Father Pitt

Tag: Geisler (Charles R.)

  • Two and a Half Buildings by Charles Geisler on the South Side

    1415 East Carson Street

    Charles Geisler, who lived in the South Hills neighborhoods all his working life, was a successful architect who specialized in small to medium-sized apartment and commercial buildings. Much of his work had a tint of the Spanish Mission style. The ground floor of this building, put up in 1923, has probably changed, but the upper floors are unusually well preserved, with tiled overhang, nine-over-one windows, and carved wood brackets, making this an excellent example of Geisleriana.

    Bracket
    Terra cotta
    1415 East Carson Street
    1415
    1411 East Carson Street

    This little building looks like the little brother of the building next door. Father Pitt has no direct evidence that Geisler designed it, but the two properties were under the same ownership in 1923. Given the notable similarity in the treatments of the rooflines, it is reasonable to suspect Geisler, even if we cannot yet convict him of the design.

    The Rex Theater

    The Rex is attributed to Geisler in city architectural surveys, although it has been remodeled more than once, and old Pa Pitt would not be surprised if one of those remodelings was under the direction of Victor A. Rigaumont, who had a prosperous practice converting the silent generation’s movie houses to up-to-date Art Deco palaces for the talkie era.

    Rex
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Downtown West Liberty

    101 and 103 Capital Avenue

    The borough of West Liberty included more than half of what is now Beechview and all of Brookline. West Liberty Avenue, as you might guess from its name, ran right down the middle of it. Today city planning maps make West Liberty Avenue the border between Beechview and Brookline, but it forms a distinct business corridor of its own.

    The five-way intersection of West Liberty Avenue with Capital Avenue, Haddon Way, and Curranhill Avenue looked for a while as though it might become the core of a substantial neighborhood business district. Instead, West Liberty Avenue was taken over by the automobile business, becoming the second great automobile row in Pittsburgh (after Baum Boulevard). But these buildings remain as a little clot of neighborhood businesses among the car dealers.

    Capitol Avenue at West Liberty Avenue

    In the picture above, the building at left with Slick’s Bar in it, which dates from about 1916, was designed by Charles Geisler, who at the time lived only a block up the hill from the construction site.1 The red bricks at the top (with an initial E bolted into them) probably indicate where there was once a green-tiled overhang, one of Geisler’s favorite ornaments.

    190 Capital Avenue

    A little farther up Capital Avenue we find this building, now home to a cupcake shop. The simple ornament picked out in blond brick is typical of the era around and after the First World War.

    109 Capital Avenue
    109 Capital Avenue
    1828 West Liberty Avenue

    On the other side of West Liberty Avenue, this building from about 1928 was designed by the architects Smart & Scheuneman.2 For many years it has been home to a sewing-machine shop of the sort where they will not bat an eye if you bring them a hundred-year-old machine to work on.

    1828 West Liberty Avenue
    1826 West Liberty Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

    This frame building, probably dating to the early 1900s, has been neglected for a long time—long enough that it still has its wood siding and trim.

    1. Source: Construction Record, February 26, 1916, p. 4. “Architect Charles R. Geisler, 1933 Warnock street, awarded to Harry Bupp, 1093 Wingate avenue, the contract for erecting a two-story brick veneered hollow tile store and apartment building on Capital avenue for Henry Anmann, 103 Capital Avenue. Cost $6,500.” As built, No. 101 has three floors instead of two. On the “1923” layer at Pittsburgh Historic Maps. “E. Amman” [sic] appears as owner of no. 101. Warnock Street, where Mr. Geisler lived, is now Woodward. ↩︎
    2. Source: “Bids Taken for New 19th Ward Building,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, October 9, 1927. “Bids have been taken for a store and apartment building at West Liberty avenue and Currant [sic] street, Nineteenth Ward, for Mrs. R. M. Ousler. Smart & Scheuneman are the architects.” “R. M. Oursler” is shown as owner of this and the older building next door on a plat map. ↩︎

  • Martha-Marion Apartments, Mount Lebanon

    Martha-Marion apartments

    This fairy-tale palace on Ralston Place preserves most of its charming original details. You will notice right away the most outrageously tall and pointy front gable in the tri-state area (cleverly echoed to give more of an illusion of depth), but after that pause to appreciate the original windows, seldom preserved in apartment buildings of this age, and carefully chosen to balance the other details of the building.

    Entrance

    We have some reason to suspect that the plans came from the office of architect Charles Geisler, prolific producer of small and medium-sized apartment buildings in Dormont and Mount Lebanon, as well as Squirrel Hill and elsewhere. If old Pa Pitt finds more specific documentation, he will confirm or revise this attribution.

    Porch
    Arch
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • Apartment Buildings on Broadway Avenue, Dormont

    2850–2844 Broadway Avenue, Dormont

    The northwest side of Broadway Avenue in Dormont is lined with small to medium-sized apartment buildings and duplexes. There’s a variety of styles, but we suspect more than one of them came from the pencil of Charles Geisler, who designed many apartment buildings in Dormont and Mount Lebanon, and who lived not far away in Beechview.

    2848 Broadway Avenue
    2844
    2844
    2832
    2830
    2822
    2808–2816
    2808–2816
    2750
    2755
    2730 and 2728

    These two are exceptionally convenient to transit: their front doors open right across from the Stevenson stop on the Red Line.

    2728
    2728
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

  • Apartment Buildings on Voelkel Avenue, Dormont

    Weber Apartments 2

    On the southeast side of Voelkel Avenue in Dormont are three eye-catching apartment buildings. Since patterned brickwork was a favorite trick of Charles R. Geisler, the most prolific designer of apartment buildings in Dormont and Mount Lebanon, old Pa Pitt suspects he was responsible (but of course would be happy to be contradicted by someone with real information). The building above has kept its original art glass in the stairwell, but the front windows of the apartments have been replaced with modern picture windows.

    Weber and D’Alo Apartments
    Weber Apartments

    This one has a different configuration of apartment windows, possibly more like the original. It has lost its art glass in the stairwell, however.

    D’Alo Apts.

    The entrance to the D’Alo, on the corner of Voelkel and Potomac Avenues.

    2910 Voelkel Avenue
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

    Across the street are two smaller apartment buildings with a similar riot of patterned brick. We suspect Geisler has struck again.

  • Two Apartment Building on Potomac Avenue, Dormont

    1697 Potomac Avenue
    1697 Potomac Avenue

    One of these two apartment buildings was almost certainly designed by architect Charles Geisler for the developer Oscar Larson, and old Pa Pitt is inclined to think that both of them are Geisler’s work. Charles Geisler lived nearby in Beechview, and Dormont and Mount Lebanon are peppered with buildings he designed. These fit his style—patterned brickwork and bracketed overhangs being two of his favorite tricks.

    The Statesman
    Entrance to the Statesman
    Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. These were the first pictures Father Pitt took to test the 50-megapixel phone camera, so they’re a little unsophisticated. But they’re big.

  • Apartment Buildings on Academy Avenue

    140 Academy Avenue

    Academy Avenue in Mount Lebanon has a mixture of single-family homes and small to medium-sized apartment buildings. We have seen some of the apartment buildings before; here are a few more.

    44 Academy Avenue

    We saw the building above once before; here it is in a different light at a different time of year. The architect was probably Charles Geisler, and buildings in variations of this same basic plan are all over Mount Lebanon and Dormont.

    36 and 34 Academy Avenue

    This is a tidy double duplex in very close to original condition. The little details make all the difference in its appearance: the tile roof overhangs, the proper windows for the era, and the little German-art-magazine ornaments in the brickwork.

    28 Academy Avenue

    Cameras: Nikon COOLPIX P100, Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

  • Cornell Gardens, Mount Lebanon

    Cornell Gardens

    Charles Geisler designed numerous apartment buildings in Mount Lebanon, Dormont, and Squirrel Hill, among other places. This one he also owned, at least when it first went up.

    The Cornell, or Cornell Gardens

    A picture of the building when it was new in 1929 (taken from a blurry microfilm copy of the Pittsburgh Press) shows us what has changed: the roof overhangs, some of which have been removed, were originally tile; the roof was flat (replaced now with a hipped roof, doubtless to solve persistent leaking problems); and the apartment windows matched the ones in the central stairwell.

    Perspective view
    Front of the building

    The entrance and stairwell are the least-changed parts of the building, and we can see how Geisler used tastefully simple arrangements of brick and tile to create apparent ornamental richness.

    Ornamental brickwork
    Entrance porch
    Porch pillar

    Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z981; Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6.

  • Apartment Building on Wightman Street, Squirrel Hill

    Apartment building on Wightman Street, Squirrel Hill

    This apartment building has a few details worth appreciating, though it appears to have lost its cornice. This building also has the biggest art store in Pittsburgh on the ground floor. You walk in the Hobart Street entrance and find yourself in a fairly big art-supplies store. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. Then you walk back and realize there’s another whole room that size. In fact the whole ground floor of this building is given over to art supplies.

    Floral ornament

    This floral ornament presides over the light well.

    Ornamental frieze
    Terra-cotta scallop

    Addendum: The building was put up in about 1924; the architect was Charles R. Geisler. Source: The American Contractor, October 27, 1923: “Apt. Bldg. (36 suites): Hobart & Wightman sts. Archt. C. R. Geisler, Ferguson bldg. Owner & Bldr. L. L. Noffah, 5843 Forbes st. Sketches.”

  • Home Land Building, Mount Lebanon

    Uptown Mount Lebanon is one of the best Art Deco neighborhoods in the Pittsburgh area, and this building—otherwise a rather severe late-classical style—stands out for its bright Art Deco marquee.

    Addendum: The architect was Charles R. Geisler, according to a listing in a local architectural magazine. Source: The Charette, Vol. 7, No. 2 (February 1927): “185. Chas. R. Geisler, 205 Ferguson Building, Pittsburgh, Pa. Contract for Stephenson [sic] & Williams Apartment and Office Building was let to Fred K. Becker, Dormont. Approximately $80,000.00. Plans out on reserved plumbing, heating, tile and composition work.”