MacClure & Spahr designed the headquarters for Jones & Laughlin, which is now the John P. Robin Civic Building. The entrance is lavishly decorated. The angle below shows off two of the most impressive lanterns in the city.
More pictures of the Jones & Laughlin Headquarters Building: front of the building, from the southeast, and the construction of the second stage of the building.
Stanley Roush, the county’s official architect, designed this building to hold the offices that were spilling out of the Courthouse and the City-County Building as Pittsburgh and its neighbors grew rapidly. It was built in 1929–1931, and it is an interesting stylistic bridge between eras. Roush’s taste was very much in the modernistic Art Deco line, but the Romanesque Allegheny County Courthouse, designed by the sainted Henry Hobson Richardson, was a looming presence that still dictated what Allegheny County thought of its own architectural style. Roush’s compromise is almost unique: Art Deco Romanesque. We have many buildings where classical details are given a Deco spin—a style that, when applied to public buildings, old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist. But here the details are streamlined versions of medieval Romanesque, right down to gargoyles on the corners. Above, the Ross Street side of the building; below, the Forbes Avenue side.
One of the entrances on Forbes Avenue.
Moses with the tablets of the Law. His beard obscures the Tenth Commandment, so go ahead and covet anything you like, except—if you are Lutheran—your neighbor’s house, or—if you are Catholic—your neighbor’s wife or house. Counting up to ten is harder than it looks when it comes to Commandments, and you may need to refer to Wikipedia’s handy chart to find how the numbering works in your religious tradition.
The bridge in this medallion looks a lot like the Tenth Street Bridge, which by pure coincidence was designed by Stanley Roush.
Decorative grate with an Allegheny County monogram.
Some very expensive columns, smooth and classically proportioned but with elaborate Deco Romanesque capitals.
We have more pictures of the decorations on the County Office Building, including those gargoyles we mentioned.
Built in 1901 for the W. W. McBride Paper Company, this near-skyscraper was designed by Frederick Sauer.1 A few alterations have been made, but the building still stands much as Sauer designed it.
A casual look at the building gives the impression that it has a stone base, but the effect comes from using white face brick for the lower two floors—with inset ridges to imitate cut stone—and Sauer’s favorite buff brick for the rest.
Mitchell’s on the ground floor claims to have been established in 1906, so it has been going since shortly after the building opened.
By 1923 this was known as the Bowman Building, but W. W. McBride ghost signs are still visible on the northern side.
The back entrance to the City-County Building would seem spectacular if we didn’t know what the front looked like. Below, the building seen from Ross Street.
The seven-storey building at the corner of Ross Street and Third Avenue was the home of the W. W. McBride Paper Company. Multiple layers of painted signs make it hard to read any one of them, but the name “W. W. McBride” is clear enough.
The Century Cyclopedia of History and Biography of Pennsylvania (1904) has an extensive biography of William Wilson McBride, and we quote the part that has to do with the firm and the building:
In 1890 Mr. McBride bought a half interest in the well-established paper business of Morrison, Cass & Company, of Pittsburg, which owned large paper mills at Tyrone, Pennsylvania. The other half interest was retained by John Cooper, of Pittsburgh, who had been a member of the original firm, and the business was carried on under the name of Cooper & McBride. After four years Mr. McBride bought out his partner and became the sole proprietor, operating under the title of W. W. McBride & Company. In June, 1902, the business was incorporated as the W. W. McBride Paper Company. During 1901 he built a fine seven-story brick building at the corner of Ross Street and Third Avenue, containing the offices, sales department, and storage rooms.
By 1923, according to the Pittsburgh Historic Maps site, the McBride Building had become the Bowman Building, so these signs must all date from before that time.
The Bridge of Sighs connected the Allegheny County Courthouse with the jail across Ross Street. Now it connects the bureaucracy in the courthouse with more bureaucracy in the repurposed jail building, so that the name is just as appropriate. In the picture above, for a bit of a change of pace, old Pa Pitt gives you a bus driving away from you, which gives us a good sense of scale.
Demmler Bros. (now Demmler Machinery) built its headquarters in the Romanesque style that was very popular for warehouses and industrial buildings; for other examples, see the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company Warehouse and the B. M. Kramer & Company Building. The company has moved to the suburbs, but ghost signs still betray the origin of the building.
Demmler Brothers was founded in 1861, and the company (now in Cuddy) is still in business today. The ghost of its name is just barely visible on the front of its old headquarters at 100 Ross Street, and on the back of the building we can see layers of ghost signs advertising enameled ware, refrigerators, and stoves.
