Father Pitt

Tag: Frankstown Avenue

  • Abandoned Apartment Building in Brushton

    Abandoned apartment building on Frankstown Avenue in Brushton

    This building was owned by and probably built by E. E. Soxman, a contractor who lived nearby. That is as much as old Pa Pitt has been able to discover about it, except for what we can tell by looking at it.

    Abandoned apartment building on Frankstown Avenue in Brushton

    One thing we can tell is that it was built with storefronts, which were later bricked in for more apartments. The bricking-in was done fairly early, though, because the three-over-one windows are typical of the 1920s.

    Front door of an abandoned apartment building on Frankstown Avenue in Brushton

    The rest of the building has preserved most of its details—“preserved” in the sense that they are still visible, although they have decayed enough that, in the unlikely event that someone decided to refurbish this building, many of those original details would probably have to be replaced.

    Roof over the front door
    Front door
    Windows
    Window

    Old Pa Pitt’s best guess is that the filled-in arch was originally art glass.

    Comments

  • Pittsburgh Railways Car Barn in Homewood

    Car barn

    As you walk or drive down Frankstown Avenue, you might wonder what this oddly imposing building that walls in one side of the street was in its prime. The answer is that it was part of an enormous Pittsburgh Railways car barn, where streetcars went home to rest after a hard day at work. In the heyday of streetcars there were four long blocks of car barn and yard here, but this is what’s left. Since the streetcars left, it has been many things, including a bowling alley, and the otherwise forbidding wall has been festooned with colorful murals by local artists.

    Trolley barn in Homewood
    Car barn
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • A Few Buildings on Frankstown Avenue, Homewood

    Apartment building with storefronts

    Homewood is showing considerable signs of revitalization, but there are still long stretches of what used to be the commercial district that are nearly deserted. Here is a block of Frankstown Avenue that seems typical of the area: about a third of the buildings demolished, a third abandoned, and a third still inhabited and straggling along. We begin with an apartment building with two storefronts that has been kept standing by low-budget renovations.

    Front elevation of the apartment building
    Side of the building
    WEMCO

    The private club “WEMCO” seems to be thriving, and the small apartment building that goes with it is not only well maintained but also kept scrupulously tidy.

    WEMCO
    Front elevation
    Two abandoned commercial buildings

    Two abandoned buildings that will probably be taken down sooner or later. Because they have been abandoned, they preserve details that might otherwise have been replaced by cheap renovations.

    Commercial building with big arch at left entrance

    Here is an interesting answer to the question of how to make attractive dwellings over a storefront. The grand arched entrance to the apartments sets them apart from the business downstairs and makes them feel like a real home, not a temporary way station.

    Duplex
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    This duplex with inset balconies looked a lot better before the lower balcony or porch was filled in, but we can see what it was aiming for.

    Comments

  • Pittsburgh Charity Hospital, Larimer

    Pittsburgh Hospital

    Originally a Catholic hospital, later known as just Pittsburgh Hospital. Now it is the Champion City Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The main building was put up in about 1902; the architects were Schickel & Ditmars of New York,1 who were most famous for Catholic churches, including the immense Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, but also designed a number of hospitals.

    Frankstown Avenue front
    Frankstown Avenue end

    The addition on the Frankstown Avenue end has not weathered well.

    Pittsburgh Hospital
    Pittsburgh Hospital
    Pittsburgh Hospital
    Row of dormers
    Pittsburgh hospital with postwar additions
    Sony Alpha 3000.

    Postwar additions might have been designed by Press C. Dowler, who we know designed the School of Nursing behind the hospital in 1946 (which we’ll see soon).

    Comments

  • Alpha Apartments, Homewood

    Alpha Apartments

    This apartment building with Renaissance details was built in about 1905. The architect was A. E. Linkenheimer,1 about whom old Pa Pitt knows very little so far.

    Alpha Apartments

    The name of the building is interesting, because it is the name of a project that was planned at about the same time nearby at the intersection of Penn and East End Avenues, where Titus de Bobula was to supervise an immense $600,000 Alpha Apartment Hotel. That project fell through; at the moment Father Pitt does not know that the name was anything more than coincidence.

    Alpha Apartments
    Front entrance

    This building is under sentence of condemnation, but it does not appear to be in such bad shape that it could not be rescued. Homewood is not rich, but there has been some renovation going on in nearby streets.

    Alpha Apartments

    The Braddock Avenue side has its own neatly symmetrical façade.

    Rear section
    Side entrance
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments