Look for them on the Fifth Avenue front of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oakland.
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Gargoyles of St. Paul’s
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Reflections of St. Paul’s
St. Paul’s Cathedral reflected in the Software Engineering Institute across the street.
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Cathedral of Learning
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Third Presbyterian Church, Shadyside
The “chocolate church” at Fifth and Negley was designed by Theophilus P. Chandler Jr., whose name always sounds to old Pa Pitt like the villain in a Marx Brothers farce. Chandler worked mostly in Philadelphia, but he also designed First Presbyterian downtown and the Duncan mausoleum in the Union Dale Cemetery.
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Willis McCook Mansion, Shadyside
You can make good money as a lawyer if you make the right contacts. Willis McCook was lawyer to the robber barons, and he lived among them in this splendid Gothic mansion on the Fifth Avenue millionaires’ row. The architects were the local firm of Carpenter & Crocker. It is now a hotel called the “Mansions on Fifth,” along with the house around the corner that McCook built for his daughter and son-in-law.
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Spire of First Baptist Church, Oakland
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Tabernacle of the Union Baptist Church, South Side
This is a kind of machine-age Gothic, all sharp angles instead of the tapered points of more traditional Gothic forms. Built in 1881, this is no longer used as a church, but the exterior has been lovingly preserved.
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Holy Assumption of St. Mary Orthodox Church, South Side
Clearly this was built as a Protestant church, but the Orthodox congregation has been here for quite some time now. Here we see the west front in the warm rays of the evening sun.
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Gailliot Center for Newman Studies
There is still at least one architect in Pittsburgh who can work in the Gothic idiom with modern materials. His name is David J. Vater, and he designed this building on Dithridge Street (which opened in 2007) and the Ryan Catholic Newman Center around the corner on Bayard Avenue. His listing on Porch.com has this to say about his firm: “Based in Pittsburgh, David J Vater Ra is an architectural firm that provides bathroom design, site planning, and master planning as well as other services.” The fact that bathroom design is mentioned first suggests that the demand for grand Gothic institutional buildings is low.
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Cathedral of Learning in the Rain
It started to rain while Father Pitt was out for a walk today, which gave us this atmospheric picture of the Cathedral of Learning looming through the mist like a heavenly palace behind the pleasant houses of Schenley Farms. This is why old Pa Pitt’s cameras live in a waterproof bag. Father Pitt himself is not waterproof, but he does dry fairly quickly.
If you like black and white and all the greys in between, you might enjoy Father Pitt’s Monochrome World, a very simple site that collects his favorite black-and-white pictures from Pittsburgh and elsewhere.
