Last year we saw the Natatorium Building in the middle of a renovation. Now here it is renovated, and looking pretty much the same. The original architect was R. B. Melvin.
We also have some history of the Natatorium Building.
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The Natatorium Building, Renovated
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Presbyterian Hospital, Oakland
In spite of the ever-growing number of additions that obscure more and more of it, the original Presbyterian Hospital building is still a commanding presence in Oakland. It was built in 1926; the architect was E. P. Mellon, who flourished with his family connections: Presbyterian Hospital had strong ties to the Mellon family.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Penn Water Company Building, Wilkinsburg
J. H. Giesy was the architect of this little utility-company palace, built in 1916.1
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.
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.
- 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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Lloyd Building, East Liberty
Carpenter & Crocker designed this rich-looking building for a real-estate man named S. H. Lloyd. It was built in 1905 or 1906, and a photograph published in 1907 shows it looking little different from the way it looks today.
From Up-Town, Greater Pittsburg’s Classic Section. Once the building was finished, the architects moved their own office into it,1 thus making a favorable impression on potential clients even before they walked in the door.
Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. - Up-Town: Greater Pittsburg’s Classic Section, p. 34 (unpaginated), 1907. “Much that is best in this line of work is that which has been executed by the architectural firm of Carpenter and Crocker whose offices are 410 in the Lloyd Building, which was erected by that firm last fall.” ↩︎
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Carl Building (Shields Building), Wilkinsburg
Designed in 1902 by the Beezer Brothers, this was Wilkinsburg’s contribution to the early skyscraper age. It was put up for Leopold Vilsack, a real-estate investor who was also one of the founders of the Iron City brewery. He named it for his son Carl; later it became known as the Shields Building.
Pittsburgh Gazette, April 12, 1902, p. 8. When it was announced, the building was to have eight floors. One floor fell away between initial design and construction.
The building is now apartments. The base has been refurbished with a simpler and more abstract design that hardly registers as different from the original until we look at it closely.
The cap is festooned with elaborate Baroque terra-cotta ornaments.
Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
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Pittsburgh Charity Hospital, Larimer
Originally a Catholic hospital, later known as just Pittsburgh Hospital. Now it is the Champion City Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The main building was put up in about 1902; the architects were Schickel & Ditmars of New York,1 who were most famous for Catholic churches, including the immense Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, but also designed a number of hospitals.
The addition on the Frankstown Avenue end has not weathered well.
Sony Alpha 3000. Postwar additions might have been designed by Press C. Dowler, who we know designed the School of Nursing behind the hospital in 1946 (which we’ll see soon).
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Alpha Apartments, Homewood
This apartment building with Renaissance details was built in about 1905. The architect was A. E. Linkenheimer,1 about whom old Pa Pitt knows very little so far.
The name of the building is interesting, because it is the name of a project that was planned at about the same time nearby at the intersection of Penn and East End Avenues, where Titus de Bobula was to supervise an immense $600,000 Alpha Apartment Hotel. That project fell through; at the moment Father Pitt does not know that the name was anything more than coincidence.
This building is under sentence of condemnation, but it does not appear to be in such bad shape that it could not be rescued. Homewood is not rich, but there has been some renovation going on in nearby streets.
The Braddock Avenue side has its own neatly symmetrical façade.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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Miller House, Shadyside
This Renaissance palace was designed for Rachel and Mortimer Miller by Maximilian Nirdlinger, whose name is at the top of old Pa Pitt’s list of architects whose names are the most fun to say.1 It was built in 1904, when Nirdlinger was still young; with eye-catching but respectable designs like this one, he established himself as a favorite house designer among the Social Register set.
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR. - Pittsburg Press, February 2, 1904, p. 12. “A $30,000 residence will be erected on Morewood avenue, Twentieth ward. The plans for it have just been completed by Architect M. Nirdlinger for Mortimer C. Miller. The structure will be three stories high of ornamental brick with terra cotta trimmings.” The land is shown on plat maps as owned by Rachel McM. Miller. ↩︎
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Old Braddock Post Office
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Telephone Exchange, Allegheny Center
Not only is this elegant palace of switching one of the few buildings left in Allegheny Center from before the great urban renewal of the 1960s, but it also preserves a memory of the extinct street layout of old Allegheny.
The architect was probably James Windrim of Philadelphia, who did most of the work for Bell of Pennsylvania in the first quarter of the twentieth century. His mission was to make these necessary industrial buildings ornaments to their neighborhoods, so that the telephone company would not face too much opposition. In the nineteenth century, it had been usual to put street signs on the corners of buildings; it was already a bit old-fashioned by the time this exchange was built, but several of the old Bell Telephone exchanges have them, and we suppose it was another way of making them seem like good neighborhood citizens. These streets no longer exist; the quarter-loop drive that turns around this corner is known as Montgomery Place.
Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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