Father Pitt

Tag: Storefronts

  • Spanish Mission Style in Dormont

    A modest commercial building on Potomac Avenue, this is a good example of the Spanish Mission style in commercial buildings and apartment houses. The style—a kind of Eastern fantasy of the Southwest—is certainly not unknown elsewhere in the Pittsburgh area, but for some reason it was especially popular in Dormont, where numerous Mission-style buildings still stand. Doubtless the original roof overhang above the name was tile, and very probably green tile. Below, the building at Potomac and Glenmore Avenues retains its original green roof tiles.

  • Minnetonka Building, Shadyside

    Most pedestrians on Walnut Street pass this building without noticing it; at best they may glance at the rounded corners, but otherwise it strikes them as just another modernist building. It is in fact one of the very earliest outbreaks of modernism in Pittsburgh: it was designed by Frederick Scheibler and opened in 1908. It must have been startlingly modern indeed surrounded by Edwardian Shadyside.

  • Second Empire Storefront on Carson Street

    The cornice and dormers are fine specimens of Victorian woodwork.

  • Apartment Building, 17th and Sarah Streets, South Side

    This modest apartment building (it looks as though the ground floor used to be a store) is enlivened by interesting brickwork.

  • Cast-Iron Ornament

    On a storefront on Carson Street, South Side.

  • Founder’s Mark on a Cast-Iron Storefront

    Last week old Pa Pitt published this picture of a cast-iron storefront on 18th Street, South Side.

    Today, walking past the same building, he noticed an inscription at the base.

    This is the mark of the founder who cast the storefront, and we see that it was a very local business: East Birmingham was the borough that went from today’s 17th Street to about 27th Street.

  • Cast-Iron Storefront

    Cast-iron storefront, South 18th Street

    This unusual cast-iron storefront is on 18th Street at the intersection with Sarah Street. Its arches are echoed by the windows above, which still retain their original four-pane configuration.

  • Splendidly Victorian

    Even on a splendidly Victorian street like Carson Street on the South Side, this building stands out as unusually ornate.

  • Polithania State Bank

    Polithania state bank

    If you look up the word “Polithania” in your favorite search engine, you will find this building and nothing else. It was a bank and land office for Polish and Lithuanian immigrants (Poland and Lithuania have a long history of interconnection). Now it cleans teeth, but the original signs are still over the doors.

  • Second Empire

    Second Empire storefronts on Carson Street

    The Second Empire style is named after the Second French Empire of Napoleon III. Its most obvious characteristic is the mansard roof with dormers, which supposedly arose in France because, in buildings that were taxed by their interior space, attics were not taxed, and the space under the roof counted as an attic no matter how accommodating it was. The building here at the corner of Carson and 18th Streets is a splendid example of the Pittsburgh implementation of the style.