Among the few human-sized buildings left in the area, these two at the corner of Stanwix Street are dwarfed by the skyscrapers around them. The large windows suggest workshops of some sort on the upper floors; the tasteful ornamentation suggests prosperity.
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.
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.
The cornice and dormers are fine specimens of Victorian woodwork.
This modest apartment building (it looks as though the ground floor used to be a store) is enlivened by interesting brickwork.
On a storefront on Carson Street, South Side.
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.
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.
Even on a splendidly Victorian street like Carson Street on the South Side, this building stands out as unusually ornate.
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.
