Father Pitt

Tag: Renaissance Architecture

John Morrow Public School, Brighton Heights

The original school was designed by Samuel T. McClaren (or McClarren; we see it spelled both ways) in 1895. Over the decades it was encrusted with annexes and additions, until much of the original building was hidden behind later growths.

This is a small section of the original building peeking out between later additions. Note the tapestry brick on the second floor.

The care that went into designing and assembling this chimney ought to make us denizens of the twenty-first century ashamed of ourselves.

Annex No. 1 was built after 1903 but before 1910, obscuring the whole eastern side of the original building. This addition was probably also designed by McClaren, and matches the original very closely.

What is that little rectangular block of wood below the small central windows on the first floor?

It’s a sign, probably almost as old as the building to judge by the style of the lettering, and with some effort we can read almost all of it:

$10.00 REWARD.
FOR THE ARREST AND
CONVICTION OF ANY PERSON
OR PERSONS FOUND GUILTY OF
DESTROYING OR COMMITTING
A NUISANCE ON THIS
PROPERTY

Old Pa Pitt has not succeeded in deciphering the very last line, which probably tells us where to apply for our ten bucks.

In 1922, Annex No. 2 was built, obscuring the west side of the original building. Insofar as Pittsburgh topography allows, it is identical to Annex No. 1, but this time it is dated:

The difference in brickwork indicates that there were probably windows here originally.

What this town needs is more utility cables.

In 1958, the school got its last major addition, which covered most of the Davis Avenue front of the original building. By that time it was simply impossible to match the architecture of the original, but the architect made some attempt to echo it with similar Roman brick and three Rundbogenstil arched windows on the front. The brickwork here looks the same as the brick infilling of the windows in the annex above, which probably dates that work.

The school is still in use as Morrow Elementary School.

November 13, 2023
Lockhouse, Neville Island

There is no longer a lock here, but the elegant lockhouse remains, now converted to offices.

W. K. Merriman, the chemicals company that now lives in the lockhouse, seems proud of the building’s history, and has made its updates with minimal change to the external appearance of the building.

November 12, 2023
South Side Electric Light Plant

When the Duquesne Light Company invaded residential neighborhoods to plant its death-ray generators, the neighbors were likely to object. It would help the company’s image if the power substations were elegant constructions. This classical palace of voltage conveyed the message that your Duquesne Light Company was substantial, respectable, and benevolent. The big hole that was later cut out of the front on the right side conveys the message that we needed to put the death-ray cannon somewhere.

November 2, 2023
Entrance to the Kinder Building, Allegheny West

The Kinder Building is a little Beaux-Arts masterpiece at the corner of Western Avenue and Galveston Avenue. At night its carefully balanced classical entrance takes on a pleasing air of mystery.

October 29, 2023
Baptist Home, Mount Lebanon

In the early twentieth century, orphans—of whom there were too many—were sent to live in orphanages. We don’t do that anymore, and most of the large orphanages in our area have long since been demolished. This is an exception: it was also an old folks’ home, and that function remains.

Addendum: Here is a rendering of the building the way the architect designed it, from The Builder, June, 1914:

That whole issue is devoted to works of architect Thomas Hannah, whom we had already identified as the architect from the Construction Record, as you see below.

The original section was built in 1914, and the architect was Thomas Hannah, as we learn from the invaluable Construction Record:

November 22, 1913: “Architect Thomas Hannah, Keenan building, has plans under way for an orphanage and home for the aged to be constructed in Mt. Lebanon for the Baptist Orphanage & Home Society of Western Pennsylvania, Union Bank building. The building will contain administration offices and accommodations for about 50 persons.”

May 16, 1914: “The new building for the Baptist Orphanage, to be built in Mt. Lebanon, Pittsburgh, plans for which were made by Architect Thomas Hannah, Keenan building, Pittsburgh will be a three-story and basement brick structure, 36×105 feet. It is expected that the contract for erecting same will be awarded shortly. Material specifications will include structural steel, concrete foundations, cut stone work, face brick, composition roofing, sheet metal work, concrete porch floors, interior finish of yellow pine, low pressure steam heating system, plumbing, lighting fixtures, etc.”

This simple but elegantly proportioned outbuilding could also be Hannah’s work. Addendum: This was the Children’s Cottage at the Home.

October 21, 2023
National Union Fire Insurance Company Building, Oakland

Now Thackeray Hall of the University of Pittsburgh. The architect was Abram Garfield, son of our martyred president. This section on University Place is the older part of the building; a larger addition was built on Thackeray Avenue in 1925.

Mr. Garfield would not have approved of those asymmetrical doors on his rigorously symmetrical Renaissance palace. Is Pitt really so strapped for cash that these are the best the university can do?

Here we see how the older building connects to the carefully matched 1925 addition (on the left), with a new entrance at the seam between the buildings.

October 14, 2023
Telephone Exchange, Squirrel Hill

A particularly grand example of the Renaissance-palace school of telephone exchanges. Father Pitt believes that all our Renaissance-palace telephone exchanges were probably done by the same architect, and some day he hopes to find out who it was. (Update: It was probably James Windrim, a well-known Philadelphian who had the Bell Telephone franchise in Pennsylvania for many years. He designed the 1923 Bell Telephone Building downtown, and is known to have worked on other telephone exchanges in our area.)

October 5, 2023
Glen Tenement House by Titus de Bobula, Hazelwood

This tenement house in Hazelwood was built in 1903, making it one of Titus de Bobula’s early commissions in Pittsburgh. It is very conventional for De Bobula, but it represented him in a Pittsburgh Press roundup of local architects in 1905 (“Able Architects the Authors of City’s Architectural Beauty,” April 29, 1905), where this picture was published (we regret that we have not been able to find a better copy than this ugly microfilm scan):

From what we can see in the indistinct old photograph, the building has not changed much at all, though Gertrude Street in front of it has been regraded.

The Gertrude Street face. It is likely that many of the first residents were Hungarian millworkers: that is a bit of De Bobula’s First Hungarian Reformed Church peeking out from behind the building.

Entrance on the south end of the building. The entrances originally had some sort of triangular pediment or small projecting roof; the Press photo is too indistinct to make out any details, but we can see the shadow of a triangle over the entrances at both ends.

The Elizabeth Street end of the building.

September 24, 2023
East Liberty YMCA

This glorious Renaissance palace was built in 1910; the architect was Thomas Hannah, who also gave us the Keenan Building. It is now a hotel.

Addendum: Here is a picture of the building when it was freshly built, from the June 1914 issue of The Builder, which is devoted to works of Thomas Hannah. The long side faced open space in those days.

September 2, 2023
Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh at Twilight

This rich little Beaux-Arts bank on Carson Street at 18th Street was built in 1902. We have a daylight picture of the Peoples Trust Company of Pittsburgh building from the same angle.

September 1, 2023