Andrew Carnegie peppered the city with neighborhood libraries designed by his favorite architects, Alden & Harlow. They’re all little gems. This one has been abandoned for years, since a new library was built in the mostly empty business district of Hazelwood on Second Avenue. (That block of Second Avenue now seems to be the center of the Hazelwood neighborhood revival.) It is still in good shape, and—unlike an abandoned church or synagogue—it would be a relatively easy building to adapt to new uses.
Another branch library by Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architectural firm, Alden & Harlow, who also gave us (as Longfellow, Alden & Harlow) the main Carnegie Institute building in Oakland.
The entrance to the main Carnegie Library in Oakland. This is a picture Father Pitt took a few years ago, but nothing important has changed. The building was designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects; they, or Alden & Harlow without Longfellow, also designed many of the neighborhood branch libraries.
The original Hazelwood Branch, built in 1890, was abandoned in 2004 in favor of a larger building on Second Avenue. Since then this fine building has been vacant, as far as Father Pitt knows. It is just a short stroll up Monongahela Street from the John Woods House, and an enthusiastic preservationist might be able to get a good deal on both of them at once.
Before he even went looking for the architects, Father Pitt was fairly sure that they must have been Alden & Harlow, Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architectural firm and the architects of numerous other Carnegie libraries, including the big one in Oakland. Old Pa Pitt’s instinct was correct. This is a typically tasteful and substantial Alden & Harlow design. Their branch libraries always feel welcoming: they are proud ornaments to their neighborhoods, but never overwhelmingly ostentatious. They seem to embody Andrew Carnegie’s ideal that no workman, however humble, should ever feel that the neighborhood library is too good a place for the likes of him.
This charming building from 1900 was tastefully expanded in 2006. The new section is obviously of our century, but so well harmonized with the old that it seems an organic growth.
Allegheny’s own Carnegie Hall was built in 1890, right next to the library Carnegie gave to the city a year earlier. The library building still stands, though the library has moved a few blocks up Federal Street; the music hall is now used as the “New Hazlett Theater,” a venue for miscellaneous performances. The library and music hall were among the very few buildings spared when the heart of Allegheny was demolished in the 1960s for the “Allegheny Center” project, which was either an ambitious attempt at creating the modern ideal of a city or an audacious stab at the heart of Pittsburgh’s conquered rival, depending on how you look at it.
Carnegie Hall is a short walk from the North Side subway station.
