Tag: Terra Cotta

  • 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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  • Ritz Apartments, Brookline

    Ritz Building

    Perhaps not quite as ritzy as they would be in another neighborhood, but for prosperous working-class Brookline this is a fine building. The stone-fronted ground floor is topped by two floors of stone-colored white Kittanning brick, making a rich impression; and clever little decorations made from what look like terra-cotta remnants brighten what might otherwise be a monotonous façade.

    Cornice
    Terra-cotta diamonds
    Nikon COOLPIX P100

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  • Plaza Theatre, Bloomfield

    Plaza Theatre

    The Plaza lingered on to the end of the twentieth century as a movie house, but it finally went the way of most neighborhood cinemas. Fortunately the beautiful and distinctive façade has been preserved.

    Dormer and cornice

    The green-tiled roof is the first thing you notice. The little round-topped dormers give the building the look of a European palace.

    Terra cotta

    Terra-cotta suppliers got rich on movie houses like this one.

    Plaza Theatre

    The marquee has been kept, which is lucky, because it was an important part of the look of the building.

    Marquee
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

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  • Highland Building, East Liberty

    Highland Building, East Liberty
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    A long view down Baum Boulevard. This is the only remaining skyscraper in East Liberty. Another of about the same dimensions, designed by Frederick Osterling, used to stand next to it, but was torn down for a one-storey bank, which in turn was abandoned for years and then torn down for a six-storey apartment block with storefronts—East Liberty’s history as a neighborhood epitomized in one lot. The skyscraper apartment buildings designed by Tasso Katselas in the “urban renewal” years are also gone. This one, designed by Daniel Burnham, has Burnham’s usual elegant classicism. In some ways Burnham was one of the most adventurous architects the United States ever produced, but part of the secret to his success was his ability to use the most modern technology to please the most conservative taste.


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  • Point Breeze Presbyterian Church

    St. Paul Baptist Church

    Now St. Paul Baptist Church. Built in 1887, it was designed by Brooklyn architect Lawrence B. Valk, whose church designs can be found all over the country. (In about 1900, Valk and his son moved to Los Angeles, where they became bungalow specialists but continued turning out the occasional church.)

    Point Breeze Presbyterian Church

    The tower with its huge open Romanesque arch dominates the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Penn Avenue. After the tower, the most eye-catching thing is the porch, with its even huger arch and its crust of terra-cotta tiles.

    Porch
    Porch roof with terra cotta
    Side of the porch
    Tower
    Side entrance

    The side entrance also gets a big arch, and even the basement door gets a stony arched porch.

    Basement entrance
    Rear of Point Breeze Presbyterian Church
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Samsung Galaxy A15 5G.

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  • B. F. Jones Mansion, Allegheny West

    Magnolias at the entrance to the B. F. Jones house

    Rutan & Russell, both of whom had worked for H. H. Richardson, designed this immense Jacobean pile for steel baron Benjamin Franklin Jones, Jr., son of the Jones of Jones & Laughlin. It was finished in 1910. The terra-cotta company must have made its numbers for the entire year supplying the ornaments for this house, right down to the address over the entrance.

    808 in terra cotta
    B. F. Jones house

    The house now belongs to the Community College of Allegheny County, which keeps the exterior perfect.

    B. F. Jones house
    B. F. Jones house
    Dormer
    Window
    Terra-cotta panels
    Downspout

    Even the downspouts are works of art.

    Corner of the roof
    Magnolias
  • Let Spear Feather Your Nest

    Spear & Company

    For a century, this section of Penn Avenue was the furniture district, and Spear and Company had one of the largest stores. The building was designed by Charles Bickel, who festooned it with terra cotta in blue and white.

    The picture above comes from 1915. The original is at Historic Pittsburgh; Father Pitt has brightened the shadows a little to bring out more detail.

    Terra Cotta
    Terra cotta
    Blue and white terra cotta
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

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  • Garden Theater, North Side

    Garden Theater, North Side

    Built in 1914, the Garden was designed by Thomas Scott, who was responsible for a large number of buildings on the North Side and lived within walking distance of this one. Its last years as a theater were a bit disreputable, but it was spared the drastic exterior changes most other theaters suffered. It is now on its way to a new life as an apartment building; and, while we wish it might have been made a reputable theater again, at least the splendid terra-cotta front will be preserved.

    Front elevation
    Pediment
    Garden Theater
    Garden Theater
    Garden Theater
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

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