Father Pitt

Tag: Rundbogenstil

  • Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield

    Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield

    Carson Street on the South Side is reputed to be one of the best-preserved Victorian streetscapes in America. Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield may not come quite up to that standard, but it is probably second in Pittsburgh. The commercial district was built up in the 1880s and 1890s. Like Carson Street, it preserves many Victorian commercial buildings, along with a peppering of later styles. These pictures are all of the northeast side, because the sun was behind the southwest side.

    4723 Liberty Avenue

    A good example of the most basic form of Pittsburgh Rundbogenstil, the German hybrid of classical and Romanesque architecture that old Pa Pitt mentions every chance he gets because he likes to say “Rundbogenstil.” In the 1800s, before it became the most Italian of our Italian neighborhoods, Bloomfield was mostly German.

    4727 Liberty Avenue

    A Second Empire building from the 1880s.

    4753 Liberty Avenue

    This building dates from the 1890s. It probably had a date and inscription in that crest at the top of the façade, but later owners obliterated the evidence.

    4729 Liberty Avenue

    We saw this 1924 building before at dusk; here it is in bright sunlight. The bright light gives us a chance to appreciate the decorative details with a long lens.

    Balcony
    Balcony
    Sidewalk of Liberty Avenue
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.
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  • Masonic Hall, North Side

    Masonic Hall

    Bartberger & East were the architects of this Masonic Hall, which sat derelict and in danger of demolition for many years. (The Bartberger of the partnership was Charles M. Barberger, the younger of the two Charles Bartbergers.)1 Now it is beautifully restored as a center of literary culture, which teaches us not to lose hope.

    Inscription: “Masonic Hall”

    The building was put up in 1893, as you can tell by reading the super-secret Masonic code in terra cotta on the front: “A. L. 5893.” “A. L.” stands for anno lucis, “in the year of light,” a Masonic dating system that takes the creation of the world as its starting point. At the risk of suffering the fate of William Morgan, old Pa Pitt will reveal the secret calculation that converts A. L. dates to our Gregorian calendar: subtract 4000.

    A. L.
    58
    93
    Reddour Street entrance

    Like most lodge buildings of the time, this one had the main assembly hall upstairs, leaving rentable storefronts on the ground floor. The side entrance on Reddour Street, which led up to the main hall, is festooned with carvings by Achille Giammartini.

    Stonecarving by Achille Giammartini
    Perspective view
    Front of the hall
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Sony Alpha 3000; FujiFilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Eberhardt & Ober Brewery, Dutchtown

    Eberhardt & Ober brewery

    These pictures were taken in 1999 with a Lubitel twin-lens-reflex camera, and old Pa Pitt just happened to run across them a while ago. Very little has changed, and we could probably pass these off as current pictures without remark. The main building is one of the relatively few remaining substantial works of Joseph Stillburg, who for a while was one of the major architectural forces in Pittsburgh. His buildings occupied prominent locations, and most of them were therefore replaced later by even bigger buildings.

    Eberhardt & Ober Brewery

  • Emsworth United Presbyterian Church

    Emsworth United Presbyterian Church

    In the late 1800s, frame churches with acres of shingles, like this one, went up all over the Pittsburgh area. Few have survived; most of them were later replaced by larger and more substantial buildings. Even fewer have survived with their shingles and wood siding intact. Although the congregation dissolved in 2022, this building has been taken over by a catering company that has kept it in original shape.

    Belfry
    Emsworth United Presbyterian Church
    Gable
    Emsworth United Presbyterian Church
    Side of the church
    Gable
    Service schedule
    Window
    Window
    Emsworth United Presbyterian Church

  • Three Buildings on Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield

    Three buildings on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    Three different buildings, three different styles: polyphony makes harmony in the streetscape.

  • Building at Pearl Street and Liberty Avenue, Bloomfield

    4701 Liberty Avenue

    This building was put up between 1903 and 1910, and that is all old Pa Pitt knows about it. The extra-tall third floor looks like a lodge meeting hall, but it does not appear on maps as a lodge. The ground floor was a bank for many years. The building is going through a thorough renovation now, including new windows all around, fortunately the right size for the window openings.

    Pearl Street is not quite perpendicular to Liberty Avenue, so this building has the common Pittsburgh problem of an obtuse angle to solve. You might not notice the solution unless you look closely.

    Odd angle at cornice level
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

  • St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, Strip

    St. Stanislaus Kostka Church

    Frederick Sauer designed St. Stanislaus Kostka, which was built in 1891. The church presides dramatically over the broad plaza of Smallman Street. It used to look out on a sea of railroad tracks, but its view improved considerably when the Pennsylvania Railroad built its colossal Produce Terminal.

    Rear of St. Stanislaus Kostka
    Tower of St. Stanislaus Kostka
    Rectory of St. Stanislaus Kostka
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    It is probable that the rectory, done in a matching style, was also designed by Sauer. The glass blocks are not an improvement, but they have kept the building standing and in use.

  • Union Church, Robinson Township

    Union Church and Cemetery

    Father Pitt thinks this is the most picturesquely sited church in Allegheny County. On a day of rapidly changing lighting, he captured it in multiple moods.

    The cemetery is stuffed with Revolutionary War veterans, and several of them will be appearing over at Pittsburgh Cemeteries.

    Union Church in sunlight with dark clouds
    Union Church
    Tower
    Union Church
    Union Church
    Union Church and Cemetery
    Union Church in an HDR photo
    Side of the church
    Union Church in sun with blue sky
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

  • Pittsburgh Foundry Office, South Side

    Pittsburgh Foundry office

    This tidy little building in the back streets of the near South Side was built as the office for the Pittsburgh Foundry plant. The style brings a bit of Arts-and-Crafts to the usual industrial Romanesque. Note the patterned bricks.

    Corner view
    HDR images from a Kodak EasyShare Z1285 set to bracket three exposures at intervals of 1 EV.

  • Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    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.

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church
    Oblique view of the front of the church
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285.