article, “is the concealment of the great, gaping doors necessary for the fire department, in the north wing at the rear.”
Kiehnel & Elliott, one of the few Pittsburgh firms to pick up German-style Art Nouveau and run with it, designed this firehouse, which was built in 1908. The decorations are full of the elegant Jugendstil whimsy that was Richard Kiehnel’s specialty.
No longer a firehouse, but the building has been adapted to other uses with care to preserve as much of its original stocky Romanesque look as possible.
City architect Richard Neff designed this palace of public safety in the style old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist, which combines classical detailing with an Art Deco sensibility. It is currently getting a thorough renovation.
It’s Construction Safety Week! But don’t worry. You still have fifty-one weeks in the year to be careless.
A charming little firehouse that has been converted into a woodworker’s shop. Windows and doors have been filled in or replaced, but the outlines of the building have not been disturbed.
Father Pitt knows the important facts about this building because they are marked right on the building, which should be mandatory for every building project. It was built in 1926, and the architect…
…was Joseph Pock, a name old Pa Pitt has not run across before. It will not be surprising if we find that many of the characteristic buildings of West Park were designed by Mr. Pock.
The original firehouse lanterns still have their original shades.
Two firehouses went up back to back at the same time in 1900. The much more elaborate Engine Company No. 1 was built on Second Avenue, now the Boulevard of the Allies. Behind it on First Avenue was Engine Company No. 30, designed by the same architect—William Y. Brady—and built at the same time. Why they counted as two separate firehouses instead of one big firehouse is a question for the fire department.
A very firehousey-looking firehouse, still in use by city emergency services. According to a city architectural survey, this was built in about 1900 and designed by city architect William Y. Brady. The details are unusual; the style is more or less classical, but instead of Doric or Ionic pilasters, we get unexpected obelisks in relief.
It is interesting to compare this engine house to the one up the street. That one is also attributed to Brady by the city architectural survey, but Father Pitt, on good evidence, attributes it to Charles Bickel. The styles are quite different. It is possible that Brady supervised some alterations to the Bickel firehouse, and that record confused the surveyors.
