Tag: Terra Cotta

  • Congregation Poale Zedeck, Squirrel Hill

    Congregation Poale Zedeck

    This beautiful building shows some obvious influence from Henry Hornbostel’s famous Rodef Shalom, but it is original enough to be called a tribute rather than an imitation. The architects were Charles J. and Chris Rieger, and it is a backhanded compliment to these underappreciated brothers that some of their best works have been misattributed to more famous architects. This building in particular is usually attributed to Alexander Sharove, but we are quite sure that the Riegers designed it.1 The cornerstone was laid in 1928, and the building was dedicated in September of 1929.

    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Cornerstone
    Cornerstone
    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Entrance, Congregation Poale Zedeck

    The entrance, which is where the Hornbostel influence is most obvious, is a feast of polychrome terra cotta and stained glass.

    Menorah
    Menorah in stained glass
    Star of David
    Tablets of the Law
    Entrance
    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Congregation Poale Zedeck
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • The Morrowfield, Squirrel Hill

    “Morrowfield” in terra cotta

    The Morrowfield is that big building that looms ahead as you approach the Squirrel Hill Tunnel on the Parkway from downtown Pittsburgh. It was built in 1924 as part of a huge development promoted by developer Thomas Watkins as “a city set on a hill,” and most of the buildings—including this one—were designed by the architect J. E. Dwyer, originally from Ellicott City, who built himself a house right next to the site and spent years supervising construction projects.

    The Morrowfield

    In this map from “A City That Is Set on a Hill,” Building Age, December, 1923, p. 36, the big rectangle marked “148 FAMILY APARTMENT” would become the Morrowfield.

    Dwyer’s elevation of the Morrowfield

    The same article printed the architect’s elevation of the new apartment building, spread across two pages. We have taken some pains to restore it to legibility.

    The Morrowfield under construction
    “Utilizing the Street Grade in Hillside Apartments,” Building Age, October, 1924.

    The building went up at a breakneck pace, with crews doing everything all at once. It was finished in less than a year. Below, “Steel work in the early stages showing the brick filler walls being laid before the concrete work was begun, to rush the job along.”

    The Morrowfield under construction

    By the time the October, 1924, issue of Building Age came out (from which the pictures of the construction above were taken), the whole project was complete, and this photograph of the building from a distance was taken in time to make it into the magazine.

    Entrance
    Entrance with marquee

    The entrance is liberally decorated with polychrome terra cotta.

    Terra Cotta
    Terra cotta at the entrance
    Detail of the entrance
    Morrowfield Avenue side

    The building of this project was watched nationally, because it was unusual to place such a large building on such a difficult lot. The architect’s elevation shows the slope of Murray Avenue along the front; here we can see that Morrowfield Avenue, on the right-hand side (in terms of the elevation), slopes upward even more dramatically. Then the street behind, Alderson Street, slopes upward again, so that the ground-floor entrances on Alderson Street are three floors up from the main entrance on Murray Avenue.

    Alderson Street side

    From that same article in Building Age:

    The Morrowfield Apartments presents an interesting study in the effective utilization of exceptional grades. The front elevation faces a western street that is 30 feet lower than the street level in the rear, and a grade running north and south affects the building lengthwise as well as in depth.

    The consequence is that the apartment is partly seven and partly eight stories high in front, and only five stories in the rear. What is really the fourth story when seen from the south elevation, is the first when seen from the rear, and the occupants of the fourth story front are therefore enabled to reach their apartments without the use of stairs or elevator by simply coming in the other street.

    Entrance on the Alderson Street side
    Alderson Street side
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
  • A Handsome Warehouse in the Strip

    1649 Penn Avenue

    A century ago, if we read our old maps right, this building was a garage—and probably warehouse—for the Pennsylvania Motor Sales Corp. The ground floor now houses a large Asian market full of delicious things; the upper floors still seem to be used for storage. The original windows are still in the upper floors, making this an unusually well-preserved example of commercial architecture of the First World War period.

    Decorative tile

    The utilitarian square front (whose proportions are already dignified) is livened up by brightly colored tile decorations.

    1649 Penn Avenue
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Some Details of Horne’s Department Store

    Inscription: Joseph Horne Co., with dates 1849 and 1897

    The history of the Horne’s building is a complicated one. The original building was one of the last works of William S. Fraser, one of the most prominent Pittsburgh architects of the second half of the nineteenth century. Only a few years after it opened, a huge fire burned out much of the interior. Some of the original remained, but, since Fraser had died, Horne’s brought in Peabody & Stearns, a Boston firm that also had an office in Pittsburgh, to design the 1897 reconstruction. Another fire hit the building in 1900, but most of it was saved. You can see a thorough report on the fire, with pictures, at The Brickbuilder for May, 1900.

    Horne’s department store

    In 1922, a large expansion was added to the building along the Stanwix Street side, with the style carefully matched to the 1897 original. The new building was taller by one floor, but all the details were the same, including the ornate terra-cotta cornice.

    Cornice meets cornice
    Entrance to the 1922 section of Horne’s
    Inscription with dates 1849 and 1922
    Horne’s clock
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The Horne’s clock, a later addition, is not as famous as the Kaufmann’s clock, but it served the same purpose as a meeting place for shoppers. It is once again keeping the correct time.

  • Faces on the Keenan Building

    Keenan Building

    The Keenan Building, designed by Thomas Hannah for the Colonel Keenan who had built the Press into the city’s leading newspaper, was elaborately decorated. Although the shaft was modernized somewhat half a century ago, most of the decorations remain, and among them we find portraits in terra cotta of people who were considered important to Pittsburgh when the building was erected in 1907.

    William Penn

    William Penn, the Proprietor, who gave Pennsylvania a republican form of government.

    William Pitt

    William Pitt, friend of the Colonies, for whom Pittsburgh was named.

    George Washington

    George Washington, Father of His Country.

    Stephen Foster

    Stephen Foster, at the time Pittsburgh’s most famous composer.

    Mary Schenley

    Mary Schenley, who owned half the city and donated Schenley Park.

    Andrew Carnegie

    Andrew Carnegie, who was a big deal.

    Theodore Roosevelt

    Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States.

    Edwin Stuart

    Edwin Stuart, Governor of Pennsylvania.

    George Guthrie

    George Guthrie, Mayor of Pittsburgh.

    Terra-cotta ornaments
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    There are faces on the second floor as well, but they are identical decorative faces.


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  • Isaly’s Building, Oakland

    Isaly’s Building

    The McCormick Company, a firm that seems to have specialized in buildings for the food industry, designed this beloved landmark on the Boulevard of the Allies. It was built in 1929 for Isaly’s, a chain of dairy-delicatessen-restaurants that had begun in Ohio but took over the Pittsburgh market in a big way. At its peak, there was an Isaly’s in just about every neighborhood business district. This building had a big Isaly’s restaurant on the ground floor.

    Terra-cotta panels

    Today the building is given over to medical offices, but the Art Deco details are still well preserved.

    A feast of terra cotta
    Isaly’s Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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  • Soho Public Baths

    Soho Public Baths

    Built in 1907–1908, this splendid bathhouse was designed by Carpenter & Crocker,1 who did the whole ground-floor front in terra cotta.

    This bathhouse served Soho, once a crowded neighborhood of tiny houses, many without indoor plumbing; long lines would form on Saturday nights as the working classes took their one chance to get clean. Almost all the houses are gone, and most of the other buildings, leaving overgrown foundations; this stretch of Fifth Avenue is spookily deserted. Even the neighborhood has ceased to exist in Pittsburghers’ imaginations. Soho once referred to the area around the north end of today’s Birmingham Bridge, but there is no such place now on city planning maps. What used to be Soho is divided officially between “Bluff,” “West Oakland,” and “South Oakland.” Soho is generally mentioned only when Andy Warhol comes up, because he was born there; but if you ask where Soho was, Wikipedia will tell you it is a synonym for Uptown, which it will also tell you is the same as the Bluff. (In fact the house where Andy Warhol was born, now a patch of woods on a deserted street, is in the part designated West Oakland by the city.)

    This building was in use more recently than most, but it, too, has been left to rot. It is one of only three or four standing public baths in the city, only one of which—the Oliver Bathhouse—is still serving its original purpose.

    Public Baths

    Old Pa Pitt painted out the close-up graffiti in this picture, because they were distracting, and because if street gangs want to advertise on his site, they can pay for it.

    Soho Public Baths
    Soho Public Baths
    Soho Public Baths
    Balcony
    Ornament with cartouche
    Frieze
    Lintel
    Cartouche
    Keystone
    Soho Public Baths
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

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  • Carnegie Carnegie

    Carnegie Free Library

    Officially the Andrew Carnegie Free Library, or the Carnegie Free Library by the inscription over the door, but the name “Carnegie Carnegie” is obvious and irresistible and adopted for the library’s Web site.

    Carnegie Carnegie

    When the two Chartiers Valley boroughs of Mansfield and Chartiers merged in 1894, they decided to name the new town Carnegie after what was probably the most familiar name in the Pittsburgh area. In return, Andrew Carnegie gave them the jaw-dropping sum of $200,000 for this magnificent building (designed by Struthers & Hannah), plus money for books and—unusually for Carnegie—an endowment. His usual agreement with towns that took a library from him was that the town must undertake the upkeep, thus making the citizens ultimately responsible for their library; but in a few steel towns (where we suppose he felt more personally responsible) he endowed the library with enough of a fund to keep it going indefinitely.

    Inscriptions: 1899 and Carnegie Free Library
    Entrance to the Music Hall
    Hall

    Like Carnegie’s other steel-town libraries, this one was not just a library. It also had a music hall, a gymnasium, and a lecture hall.

    Window of the Music Hall, with terra-cotta lyre

    Note the terra-cotta lyre over this window on the music-hall front of the building. Today the music hall is still delighting audiences, and the library sticks to its mission of being a welcoming place to go read a book.

    Entrance
    Capitals

    Columns of the Composite order, the most elaborate of the five classical orders, send the message that this is not just a library but a palace for the people.

    Lobby

    The lobby lets us know that we have entered a building of unusual richness. Marble panels cover the walls, and mosaic tile decorates the floor.

    Tile
    Foot of the stairs

    The Greek-key pattern in the tile is repeated in the risers in the stairs.

    Plaque: This building and park given and dedicated by Andrew Carnegie to the citizens of this borough, anno domini 1899
    Lobby
    Upstairs

    On the second floor of the building is an extraordinarily well-preserved post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and Father Pitt will try to return soon for some pictures of the room.

    View from the second-floor balcony
    Interior of the Carnegie Free Library

    The interior of the library itself mimics the experience of being a rich man with a big library—like old Col. Anderson, whose library was Carnegie’s model. You walked in, sat in front of a big fireplace, and had servants bring you books, and for an hour or two you were just as wealthy as Carnegie himself.

    Fireplace

    Open stacks have eliminated the servants, but the fireplace is still there, with a familiar face over the mantel.

    Portrait of Andrew Carnegie
    Interior with circulation desk
    Reading room

    In days of gaslights and low-wattage early electric bulbs, natural light from outside was still important for a reading room. Fortunately no one ever had the money to block up these windows.

    Window from the outside
    Window

    All the windows are surrounded with elaborate terra-cotta decorations.

    Carnegie Free Library
    Perspective view of the library and rear of the Music Hall
    Erected A. D. 1899.
    Sony Alpha 3000; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • Harry Darlington House, Allegheny West

    Harry Darlington house

    One room wide and a block deep, the Harry Darlington house stuffs its lot to capacity.

    Fourth-floor balcony
    Gable ornament

    Elaborate terra-cotta decorations enliven the face of the house.

    Ornament
    Terra cotta
    Letitia Holmes house and Harry Darlington house
    Kodak EasyShare Z981; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • May Building

    May Building

    Charles Bickel designed the May Building, and—as he often did—he made liberal use of terra cotta in the ornaments.

    Capital
    Cornice and capital
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    More pictures of the May Building.


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