Father Pitt

Tag: Fort Pitt Blockhouse

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse, by Arsene Rousseau

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse
    From The Charette, December, 1928.

    This sketch was a winner in the Pittsburgh Architectural Club’s Summer Prize Sketch Competition. The artist was Arsene Rousseau (misspelled in the caption), who later became a successful architect in Youngstown.

    The sketch shows the situation of the Blockhouse as attractively as the artist can manage consistent with honesty. It had been restored to its past and present condition by the Daughters of the American Revolution, who maintained a little patch of green in the decaying warehouse and slum district of the Point. We see just a little of the Point Bridge in the background.

    For comparison’s sake, here is how the Blockhouse looked in 1887, before the ladies of the DAR got their hands on it:

    Fort Pitt Blockhouse in 1887
    From Fisher & Stewart’s Guide and Handbook of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, 1887.

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse, 2001

    These pictures were taken in 2001 with an old folding Agfa camera. Of course the blockhouse, which is more than two and a half centuries old, doesn’t change much these days.

  • Fort Pitt Blockhouse in 1887

    In the nineteenth century, the Fort Pitt Blockhouse was used as a residence. It was surrounded by slum and warehouses. Guides to the city (like the guide this cut came from) always pointed it out, but a visit would not have been calculated to give a good impression of living conditions in the city.