Father Pitt would not hesitate to affirm that this is one of the finest blocks of Second Empire houses in North America. Manchester has had its difficulties, but it has some outstanding streetscapes to show us.
These houses were built in 1910, and nothing like their brisk modernity had been seen in Pittsburgh. Frederick Scheibler was our most adventurous modernist in those days, and these would have been approved by the Bauhaus ten or twenty years later.
The two houses on the upper end of the upper row have been kept in near-original condition, though they are in less than perfect shape.
In the rest of the row, different ownerships have sent the houses careening off in various directions.
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Like many architects of terraces like these, Scheibler repeated this design in multiple locations. Apparently both Scheibler and his clients considered the design a success. We’ll be seeing more of these little houses.
South 11th street is a narrow street of little rowhouses, many dating from before the Civil War. Here are a few random views on the southern end of the street.
A short evening stroll on two blocks’ worth of Boyle Street, one of those narrow rowhouse-lined streets on the North Side near Allegheny General Hospital. The street sign above is on a corner house; the sign probably dates from the late 1800s, and the house, though altered with new windows and other adaptations, may date from before the Civil War.
The basement door makes us think of Alice in Wonderland.
This Second Empire row was probably put up in the 1870s or 1880s, replacing earlier smaller houses. Thirty years ago this was a poor neighborhood, but now much restoration is being done, without wholesale displacement of the older residents.
You have a blank wall facing an alley? We can do something about that. The mural is by Jeremy Raymer, who has beautified many spots around the city, especially in Lawrenceville and on the North Side.
An Italianate house, again altered with new windows, but preserving a splendid doorframe and some original carved wooden brackets.
An unusually attractive small apartment building whose details are well preserved. Addendum: It was built in about 1910, and the architects were Allison & Allison.1
Philadelphia Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide, October 27, 1909, p. 684: “Architects Allison & Allison, Westinghouse Building, have prepared plans for a brick and cement apartment house, to be erected at Boyle and Hemlock streets, North Side, for W. B. Nelson. It will be of brick, with stone trimmings, hardwood finish, steam heat and electric lights.” Thanks to David Schwing. ↩︎
In the shadows of the ever-encroaching university and hospital buildings, these tiny rowhouses still survive in a little alley in the back streets of Oakland.
This row of houses on Alder Street in Shadyside has been attributed to Frederick Scheibler, Pittsburgh’s most famous home-grown modernist, by the guesswork of certain architectural historians. But Martin Aurand, Scheibler’s biographer, could find no evidence that Scheibler designed them. Then who was responsible for this strikingly modern early-twentieth-century terrace?
Old Pa Pitt is confident that he has the answer. The architect was T. Ed. Cornelius, who lived all his life in Coraopolis but was busy throughout the Pittsburgh area. We can be almost certain of that attribution because the houses in the middle of the row are identical to the ones in the Kleber row in Brighton Heights:
And the Brighton Heights houses were the subject of a photo feature in the Daily Post of March 5, 1916, in which T. Ed. Cornelius is named as the architect.
The Alder Street houses are bookended by larger double houses, one of which—this being Pittsburgh, of course—is an odd shape to fit the odd lot.
So remember the name of T. Ed. (which stands for Thomas Edward) Cornelius when you think of distinctive Pittsburgh architecture. It is quite a compliment to have your work mistaken for Frederick Scheibler’s.
Thomas Scott designed this terrace of four houses, built in 1912,1 and they are kept in remarkably fine shape. The updates have been handled with taste and an understanding of the original style, so that today there is hardly a finer Beaux-Arts terrace of cheap little rowhouses in the city. We have talked before about the challenge of making inexpensive housing seem attractive; it was a challenge that Scott met and conquered.
The doors of the two end units are framed in scrupulously proper Doric fashion.
The two inner units have these unique sawed-off arches over their front doors.
Source: The Construction Record, December 2, 1911: “Architect T. M. Scott, Machesney building, has completed plans for four 2-story brick residences, to be erected on Bergman street, Sheraden, for W. McCausland, 3022 Zephyr avenue, Sheridan. Cost $15,000.” McCausland still owned them in 1923, according to plat maps. ↩︎
Without moving an inch, these old houses have been on three different streets. They were built, probably just after the Civil War (since they appear on an 1872 plat map), on Chestnut Street. After the conquest of Allegheny by Pittsburgh, duplicate street names were eliminated—most often by changing the ones on the North Side, but in this case the Chestnut Street in what had been Allegheny was richer and more influential, so this became Hooper Street, defying the usual rule that the new name should begin with the same letter as the old. When the Lower Hill was deleted by “urban renewal,” Hooper and Washington Streets were merged to make Chatham Square. Through it all, these fairly modest houses have remained intact, and they seem secure now that Uptown is becoming more desirable again.
A pair of rowhouses whose elaborate Italianate details have been meticulously restored. And since, as longtime readers know, old Pa Pitt collects breezeways…
