About this church old Pa Pitt knows only what you see in these pictures. The sign has not changed since 2021, but the grounds are still mowed and the building is in good shape. (Addendum: The congregation informed the Presbytery that it would close the church in 2022, according to a Pittsburgh Presbytery newsletter [PDF].) Its most prominent feature is its tower with eye-catchingly prickly battlements.
William P. Hutchins was the architect of this church, built in 1924. It takes its inspiration from ancient Roman basilicas, with a light overlay of Art Nouveau. Most architectural historians would probably just say “Romanesque” and leave it at that, but it is a more interesting building when we recognize its ancient sources.
Charles F. Bartberger designed this magnificent church, one of only a very few large churches in this area still standing from before the Civil War (it was built in 1854). It is not that we had no large churches; it is only that the ensuing age of prosperity made most of the large ones even larger—or kicked them out of the way to make room for skyscrapers, as happened with the old St. Paul’s Cathedral downtown, also designed by Bartberger, which was bought and demolished by Henry Frick.
This one has had good luck. It belongs to a still-active monastery in a neighborhood that, by its topographic nature, will probably never become prosperous enough to displace the church. It dominates the view up Monastery Street and Monastery Avenue.
A relief of Christ stumbling on the way to Calvary is over the main door.
St. Paul of the Cross reminds us that our way to God lies through the passion of Christ. He wears a benevolent expression, but he is a ferocious terror to pigeons.
Cameras: Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.
Built in the late 1890s, this Pittsburgh & Lake Erie commuter station was designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, one of at least three firms that claimed to be the successors of the great H. H. Richardson, and perhaps the one with the most direct claim, since Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge were the ones who completed Richardson’s outstanding jobs when he died. It is a temple of locomotion in the high Richardsonian style that may remind you of another Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge building in Pittsburgh, Shadyside Presbyterian Church.
After many years of raising money and praying, the community is working on restoring this landmark to pass down to future generations.
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. Most of these pictures are stacks of three different exposures, so that detail is preserved in both the highlights and the shadows.
This Romanesque warehouse appears from old maps to have been built around the turn of the twentieth century for the Allegheny Transfer Company. It later belonged to Donaldson Transfer, as a ghost sign at the top of the building testifies (enlarge the picture to examine it closely). It has been a few things since then, and it was for sale when old Pa Pitt visited it. If you want a distinctive commercial or even residential space in one of our most pleasant neighborhoods, here is your opportunity.
A few years ago, Father Pitt took a picture of this building in sunset light, but it looks as though he never published it. So here it is now.
About five years ago we looked at the Allegheny City Stables in the middle of its adaptation into loft apartments. Now the renovation is complete, and a new apartment building has gone up next door, making this block of North Avenue much more inviting. Technically it is across the street from Allegheny West, but it was the Allegheny West Civic Council that saved the building, and socially it forms part of today’s Allegheny West rather than the rest of the “Central Northside” neighborhood as designated on city planning maps.
The corner of Penn Avenue and Ninth Street. The building on the corner is the Wm. O. Johnston & Co. building, built for a printer who was one of the successors to the venerable Zadok Cramer of the Franklin Head Bookstore. We also have a composite picture of the front of the building.
Father Pitt is fairly certain that the ornamental stonecarving on the Maginn Building was done by Achille Giammartini, Pittsburgh’s master of Romanesque whimsies. The style is Giammartini’s, and the building was designed by Charles Bickel, who is known to have brought in Giammartini for the German National Bank (now the Granite Building) around the corner, as we see in this advertisement:
But, you say, speculation is not enough for you. You want the artist’s signature. Well, to old Pa Pitt, this looks like a signature:
In fact, Father Pitt has formed the hypothesis that Giammartini littered the city with self-caricatures in Romanesque grotesque. Several other buildings bear carved faces similar to these two in the corners of the arch on the seventh floor of the Maginn Building.
The rest of the ornaments are also in Giammartini’s trademark style: lush Romanesque foliage with slightly cartoonish faces peering out from the leaves.
Built in 1885 from a design by William Kauffman, this was an astonishingly lofty building when it went up—our first skyscraper college. Its position up on the bluff gave it spectacular views, at least when the smoke from the city below was not too dense, from the cupola that used to stand at the peak of the roof.
We also have a picture of the building as it was built, along with a modern picture from the same angle.
Father John Stibiel specified this church, which was built in 1854 for his German parish, and he is usually credited as the designer of it. Some architectural historians, however, think that the architect may have been Charles F. Bartberger, the elder of the two Charles Bartbergers, who made similarly Romanesque designs for St. Paul of the Cross Monastery Church and St. Michael’s, both on the South Side Slopes.
The vestibule in front was designed by Sidney F. Heckert and built in 1906.
The church narrowly escaped demolition for the Parkway North. Along with the adjacent priory, it was bought by a Pittsburgh businessman who successfully turned the priory into a hotel and the church into “Pittsburgh’s Grand Hall,” a place for weddings and other events.
This composite view suffers from the inevitable distortion of the towers, but it otherwise gives us a good notion of the whole front of the church.
