Father Pitt

Tag: War Memorials

  • Allegheny Arsenal Powder Magazine, Lawrenceville

    Allegheny Arsenal Powder Magazine

    Benjamin Henry Latrobe, much more famous for his work on the United States Capitol, was Pittsburgh’s first resident professional architect. This is his only remaining work here, and the only original 1814 building left from the Allegheny Arsenal.

    Insignia

    This plaque was originally on the gatehouse to the Arsenal grounds.

    Daughters of 1812 memorial

    A memorial put up by the Daughters of 1812 appears to have had a bronze relief, probably stolen many years ago.

    Daughters of 1812 plaque

    The Arsenal is most famous in history for exploding during the Civil War, killing dozens of the workers, many of whom were children. We note that the building where the powder was stored did not explode—an indication, perhaps, that the architect knew his business.

    Plaque on the powder magazine

    DESIGNED BY BENJAMIN H. LATROBE; BUILT BY CAPTAIN ABRAM R. WOOLLEY ON LAND PURCHASED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FROM WILLIAM B. FOSTER. SERVED AS AMMUNITION PRODUCTION CENTER DURING INDIAN, MEXICAN AND CIVIL WARS. THIS TABLET COMMEMORATES AT LEAST 79 CIVILIAN WORKERS—MEN, WOMEN AND MANY CHILDREN—KILLED IN THREE MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSIONS, SEPTEMBER 17, 1862.

    Old Pa Pitt would add that the explosions were not as mysterious as all that. It was an arsenal. The place was devoted to manufacturing things that explode, using explosive materials. Everyone knew that Dupont & Co. had been supplying powder in leaky barrels, probably reused in spite of the specific requirement not to reuse them. Everyone knew there was explosive stuff dusting the ground here and there. The only mystery was which of several possible causes set off the first spark, and that mystery will probably never be solved.

    The remains of the dead were buried in a mass grave in Allegheny Cemetery, where an expensive marble memorial was put up. The marble eroded into illegibility by the 1920s, and it was replaced with a new monument with a bronze plaque that will last a few more centuries if it is not stolen and melted down.

    Names of the dead in the Arsenal explosion
    Allegheny Arsenal monument in Allegheny Cemetery

    Today the powder magazine sits in the middle of a pleasant urban oasis called Arsenal Park. Instead of explosive materials, it has rest rooms.

    Allegheny Arsenal Powder Magazine
    Powder magazine
    Powder magazine with 40th Street in the background
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

  • Stowe Township World War I Memorial

    Statue on the Stowe Township World War I memorial

    We have seen this statue before, on the war memorial in Coraopolis. Here the doughboy is missing his bayonet, but otherwise the statue is identical, doubtless cast from the same mold. The three-sided base carries the township honor roll in bronze; and, following his usual practice, Father Pitt records all the names in high enough resolution to be easily legible.

    Stowe Township war memorial
    Honor roll 1
    Honor roll 3
    Honor roll 2

  • World War I Memorial, Coraopolis

    Doughboy with bayonet

    The World War I memorial in Coraopolis has been cleaned and polished and looks new. The statue of an advancing doughboy is probably a stock item—it appears on war memorials in other towns—but it is well executed. It does not stand up to the Lawrenceville Doughboy, but nothing does.

    Coraopolis war memorial
    War memorial

    Old Pa Pitt has been making it his usual practice to record all the names on any war memorial he photographs, because even well-maintained memorials like this one can suffer accident or decay. The names will be quite legible if you enlarge the picture.

    Roll of Honor, part 1
    Roll of Honor, part 2
    Roll of Honor, part 3
    Roll of Honor, part 4
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

  • Fifth Ward World War I Memorial, Upper Hill

    Eagle by Frank Vittor

    An unmistakable Frank Vittor eagle; compare it to the eagle on the West End World War I memorial and the one on the portal to the Boulevard of the Allies. City records confirm that Frank Vittor was the sculptor.

    Fifth Ward War Memorial

    The memorial stands in Robert E. Williams Memorial Park, originally Herron Hill Park, which was laid out in 1889. It is a very pleasant green space in a pleasant residential section of the Upper Hill.

    Because war memorials sometimes become illegible for various reasons, and because a historian friend has been trying to reconstruct the names on another World War I memorial and finding the task difficult, old Pa Pitt has decided to record all the names on this memorial. If you enlarge the pictures, you should be able to read every name clearly.

    Inscriptions
    Inscriptions
    Inscriptions
    Inscriptions
    Inscriptions
    Inscriptions

    The emblem of the Corps of Engineers, which in an earlier version of the article Father Pitt had mistaken for the arms of Pittsburgh. Thanks to our commenter below for the correction.

    A map showing the location of the memorial.

  • Seventeenth Ward World War I Memorial, South Side

    Relief

    This little memorial sits at the corner of Carson and Tenth Streets, the intersection that is more or less the gateway to the South Side proper. Most people pass by without noticing it, so old Pa Pitt decided to document it in detail.

    Frank Aretz, best known for his ecclesiastical art, did the small Art Deco relief, according to a plaque installed by the city on this memorial. The architect was Stanley Roush, the king of public works in Pittsburgh in the 1920s and 1930s. Donatelli Granite, still in the memorial business, did the stonework.

    Seventeenth Ward War Memorial
    Inscription
    Inscription

    The left and right steles bear the names of battlefields where Americans fought.

    Inscription
    Inscription

    Many war memorials display the names of those who served, but this one sealed the names in stone for future generations to discover.

    Face of the relief

    The relief has been eroding and perhaps vandalized, but the streamlined Art Deco style is still distinctive.

    Bust of the relief
    Seventeenth Ward War Memorial

  • St. Josaphat’s War Memorial, South Side Slopes

    A memorial to the large number from St. Josaphat’s who served in both World Wars. It stands across the narrow street from the church, set into the hillside, with a statue of Christ displaying his Sacred Heart and welcoming us to stop and read the names. As you can guess from the names if you enlarge the picture, St. Josaphat’s was a Polish congregation.

    Statue of Christ
    Art Deco eagle

  • World War I Memorial, West End Park

    Eagle
    War memorial

    West End Park is far off the beaten track, and few people outside its own neighborhood (which is technically Elliott, though it belongs at least as much to the West End) ever visit, or even know it exists. But it has one of our best war memorials by one of our best sculptors and one of our best architects.

    The sculptor was Frank Vittor, who was already developing the streamlined style that would make him one of Pittsburgh’s two favorite sculptors (the other being Giuseppe Moretti). The architect was William Perry, whose most famous work is St. Bernard’s in Mount Lebanon, a church more magnificent than many cathedrals. Their collaboration produced a striking monument, simple but rich. Unfortunately some restoration has left it with two radically different colors of stone and concrete, which is not how it was meant to look, as we see in this picture from twenty-two years ago:

    Memorial in 2000

    That picture shows us that the memorial has also lost some sort of bronze ornament on the bottom half of the shaft: we can see the shadow of what seems to have been a shield with double-headed axe set in a bronze band. (Addendum: The book Discovering Pittsburgh’s Sculpture, by Vernon Gay and Marilyn Evert, shows the ornament in place, with a bronze band all the way around the base. That book was published in 1983.)

    Cherubim and shields

  • War Memorial Park in Beechview

    The little triangular park at Broadway, Shiras Avenue, and Bensonia Avenue is cluttered with monuments. There’s one for the First World War, one for the Second, one for Vietnam and Korea, and one for wars since then and “going forward,” as the city’s Twitter account put it when it was announced. The eagle above sits on the World War II memorial, the largest of the lot.

    The latest memorial, for everything after Vietnam.

    The World War I memorial.

    The World War II memorial.

  • World War II Memorial at St. Basil’s

    A modestly late-Art-Deco memorial to St. Basil’s parishioners who served in World War II. It remembers their service in the war, but its message is “PAX.”

  • Allegheny County Civil War Memorial, West Park

    Seen across Lake Elizabeth. This monument was “Erected to the memory of the 4,000 brave men of Allegheny County who fell in the great struggle to preserve the integrity of our Union.” Even today, four thousand men would be a huge number from this one county, and Allegheny County did not have more than a million people in it back in the 1860s.

    Near the memorial was a bridge over the railroad, now gone, with the approaches blocked by chain-link fence. Some enterprising romantic discovered that the fence makes a fine billboard for a message spelled out in padlocks.