Father Pitt

Tag: Snaman (William)

  • Rosenbaum’s Warehouse, Chateau

    Rosenbaum’s warehouse

    This was a warehouse and looks like a warehouse. It was built for Rosenbaum’s, one of the big department stores downtown; the architect was William E. Snaman, who had made a specialty of the department-store business.

    Rosenbaum’s warehouse

    As a building it is not a great work of art: it is one of those buildings that, as Philip Friedman said of his own works, “are admittedly far less esthetic achievements than economic realities.” But it is a bit of Pittsburgh history that will disappear at some point, as its neighbors have already done.

    Rubble of demolished warehouses

    These piles of rubble mark the graves of two warehouses—one of which belonged to Donahoe’s grocery, and therefore might also have been designed by Snaman, since he designed the Donahoe’s building downtown. They have been demolished to make way for the immense Esplanade development, which is scheduled to eat up this building as well.

    Rubble and warehouse
    Casement windows

    Some of the original casement windows, usually the first things to go when a building is renovated, are still in this building.

    Casement windows
    Rosenbaum warehouse
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS; Ansco Memar with AristaEDU ISO 100 film.

    It would be hard to make a case that the Esplanade development will not be a better use of this land than a plain old warehouse, or even that this would be a good building to restore for apartments or offices. It will not be much regretted when it is gone; but as one of the last relics of a once-mighty department store, it is worth remembering with these pictures.

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  • Apartment Building with Storefronts by William E. Snaman in Dormont

    2895–2899 West Liberty Avenue

    It would have been a better composition with the original ground floor, but even so the upper two-thirds are attractive. We attribute this building to William E. Snaman because it is the only apartment building in the vicinity built at the right time to match this listing:

    The Construction Record, October 30, 1915. “George E. McKee, Alger street, was awarded the contract for erecting a three-story brick store and apartment building on West Liberty avenue, Dormont, for Mrs. Mary Ivol, 6268 West Liberty avenue, Dormont. Plans by Architect W. E. Snaman, Empire building. Cost $10,000.”

    Wreath in stained glass
    Apartment building at Tennessee and West Liberty Avenues
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • The Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, Highland Park

    Howard, Norfolk, and Delaware from up the street

    When we last saw this triple building, it was getting a fresh coat of paint. The new color scheme looks much better, and old Pa Pitt offers his congratulations to the people with taste at Mozart Management.

    The Norfolk

    The three connected buildings were put up in 1901 as the Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk, and we can just barely make out the ghosts of the inscriptions above the entrances. The architect was William E. Snaman.1 The Norfolk, above, preserves the original appearance. In the other two, the balconies have been filled in to make closets, and they looked forbiddingly blank with the old paint scheme; the more artistic new scheme at least emphasizes the surviving trim.

    Eaglemoor Apartments
    Pediment of the Norfolk
    The Howard, the Delaware, and the Norfolk
    1. Source: Pittsburg Post, September 25, 1900. “It developed yesterday that ex-Mayor Bernard McKenna and a syndicate of local capitalists will be the owners of the three apartment houses now in course of erection in the Highland avenue residence district, particulars of which were announced in this column last week. They were designed by Architect William E. Snaman, and the contract for their erection has been let to L. E. Umstead, of Allegheny. Each will stand on a lot 40×100 feet each at Highland avenue and Bryant street, and will be of brick and stone, and three stories high. When completed and ready for occupancy the houses will represent an investment of over $100,000.” Thanks to David Schwing for finding the clipping. ↩︎
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  • Two Department-Store Warehouses by William E. Snaman

    Frank & Seder Warehouse
    These pictures are from a year and a half ago, but old Pa Pitt just ran across them. You never know what you’ll find if you look behind the sofa.

    Frank & Seder was never our biggest department store, but it was a pretty big store. Like all the other department stores downtown, it needed a big warehouse to hold the merchandise until it was ready to delight downtown shoppers. This colossus on the Bluff was designed in 1923 by William E. Snaman,1 an architect who had already had a long and prosperous career and by this time in his life was specializing in large warehouses and other industrial buildings. The Boulevard of the Allies runs past on a course that is not perpendicular to the side streets, so that the front of the building is at an odd angle to the rest of the building.

    A different angle
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

    Just a little later, Snaman was designing another warehouse on the North Side for Rosenbaum’s, another big downtown department store.2 This is a slightly blurred picture from the window of a car stopped in traffic on the approach to the West End Bridge, but it will have to do for now.

    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    1. Source: The American Contractor, February 3, 1923: “Warehouse & Garage: $200,000. 7 sty. & bas. 88×200. 1819–23 Bluff st. Archt. & Engr. W. E. Snaman, Empire bldg. Owner The Frank & Weder [sic] Co., Isaac Sedar [sic], pres., Fifth av. & Smithfield st. Brk. Drawing prelim. Plans.” The building as it stands is five storeys. ↩︎
    2. Source: The American Contractor, November 10, 1923: “Warehouse (add.): $500,000. 4 sty. & bas. 159×291. Brk. Beaver av. & Fayette st. Archt. & Bldr. W. E. Snaman, Empire bldg. Owner The Rosenbaum Co., Max Rothschild, pres., 6th & Penn avs. Revising plans.” The “addition” in this listing is most of the building, except for the three-storey section in front. It seems likely that Snaman was responsible for that, too. ↩︎
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  • Terra-Cotta Pilasters on the Donahoe Building

    Terra-cotta front of the Donahoe’s building

    Donahoe’s was a prosperous market and restaurant that commissioned William E. Snaman to design this elegant commercial palace on Forbes Avenue. Its striking terra-cotta front is still magnificent from the second floor up.

    Evening sun paints the pilasters gold

    The ground floor has been completely redesigned, though “designed” is a generous term, as we see in this picture from 2022.

    Donahoe’s Building

  • Neeld House, Beechview

    Neeld House from the front

    Here is a slightly bedraggled house with an interesting history. Long before there was a Beechview, the Neelds owned considerable property on that hill—68⅔ acres in 1890, according to an old map. Neelds were here at least as early as 1862. They built a house here in the late 1800s, possibly as early as the 1870s. By 1915, the Neelds had sold off much of the property to the Beechwood Improvement Company (which had planned on calling the neighborhood Beechwood, but things happen), but they still kept the whole block bounded by Broadway, Neeld Avenue, Candace Street, and Shiras Avenue. In that year, C. W. Neeld commissioned William Snaman, a prolific architect of houses for the wealthy merchant classes, to remodel his house, and Snaman Tudorized it so effectively that we would hardly guess it had been older than 1915.

    Neeld house

    The orientation of that chimney on the left is a clue to the history of the house: it suggests that Snaman reoriented it, and the front was originally on the left side. We note that the address was given as “Candace avenue” in 1915, before Snaman got to work, whereas the front of the house now faces Neeld Avenue.

    Neeld House from uphill

    Neeld Avenue, by the way, is a good example of how confusing Beechview street names can be. It was Neeld Avenue in 1910. By 1923, it had become Narragansett Street. Today it is Neeld Avenue, though Father Pitt does not know exactly when the name reverted.

    Ranch house and Neeld House

    After the Second World War, the Neelds sold off most of the land in the block, retaining only enough for the house and garage. Ranch houses went up on Candace Street, and modernist apartment buildings went up on Broadway.

  • Donahoe Building

    Donahoe Building, now CVS Pharmacy

    This splendid terra-cotta façade on Forbes Avenue used to belong to Donahoe’s Market and Cafeteria (note the D above every second-floor window). Father Pitt enjoys the challenge of getting a complete picture of a large façade on a narrow street. Here the stitching has succeeded admirably; except for a little distortion at the ends of the building, this is probably just how the architect drew the upper floors. Old Pa Pitt doubts whether an architect had anything to do with the current incarnation of the ground floor; it looks like the work of a contractor who had a brother-in-law in the corrugated-steel trade.

    Addendum: According to the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, the original architect of the Donahoe Building was William E. Snaman.