Father Pitt

Tag: Giesy (J. H.)

  • Penn Water Company Building, Wilkinsburg

    Penn Water Company building

    J. H. Giesy was the architect of this little utility-company palace, built in 1916.1

    Entrance
    Above the entrance
    Lunette with address 712
    Shield with relief

    The relief in the shield is so shallow that it has eroded to near invisibility. It looks to old Pa Pitt like an allegorical figure pouring out water, but he is happy to be corrected by someone with a better eye or more accurate information.

    Penn Water Company Building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    We have more pictures of the Penn Water Company from a year ago, before the doorway got its coat of fluorescent aqua.

    1. American Contractor, October 16, 1915, p. 58. “Office Bldg.: 2 sty. & bas. 50×100. $20M. Wilkinsburg, Pa. Archt. J. H. Giesey, Mellon Bank bldg., Pittsburgh. Owner Penn Water Co., Oliver bldg., Wilkinsburg. Bids in; will soon let contr. Brk.” ↩︎
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  • The Original Mellon Institute

    Allen Hall

    The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was founded as part of the University of Pittsburgh, and this was its home for the first two decades of its life. When the Mellon Institute declared its independence, it moved to its palatial quarters out Fifth Avenue, and the old Mellon Institute building became Allen Hall at the University of Pittsburgh.

    The building, which opened in 1915, was designed by J. H. Giesy, and it was properly classical to match Henry Hornbostel’s slightly mad plan of making the University a new Athenian Acropolis in Pittsburgh. (The plan was later abandoned in favor of Charles Z. Klauder’̑s much madder plan of a skyscraper university.)

    Bronze door

    The richly detailed bronze doors are unique.

    View from Thackeray Street

    The building is precisely located for the best vista up Thackeray Street.

    Here is a picture of the building when it was new in 1915:

    Mellon Institute in 1915

    And old Pa Pitt has duplicated that picture for you in 2022, because that is the kind of effort he puts into serving his readers:

    Allen Hall today

    Nothing about the exterior has changed except the plantings, and even those have been reduced to show off the building: a few years ago much of the front was obscured by trees.