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Rooftops of Chateau
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Preble Avenue, Chateau
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. An industrial streetscape in Chateau, which is still a busy industrial and warehouse district. A railroad spur formerly ran along the street and under the projecting roof of the Heyl & Patterson building in the foreground.
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Swift & Co. Warehouse, South Side
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. According to a Sanborn Fire Insurance map from 1924, this warehouse was built in 1917 with fireproof construction, brick curtain walls, concrete floors and roof. It belonged to Swift & Co., a wholesale meat dealer; later it seems to have passed to a produce dealer, and that 1924 Sanborn map has “Produce W. Ho.” neatly pasted over whatever was marked on the outline of the building before.
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McNally Building
The perspective of this picture has been adjusted on two planes to make a more natural view of the building, at the cost of distorting some of the other things in the picture. Thomas D. Evans was the architect of this towering warehouse, built just as the age of skyscrapers was dawning in 1896. It has kept its Romanesque decorative details, and the ground floor has been restored and lightly modernized with sympathy for the original lines of the building.
Sony Alpha 3000; Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. The picture above was taken in September of 2023; we append it to show the strong impression the building makes from half a block away.
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P&LE Central Warehouse, Station Square
Canon PowerShot SX20 IS. The central warehouse for the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad’s freight depot, now converted to offices and other uses and known as Commerce Court. These two pictures were taken just about a year apart, but nothing significant changed during that time. While he was donating the newer one to Wikimedia Commons, old Pa Pitt ran across the older one and realized he had never published it here.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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White Transfer & Storage Company, Dormont
Built in about 1925 (which is when this address starts appearing in the company’s advertisements), this was a warehouse for a prosperous moving company. Like most buildings along this stretch of West Liberty Avenue, it was later adapted to the car-dealing business.
The letter W for White appears in four cartouches on the front of the building.
Even a warehouse entrance ought to impress your customers, and that is what terra cotta is for.
Nikon COOLPIX P100. A car dealer (selling Studebakers) was attached to the left side of the building; it has been replaced by a parking lot.
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Bernard Gloeckler Co. Warehouse (Pennrose Building), Strip District
One of the few first-generation skyscrapers outside downtown, this was originally the warehouse for the Bernard Gloeckler Company, a prosperous dealer in “butchers’ supplies & tools, store fixtures, refrigerators, etc.,” according to a 1913 city directory (where the name is spelled Gloekler; we have also seen Glockler and Gleckler). It was later called the Pennrose Building, and of course it has been adapted as luxury apartments. It was built in 1906; the architects were the Philadelphia firm of Ballinger & Perrot.1
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. The building was reinforced concrete throughout, and Ballinger & Perrot literally wrote the book on reinforced concrete: Inspector’s Handbook of Reinforced Concrete, by Walter F. Ballinger and Emile G. Perrot (New York: The Engineering News Publishing Co.; London: Archibald Constable and Company, 1909).
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Reymer Brothers Candy Factory, Uptown
Charles Bickel was the architect of this factory and warehouse, which, like many industrial buildings of the time, takes its inspiration from the Marshall Field’s Wholesale Store by H. H. Richardson. Bickel, however, added his own sensibilities, and made it an impressive and distinctive building. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Kaufmann’s Warehouse, Uptown
Since we were looking at department-store warehouses a week ago, here is another one. This one was built in 1901 for Kaufmann’s department store, and as a work of architecture it is the most pleasing of the department-store warehouses we’ve seen. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, with the architect listed as D. H. Crisman; but old Pa Pitt, with all due deference to the experts, thinks that attribution is a mistake.1 Crisman was probably the contractor. He is listed in a 1900 city directory as a carpenter, and in 1902 we find him hiring an architect to design an apartment building, strongly suggesting that he was not an architect himself.
If Father Pitt had to make a guess, he would guess that Charles Bickel was the architect. Bickel designed the store for the Kaufmanns downtown, so he would be an obvious choice. He was also our most prolific producer of warehouses, so he is the safest bet. The style of the building is similar to that of Bickel’s colossal Pittsburgh Terminal Warehouse & Transfer Company on the South Side.
The architect gave the bricklayers a workout. The bricklayers were up to the challenge.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Other department-store warehouses: Frank & Seder and Rosenbaum’s, Gimbels.
- The attribution is probably based on a listing like this one in the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide for May 29, 1901: “D. H. Crissman [sic], 727 Filbert street, has taken out a permit for the erection of a four story brick warehouse for Kaufman [sic] Bros., Fifth avenue and Smithfield street. The cost will be about $300,000.” The listing leaves it ambiguous whether Crisman/Crissman is the architect or the contractor. ↩︎
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Two Department-Store Warehouses by William E. Snaman
These pictures are from a year and a half ago, but old Pa Pitt just ran across them. You never know what you’ll find if you look behind the sofa. Frank & Seder was never our biggest department store, but it was a pretty big store. Like all the other department stores downtown, it needed a big warehouse to hold the merchandise until it was ready to delight downtown shoppers. This colossus on the Bluff was designed in 1923 by William E. Snaman,1 an architect who had already had a long and prosperous career and by this time in his life was specializing in large warehouses and other industrial buildings. The Boulevard of the Allies runs past on a course that is not perpendicular to the side streets, so that the front of the building is at an odd angle to the rest of the building.
Kodak EasyShare Z981. Just a little later, Snaman was designing another warehouse on the North Side for Rosenbaum’s, another big downtown department store.2 This is a slightly blurred picture from the window of a car stopped in traffic on the approach to the West End Bridge, but it will have to do for now.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS. - Source: The American Contractor, February 3, 1923: “Warehouse & Garage: $200,000. 7 sty. & bas. 88×200. 1819–23 Bluff st. Archt. & Engr. W. E. Snaman, Empire bldg. Owner The Frank & Weder [sic] Co., Isaac Sedar [sic], pres., Fifth av. & Smithfield st. Brk. Drawing prelim. Plans.” The building as it stands is five storeys. ↩︎
- Source: The American Contractor, November 10, 1923: “Warehouse (add.): $500,000. 4 sty. & bas. 159×291. Brk. Beaver av. & Fayette st. Archt. & Bldr. W. E. Snaman, Empire bldg. Owner The Rosenbaum Co., Max Rothschild, pres., 6th & Penn avs. Revising plans.” The “addition” in this listing is most of the building, except for the three-storey section in front. It seems likely that Snaman was responsible for that, too. ↩︎
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