Tag: Towers

  • Mystery Mansion on Perry Hilltop

    Second Empire tower through bare branches

    Walking down Perrysville Avenue one day not long ago, Father Pitt spotted a distinctive outline through the branches. It was the tower of a Second Empire mansion.

    Mansion through the trees

    Old Pa Pitt was very excited. Here was a Second Empire mansion he had not known about before. That was very interesting. He started investigating, and found that the discovery was actually much more interesting than that.

    Historians of Perry Hilltop are earnestly invited to help us out with the history of this house, which has caught old Pa Pitt’s imagination. The house is in deplorable shape—especially the side you can see through the overgrown shrubbery from Perrysville Avenue, where billows of garbage seem to be spilling out of the building.

    2421 Perrysville Avenue

    But what is fascinating is that, where old Pa Pitt expected a Second Empire mansion, he found something much older. The shallow pitch of the roof and the broad expanse of flat white board underneath the roofline say “Greek Revival” in a loud voice.

    This appears to be the side of the house, although Father Pitt has reason for believing that it was originally the front. The large modern Perrysville Plaza apartment building is next to it, but walking around to the back of that building reveals the front of the house—with its distinctive Second Empire tower.

    Front of the house
    Front elevation

    The tower is pure Second Empire, but the roof still says Greek Revival. The house must have been Second Empired, probably in the 1880s. The attic windows in the gable ends were added then: they match the ones in the tower.

    Gable with attic windows
    Tower with matching windows
    Tower

    The Second Empire remodeling was not the last big change. You may have noticed that there is something a little off about the brick walls. This appears to have been a frame house originally. Old plat maps show it as a frame house through 1910; later maps show it as brick. A brick veneer must have been added at some time around the First World War. The new brick walls swallowed all the window frames and other trim that would have given us more clues about the original date.

    There was a house here belonging to the “Boyle Heirs” in 1872, the earliest plat map we have found. An 1882 map shows a carriage drive leading to the plank road that became Perrysville Avenue, with a circle at the end of the house near the road—bolstering old Pa Pitt’s guess that the end was originally the front.

    There are few Second Empire mansions remaining in Pittsburgh, and even fewer Greek Revival ones. This house ought to be preserved, but it probably will not be. The neighborhood is neglected enough that it has not even been condemned yet, which means that it will continue to decay until either it becomes an intolerable nuisance or the land becomes valuable enough to build something else on. Father Pitt will label it Critically Endangered.

    All we can do, therefore, is document that it exists, and Father Pitt has done the best he can do without trespassing.

    Tower
    Front of the mansion
    Bay
    Gable
    Perspective View of the House
    Bay, balcony, and porch
    Tower
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • East Liberty Presbyterian Church

    East Liberty Presbyterian Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

    Seen from the intersection of Baum Boulevard and Roup Avenue.


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  • Knoxville

    Knoxville, Pittsburgh

    The slopes of Knoxville, an independent borough until it was taken into Pittsburgh in 1927. Below, two very different towers: the tower of St. Canice on the left and the U. S. Steel Tower on the right.

    Two towers
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.

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  • St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Highland Park

    Perspective view of the church

    Built in 1905–1909, St. Andrew’s was designed by Carpenter & Crocker, who seem to have been favorites among the Episcopalians of Pittsburgh: they also designed the parish house for the cathedral downtown and St. James’ in Homewood, now the Church of the Holy Cross. This building is dominated by its outsized tower.

    St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
    West front
    Tower entrance
    Service schedule
    Gargoyle

    Very grouchy gargoyles guard the tower.

    Gargoyle
    Pinnacle

    An ornamental pinnacle on one corner of the tower.

    Side entrance

    The side entrance, with one of its lanterns.

    Lantern
    St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
    Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
  • St. Anne’s Church, Castle Shannon

    St. Anne’s Church

    Edward J. Schulte was a master of the modern in ecclesiastical architecture. Wherever he went, all over the United States, he left churches that were uncompromisingly modern in their details, but also uncompromisingly traditional in their adaptation to Christian worship. St. Anne’s, which was finished in 1962, is a fine example of his work.

    Date stone
    A date stone on the grounds.

    The details are modern, but the form of the church is perfectly adapted to the ancient Christian liturgy. Too many modern architects expected the liturgy to adapt to the building, but Mr. Schulte obviously knew Christian tradition.

    We might point to the baptistery as an illustration of what we mean.

    Baptistery of St. Anne’s

    It’s a strikingly modern building, bang up to date for the Kennedy administration. But in its form and position it reminds us of…

    Baptistery of Neon

    …the Baptistery of Neon in Ravenna, seen here in a photograph from A History of Architecture in Italy by Charles A. Cummings (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1901). Built in the late 300s or early 400s, it was originally an extension of a large basilica, just like this baptistery. The one in Ravenna is one of the oldest Christian buildings still standing; Mr. Schulte reached right back to Roman imperial days to find his inspiration.

    St. Anne’s with baptistery
    The church and tower

    The most striking feature of the church is a detached bell tower more than a hundred feet high.

    Philip Murray tower
    Philip Murray tower

    The tower was donated by the United Steelworkers of America in honor of Philip Murray, the union’s first president. St. Anne’s was his home parish, and he is buried in St. Anne’s Cemetery.

    This tower is dedicated to the memory of Philip Murray by theUnited Steelworkers of America, November 9, 1962
    Relief of St. Anne and St. Mary and inscription

    A relief of St. Anne and St. Mary is accompanied by a quotation from Psalm 44 in the Vulgate numbering (Psalm 45 in the numbering used in Protestant and newer Catholic Bibles).

    Base of the tower
    St. Anne
    St. Anne and St. Mary
    Base of the tower
    Base from the side
    Tower from the side
    Top of the tower with cross
    The west front of the church

    The (liturgical) west front of the church1 is a balaced composition in geometry and symbolism.

    West front
    St. Anne’s Church

    Some roof work was going on when old Pa Pitt visited. (Update: A parishioner informs us that the work was in the basement, including an elevator, which is doubtless why we saw workers on the roof.)

    St. Anne’s convent entrance

    The entrance to the convent.

    St. Anne’s Church
    St. Anne’s through a trellis
    Side entrance
    Side entrance
    Window
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
    1. In traditional churches, the altar end is always referred to as “east,” even when it is not in the east by the compass. The end opposite the altar, where the main entrance is traditionally placed, is thus the west, and if—as in this case—the compass says the west front faces northeast, then the compass is entitled to its opinion. ↩︎
  • Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church

    About this church old Pa Pitt knows only what you see in these pictures. The sign has not changed since 2021, but the grounds are still mowed and the building is in good shape. (Addendum: The congregation informed the Presbytery that it would close the church in 2022, according to a Pittsburgh Presbytery newsletter [PDF].) Its most prominent feature is its tower with eye-catchingly prickly battlements.

    Neville Island Presbyterian Church
    Oblique view of the front of the church
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285.
  • First Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis

    First Presbyterian Church

    This grand Gothic complex was one of two Presbyterian churches that stood on opposite corners of the same intersection. The other one was the First United Presbyterian (old Pa Pitt will probably never tire of that joke, which the Presbyterians hand to him on a silver platter). Eventually the United Presbyterian congregation united with this one, which is now known as the Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis, though it seems to have used the name Coraopolis Presbyterian relatively recently, when it picked the domain name for its Web site.

    The current lavish building was put up in 1929, as we learn from a postcard on the church’s history page, at a cost of $315,000 including furnishings.

    Cornerstone: First Presbyterian Church
    First Presbyterian Church
    First Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis
    Entrance
    Dransom
    Ornament
    Lantern
    Lantern
    First Presbyterian Church
    Now called Presbyterian Church of Coraopolis
    Tower
    Tower through branches
    Tower and tower entrance
    Tower and tower entrance
    School and office wing
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.
  • First United Presbyterian Church, Coraopolis

    First United Presbyterian Church

    This is a fine building in a good neighborhood, and you could buy it right now and move in. You might have to spend another million or so fixing it up, but the structure is sound and the interior of the sanctuary, from what we can see on that real-estate site, is intact in the most important details. It does need work, but the best parts of the interior are still there. If you are a congregation looking for a sanctuary, you can put your teenage members to work. That’s why you have youth groups, after all.

    The church was built in 1915; the architect was Thomas Hannah, a big deal in Pittsburgh architecture. Comparing the church today to an old postcard, we can see that nothing has changed on the outside.

    Old postcard of First United Presbyterian in Coraopolis

    Well, one thing has changed. The church accumulated decades of industrial grime, turning it into one of our splendid black-stone churches, and the blackness, though fading, has not been cleaned off. Father Pitt hopes the church will pass into the hands of someone who appreciates it in its current sooty grandeur.

    The other thing that is different is the long-gone building behind the church in the postcard. It was almost certainly the older sanctuary, probably kept standing as a social hall. It has been gone for years now.

    Front of the church

    The style of the church is what we might call Picksburgh Perpendicular, the common adaptation of Perpendicular Gothic to the more squarish auditorium-like form of Protestant churches that emphasized preaching over liturgy. Old Pa Pitt will admit that he does not like the stubby secondary tower on the left. It is probably very useful in providing space for a stairwell, but the two towers are too widely separated, as if they are not on speaking terms. The emphatic corner tower is the star of the show, and the other tower seems to be making an ineffectual attempt to upstage it. In spite of that quibble, though, this is a beautiful building that deserves appreciative owners.

    Side of the building
    Side from a different angle
  • Tower of the Courthouse

  • Fire Tower in Brookline