Father Pitt

Tag: Schools

  • Homestead Senior High School

    Entrance to the Homestead Senior High School

    This snappy-looking modernistic school was designed by Button & McLean (Lamont H. Button and Paul F. McLean), who were taking bids in November of 1938.1 It was later bought by the Steel Valley Council of Governments, an association of boroughs and cities in the Mon Valley, which has turned it into a shop where you can take your humans to have them serviced.

    Homestead Senior High School

    When old Pa Pitt took these pictures, there was a band rehearsing somewhere in the building that included a pretty good vibraphone player.

    Homestead Senior High School
    Fukifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
    1. Proposals, Pittsburgh Press, November 30, 1938, p. 32. “Copies of plans, specifications and other contract documents will be on file and open to public inspection at the offices of the Architects, 119 East Montgomery Avenue, North Side, Pittsburgh, Pa.…” From many other listings we know that 119 East Montgomery Avenue—a street that no longer exists—was the office of Button & McLean. ↩︎
    Comments

  • St. Michael’s School, Braddock

    St. Michael’s School

    Titus de Bobula designed this school, built in 1904 for St. Michael’s, a Slovak parish. Although it has been altered here and there, enough remains to show us a very unusual mind at work.

    Front windows

    For example, who else would have given us the ragtime rhythm of these tall and narrow stairwell windows (later bricked in)?

    St. Michael’s School
    St. Michael’s School
    St. Michael’s School
    Pilaster capital

    These abstract pilaster capitals are echoed on the porch columns of the convent next door, also De Bobula’s work.

    Capital of porch column
    St. Michael’s Convent

    This building has also been altered (the roof is newer, and the third-floor dormer appeared only about a decade ago), but we can see that its details were calculated to match the school.

    St. Michael’s Convent
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans f/1.4 35mm lens; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR.
    Comments

  • Braddock Junior High School

    Braddock Junior High School

    Charles J. Rieger, late in a distinguished career (we first notice him in construction listings nearly forty years earlier), designed this Art Deco palace of education, which was built in 1938. It has been abandoned for years. In a trendy neighborhood, the building would make fine luxury apartments, and it could have a rehabilitation that would make the most of its classy Deco streamlining. This part of Braddock, however, is not likely to require luxury apartments in the near future.

    Braddock Junior High School
    Braddock Junior High School
    Braddock Junior High School
    Braddock Junior High School
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans f/1.4 35mm lens; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • Longfellow School, Swissvale

    Entrance

    Earlier known as the Deniston School, and now known as the Swissvale Schoolhouse Condominiums. Rieger & Currier (whose name is misspelled Courrier, Carrier, and any number of other ways in construction listings, but Currier is the spelling he used in his own signature) were the architects of this square Georgian school, built in 1902.

    Longfellow School

    The best old Pa Pitt can say about those outsized dormers that sprouted on the front recently is that they could be worse, and they could be scraped off in a future restoration with minimal damage to the appearance of the building.

    Perspective view
    Longfellow School
    Comments

  • St. Colman’s School, Turtle Creek

    St. Colman’s School

    Link, Weber & Bowers were the architects of this gorgeous school, and it is very cheering to see it getting a thorough renovation for a new life.

    Inscription: St. Colman’s School, 1928, For God and Country
    Entrance

    St. Colman was ripped off the face of his school, where he once stood over the entrance to greet students as they came in. Catholics often try to preserve the religious art from buildings they abandon, but as the number of buildings abandoned rises, the number of places to keep all that art dwindles. Father Pitt would suggest setting aside one vacant church—perhaps St. Anselm’s in Swissvale, which has plenty of room—as a museum of religious art, which could become a pilgrimage site and perhaps even bring about some conversions.

    St. Colman’s School
    St. Colman’s School
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • Dickson Public School, Swissvale

    Dickson Public School

    Now the Dickson Preparatory STEAM Academy, which sounds like a prep school for future boilermakers, this handsome modernistic school was designed by Rober McCartney and built in 1929. Updates have been done with a real appreciation of what makes the building work.

    Dickson Public School
    Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Park Place School

    Park Place School

    For some reason, Park Place is one of those neighborhoods that have no official existence on city planning maps. It is counted as part of Point Breeze South, but there is a considerable gap between the rest of Point Breeze South and Park Place, which slops over into Wilkinsburg, thus becoming one of the rare neighborhoods that ignore city boundaries. In fact the border goes through a number of buildings and houses.

    Ellsworth Dean was the architect of this Renaissance palace of education, which was built in 1903. It is now an “Environmental Charter School.” We assume that means children can have the unique experience of learning in an environment. (Actually, old Pa Pitt just looked up the school’s Web site, and now he is wishing there had been such things as Environmental Charter Schools when he was a tot back in pre-Revolutionary days.)

    Park Place School
    Park Place School
    Entrance to the Park Place School
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Sony Alpha 3000.
    Comments

  • Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, Oakland

    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children

    George S. Orth was the architect of this school, one of the first large institutional buildings in the Oakland district. It was built in 1894, and it still serves its original institution.

    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children

    The style is a sort of Flemish Renaissance filtered through Americanized Rundbogenstil. The horizontal stripes in the brickwork are such an instantly distinctive feature that they have been imitated in the school’s modern additions.

    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children
    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children
    Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
    Comments

  • St. Gabriel’s School, Marshall-Shadeland

    St. Gabriel’s School

    You may have noticed this old school if you looked out the window while your chauffeur drove you down the Ohio River Boulevard. It was built in 1922 for St. Gabriel’s, a Slovak parish, whose church stood across California Avenue from the school. In the late 1960s, when the expressway portion of the Ohio River Boulevard was built, the church was demolished; the congregation moved into the school while it built a big new modern church on the hill above. (We may see that building later: it still stands, though not in use as a church.)

    St. Gabriel’s School
    To get this picture of the front, Father Pitt had to stand on the narrow, sloping Belgian-block median between California Avenue and the ramp to the Ohio River Boulevard while cars whizzed by on both sides. Since he lived to bring the camera back, you have this picture.

    The school has been closed for years, but the building is kept standing. It seems to be in use as a warehouse.

    Cornerstone with A. D. 1922
    Crest with cross
    Cross ornament
    Ornamental shield
    St. Gabriel’s School
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990.
    Comments

  • Restoring the Beltzhoover Sub-District School

    Tower of Beltzhoover Sub-0District School

    We promised some cheerful news from the Hilltop neighborhoods, and here it is. The restoration of the old Beltzhoover Sub-District School, which is being turned into apartments, is being done with care and not a little ambition. The appearance of the original school, designed by W. J. Shaw, is being kept as close to original as practical, including new windows of the right size (never guaranteed when schools are converted). Beside it a whole new addition is going up, which will complement the style of the original school. The restored school will give Beltzhoover a building to be proud of, and we can hope that it may be one of the seeds of a neighborhood renaissance.

    School with construction fencing
    Addition
    Addition
    Beltzhoover Sub-District School
    Entrance and tower
    Date stone with date 1909
    Entrance
    Entrance
    Beltzhoover Sub-District School
    Rear of the school

    The school was set on a mound in the middle of a city block, with a lot of climbing for students no matter which street they entered from. (Palmetto Way, however, mounts the hill between the main streets, and will give residents a level entrance to the building.)

    Rear of the school
    Rear entrance
    Rear entrance
    Tower from the rear
    Kodak EasyShare Max Z990; Nikon COOLPIX P100.
    Comments