Father Pitt

Tag: Rowhouses

Arch Street, North Side

Arch Street, which is now included in the Mexican War Streets despite not bearing the name of a battle or a general, is a typical North Side combination of dense rowhouses, small apartment buildings, and backstreet stores. Here are just a few sights within one block of the street.

An exceptionally elaborate Queen Anne house whose owner has used bright but well-chosen colors to emphasize the wealth of detail on the front.

Two modest houses from before the Civil War; the brick house at left is dated 1842.

A small apartment building with a well-balanced classical front.

Some fine woodwork surrounds a front door.

The colorful dormer steals the show, but enlarge the picture to appreciate the terra-cotta grotesques on the cornice.

This little building looks as though it dates from the 1920s. Although it is quite different in style from its neighbors, it fits harmoniously by sharing the same setback and similar height.

A backstreet grocery that is currently functioning as a backstreet grocery—an unusual phenomenon in city neighborhoods these days. The apartment building above it has some interesting and attractive brickwork.

Sony Alpha 3000.

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February 24, 2025
A Walk on North Avenue in Manchester

A few weeks ago old Pa Pitt took a wintry walk on North Avenue (which used to be Fayette Street back when it did not run all the way through to North Avenue on the rest of the North Side). He took piles of pictures, and although he published four articles so far from that walk (one, two, three, four), there’s still quite a collection backed up waiting to be published. Thus this very long article, which is a smorgasbord of Victorian domestic architecture with a few other eras thrown in. Above, a pair of Italianate houses. They both preserve the tall windows typical of the high Italianate style; the one on the right still has (or has restored) its two-over-two panes.

Many more pictures…

February 15, 2025
Sciota Street, Bloomfield

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

A typical backstreet Bloomfield row of frame houses, showing almost every treatment working-class Pittsburghers can think of to apply to the exterior of an old house.

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February 12, 2025
Stony Romanesque in the Mexican War Streets

This stone-fronted Romanesque house on North Avenue is decorated with intricate carvings, and Father Pitt would guess that they were probably by Achille Giammartini, who was responsible for most of the best Romanesque decoration in Pittsburgh, and who also decorated the Masonic Hall just up the street.

Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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February 11, 2025
More Houses on North Avenue in the Mexican War Streets

A couple of blocks of North Avenue, where we can see some fine Italianate houses of the Civil War era, interspersed with some towering Queen Anne mansions. We start at the corner of Palo Alto Street, where a Queen Anne house makes the most of a tiny lot by going up to a fourth floor.

These two houses share splendid porches, probably added later, since the porches match even though the houses do not. The owners of the houses have coordinated their efforts, so that the porches match.

Three more modest houses, though their full third floors give them a generous allotment of bedrooms.

A pair of houses that were both the peak of elegance in different eras. The Italianate one on the right goes for a simpler dignity; the Queen Anne on the left pulls out all the stops to make the most picturesque composition possible. Note the relative heights, by the way: high ceilings were a feature of the Italianate style in better houses, so that the house at left adds one more floor in exactly the same vertical height.

Seventeen years ago, Father Pitt published a picture of the front door of the house on the right. The picture was taken on 120 film with a folding Agfa Isolette.

Two simple and attractive Italianate houses, one of which has grown a partial fourth floor.

Here is an interesting document of how the neighborhood has changed. The house at left was originally an Italianate residence; the corner store may have been original or may have been added later. The projecting commercial building next to it, which probably dates from about 1920, was added when the house was taken over by the United States Casket Company, later the Melia Casket Company, which still inhabited the building until about twelve years ago. Both buildings have had a thorough renovation since the casket-makers moved out.

Two different interpretations of Italianate, one of which has sprouted an inartistic dormer to give it a fourth floor.

Finally, a center-hall house in a kind of late Greek Revival style; it occupies a double lot.

Sony Alpha 3000; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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February 8, 2025
Some Houses on North Avenue on the North Side

An assortment of styles from a block and a half of North Avenue facing the Commons in old Allegheny. These houses are now included in the Mexican War Streets Historic District. First, a tall and narrow Queen Anne house built in the 1880s.

This Queen Anne has a larger lot and thus more room to spread out and grow picturesque projections.

These three houses probably go back to the Civil War era; they are typical of the larger sort of houses that grew all over Pittsburgh from the beginning until the middle 1800s, when more elaborate styles came into fashion.

It is not easy to guess the age of these little houses. Old Pa Pitt’s best speculation, judging from old maps, is that they also go back to the Civil War era, but had their fronts modernized at some time around 1900. The one on the left may have had its front replaced more than once before it finally ended up with this Craftsman-style stucco treatment.

Finally, another house from the 1880s, this one with particularly elaborate woodwork.

Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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January 27, 2025
Two Front Doors on Sidney Street, South Side

With falling snow for added picturesque effect.

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January 24, 2025
Second Empire Row on North Avenue in Manchester

The Second Empire style is a good fit for high-class rowhouses, because it was created specifically to stuff the most usable volume into the least taxable building. Supposedly it came about because houses in France of Napoleon III’s time were taxed by the area of the rooms, but attics were not counted in the calculation. All the space above the roofline was dismissed as attic by the law; therefore, if the roof could bulge out to make an attic the same size as the other floors, you got an extra floor tax-free. Americans adopted the style because they liked the way it looked and the way it solved the practical problems of space.

This row of seven houses drops a few feet after the first three. Manchester is a flat neighborhood, but only by Pittsburgh standards. Old maps show that the row was built between 1872 and 1882.

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Nikon COOLPIX P100;

A very clever detective might deduce that these pictures were taken on two different visits.

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January 17, 2025
Frame Rowhouses on North Avenue, Manchester

Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

Manchester is known for its splendid brick Victorian houses, but there are blocks of more modest houses as well—often older than the big brick ones. Here is a row of neat little frame houses, some of which appear—from both old maps and the style of the houses—to date back to the Civil War era.

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January 15, 2025
Queen Anne Meets Second Empire in Manchester

Queen Anne is an expansive style, with turrets and bays and oriels and all kinds of picturesque projections this way and that. When Queen Anne is compressed to the dimensions of a rowhouse, it takes on some of the vocabulary of the Second Empire style, in particular the full third floor under a mansard roof, but adds the irregularity we expect from Queen Anne, with its asymmetry and, of course, its turrets. These two houses on North Avenue are splendidly preserved examples of the collision of the two styles.

Canon PowerShot SX150IS; Nikon COOPLPIX P100; Kodak EasyShare Z1285.

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January 13, 2025