Father Pitt

Tag: Liberty Avenue

  • More of Victorian Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield

    4701 Liberty Avenue

    More of the Victorian business district of Bloomfield, from the age when it was a very German neighborhood. We begin with a building we have seen before, which has just finished a renovation and is ready for another century and a quarter of use. The tall third floor, as old Pa Pitt remarked before, looks like an assembly room of some sort.

    The rest of these buildings all date from the 1890s.

    4623

    The date stone gives us the date 1890 and the name of the owner, P. Biedenbach.

    Crest of 4623, with date stone reading “P. D. Biedenbach, A. D. 1890”
    4609
    4605 and 4607

    Two of a row of modest houses with storefronts put up in the 1890s.

    4525

    A building that preserves its corner entrance, though not the original treatment of it.

    4523

    Elaborate brickwork distinguishes this building from its neighbors.

    4521
    Olympus E-20N.

    Another small storefront with living quarters above.

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  • Storefronts and Apartments by Sylvanus W. McCluskey, Bloomfield

    4519 and 4519 Liberty Avenue
    Olympus E-20N.

    This building is probably the work of Sylvanus W. McCluskey, a Lawrenceville architect. Our source spells the name “McCloskey,” but that is within the usual limits of Linotypist accuracy. From the Pittsburg Post, October 9, 1900:

    Another apartment house is to be built in the Sixteenth Ward. It will stand on a plot at Nos. 4517 and 4519 Liberty street, Bloomfield, and will be owned by Michael McKenna. It will be a three-story brick building with storerooms on the first floor. Architect S. W. McCloskey designed it and has awarded the contract for its erection to Frank McMasters. Work on it will be started at once. The building without the interior finish will cost about $15,000.

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  • May Building

    May Building

    Charles Bickel designed the May Building, and—as he often did—he made liberal use of terra cotta in the ornaments.

    Capital
    Cornice and capital
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    More pictures of the May Building.

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  • Federal Building

    Federal Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Altenhof & Bown, a Pittsburgh firm that also designed the State Office Building, were the architects of what is now officially called the William S. Moorhead Federal Building. It’s a good example of mid-century modern architecture—distinctive in its vertical-blind curtain of aluminum panels, yet somehow easy to ignore.

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  • Plaza Theatre, Bloomfield

    Plaza Theatre

    The Plaza lingered on to the end of the twentieth century as a movie house, but it finally went the way of most neighborhood cinemas. Fortunately the beautiful and distinctive façade has been preserved.

    Dormer and cornice

    The green-tiled roof is the first thing you notice. The little round-topped dormers give the building the look of a European palace.

    Terra cotta

    Terra-cotta suppliers got rich on movie houses like this one.

    Plaza Theatre

    The marquee has been kept, which is lucky, because it was an important part of the look of the building.

    Marquee
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • B. F. Jones Building

    B. F. Jones Building

    Built in 1881, this is the only remaining downtown work of Joseph Stillburg—as far as old Pa Pitt knows, but he still hopes for surprises. Stillburg was a very big deal in Pittsburgh in the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth, but most of his buildings have disappeared. They were prominent buildings in their time—the Pittsburgh Exposition buildings, for example, and the Bissell Block—but they were replaced by other even grander projects as the land they were built on became even more valuable (or, in the case of the Exposition buildings, they were taken down for Point Park).

    This building is a symphonic fugue of perfectly balanced themes and rhythms woven into a composition that must have been strikingly modern in 1881. It has been restored and renovated with good taste, and it is ready for another century and a half of use.

    B. F. Jones Building
    Crest of the building
    Ornament
    Ornament
    B. F. Jones Building from the west
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Spring Comes to Liberty Center

    Flowering trees at Liberty Center

    Flowering trees at Liberty Center, and views of other landmarks through the flowers.

    Liberty Center with flowering trees
    Flowers on the trees
    Penn Station

    Penn Station.

    Grant Street

    Looking up Grant Street.

    Federal Courthouse

    The federal courthouse.

    Federal Courthouse
    Liberty Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Looking down Liberty Avenue.

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  • Hoffstot Building

    Hoffstot Building at 811 Liberty Avenue
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Originally a building with five floors, built in 1886; a sixth floor was added in 1892 with considerable skill. We have more pictures of the building from two years ago; the picture above is a composite of six different photographs, so it is very big if you enlarge it.

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  • Dimling’s Ghost Sign on Exchange Way

    Dimling’s Candy Shops sign

    Old Pa Pitt recommends wandering in back alleys as a hobby. You never know what you might find, from antique sculpture to ghost signs. Dimling’s hasn’t had a candy shop here for more than fifty years, but this sign still sits on the back of the building the shop once occupied, facing Exchange Way at the intersection with Tito Way.

    When it was prospering, Dimling’s Liberty Avenue shop occupied two buildings and covered them with tiles that made the entire Liberty Avenue façade a giant billboard. The picture above is a detail of a much larger photograph taken by the Pittsburgh City Photographer in 1965: it may still be encumbered by copyright (although probably not, unless the copyright was renewed), but if the city of Pittsburgh wants a fee for using it Father Pitt can probably afford a quarter or so.

    By the 1970s, the buildings were still a billboard for Dimling’s, but a photo from 1973 shows that the tenants were Arthur Treacher’s, an adult theater, and a massage parlor.

    The wheel of history kept turning, however, and the restoration of Liberty Avenue brought these buildings back to respectable use. Peeling away the tiles revealed the old Victorian fronts, which have been lovingly restored and now make up part of the extraordinary Victorian streetscape of Liberty Avenue in the Cultural District.

    800 block of Liberty Avenue
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
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  • Why We Have Pennsylvania Broad Gauge

    Pennsylvania streetcars do not run on standard-gauge track. This is not just a local quirk: it was a law of the Commonwealth. Streetcar companies must not lay standard-gauge track. Why did we have such a law? Well…

    From Pittsburgh Illustrated, 1889.

    This is Liberty Avenue in 1889, where a railroad ran down the middle to serve the wholesalers. Now imagine one backroom deal with the streetcar company, one little switch, a few extra feet of track, and suddenly the Pennsylvania Railroad has access to every major street in the city.

    But that can’t happen, because the streetcar tracks are a different gauge.

    That is why, to this day, streetcars in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia use Pennsylvania Broad Gauge or Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge, 5 feet 2½ inches, instead of the standard American rail gauge of 4 feet 8½ inches. (Actually, Philadelphia is off by a quarter-inch at 5 feet 2¼ inches.) Most other American transit systems use standard gauge, although New Orleans streetcars use Pennsylvania Broad Gauge, too.