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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.)
This picture was taken on a dim winter day from a very long distance, and therefore is soupy with noise reduction if you look at it too closely. But it makes its point: the restoration and conversion of the old Beltzhoover Sub-District School is proceeding with decent respect for the design of the original architect, William J. Shaw. Note the brand-new windows in the correct size and shape.
According to Wikipedia and the National Register of Historic Places and the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and numerous books and so on and so forth, the architects of Westinghouse High School were Ingham & Boyd. So you can just take the story as it comes to you, or you can can do what Father Pitt can’t stop himself from doing: keep pulling at a loose thread until the whole story unravels and has to be woven again.
The loose thread was that old Pa Pitt kept running across construction listings that said George S. Orth & Brother were designing a Homewood-Brushton High School in the middle teens of the last century. For a long time Father Pitt had just assumed that the project fell through, and later Ingham & Boyd were hired to design the school that was actually built in 1921. But then he found this elevation of the school as designed by the Orths:
It was printed in the Year Book of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club, Incorporated, for 1916—long before the current school was built in 1921. But even a casual glance shows that it is fundamentally the school that stands today. Details are different, but the three-arched entrance, the blank walls on the projections at the ends of the building, the exact number and proportion of the windows, and so on, are all the same.
So why are the Orths not credited as the architects of Westinghouse?
The Wikipedia article on Westinghouse High School explains it, though without mentioning the change of architects. Digging for the foundation of the school began in 1915, while the Orths were still frantically scribbling their final drawings. But then the bids from the construction contractors came in, and they were shockingly high. The school board decided to wait for a little bit. Then there was a big war, and the construction didn’t actually begin until 1921.
So much we can learn from Wikipedia. The article does not mention the Orths, however, so it does not inform us that George S. Orth died in 1918, and Brother (his name was Alexander Beatty Orth) died in 1920. Having gone to a better place, the Orths were not inclined to finish the supervision of the project, so new architects had to be found. Enter Ingham & Boyd.
Comparing the Orths’ drawing with the school as it stands shows us that Ingham & Boyd took over the original plans, but adapted them to their own taste. They made the design more rigorously classical, changed the partly brick walls to all stone, simplified the ornamentation, and added inscriptions (a typical Ingham & Boyd touch) to the blank walls. But the main outlines were already established by George S. Orth & Brother.
Having sifted through the history of Westinghouse High School, we must say that Ingham & Boyd did the larger part of the work. They not only remade the plans in a more modern style, but also supervised the construction and dealt with the school board as the costs kept rising, which must have required patience and many soothing words.
But the original design belongs to George S. and Alexander Beatty Orth, and they deserve the credit for it. It will probably take a long time for that truth to percolate through the many repositories of Pittsburgh architectural history. But, as the book of I Esdras says…
THE GLADSTONE SCHOOL O. M. Topp, Architect, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1916]VIEW SHOWING PORTION NOW FINISHED THE GLADSTONE SCHOOL O. M. Topp, Architect, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1916]PLAN SHOWING THE COMPLETED BUILDING THE GLADSTONE SCHOOL O. M. Topp, Architect, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania [1916]
After sitting vacant for two decades, the main part of the school has been restored as apartments, much to the delight of nearby residents. One neighbor on the same street told old Pa Pitt he had been a student at the school, and was very happy to see the building taken care of once again—and happy to see someone documenting it with a camera.
If you visit, don’t forget to look up at the downspouts.
The population of the neighborhood rapidly grew, and an annex was added in 1926, connected to the main school by a pedestrian bridge. Restoration of the annex is still in progress.
