Father Pitt

Tag: William Smith Fraser

  • 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.

  • Eastminster Presbyterian Church, East Liberty

    Tower of Eastminster United Presbyterian Church

    Built in 1893 as Sixth United Presbyterian, this church was designed by William S. Fraser, who was a big deal in Pittsburgh in the later 1800s. Fraser adopted a very Richardsonian kind of Romanesque for this church, putting its congregation right at the top of the fashion heap for the moment.

    Eastminster Presbyterian
    Postcard of Sixth United Presbyterian Church
    Undated postcard, about 1900, from the Presbyterian Historical Society via Wikimedia Commons.

    If you ask why there are two Presbyterian churches so close together—this and East Liberty Presbyterian—the answer is that there were two kinds of Presbyterians. Sixth U. P. belonged to the United Presbyterians, a Pittsburgh-based splinter group that eventually merged with the other Presbyterians in 1958. Most neighborhoods and boroughs with large Protestant populations thus had two Presbyterian churches—or more, since there were Reformed Presbyterians and Cumberland Presbyterians as well.

    Eastminster U. P. Church
    Workmen restoring stained glass

    The stained glass is being restored slowly and carefully.

    Highland Avenue entrance
    Central door
    Eastminster United Presbyterian Church
    Organized 1856, built 1893
    Capitals
    Lantern
    Side entrance
    Station Street entrance
    Vine ornament
    Sony Alpha 3000 with 7Artisans 35mm f/1.4 lens; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS.
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  • Dinwiddie Street: A Resurrection

    Houses on Dinwiddie Street

    In 1889, William Smith Fraser, one of our top architects in those days, supervised a whole long block of fifty elegant stone-fronted houses lining both sides of Dinwiddie Street.1

    A majority of the houses disappeared over the years; the street came to look like a battle zone, three-quarters abandoned.

    But the wheel turned again. About fifteen years ago, Rothschild Doyno Collaborative designed infill housing and refurbished the Fraser houses. The new houses were built at the same scale and setback as the old, and with some of the same massing; the old houses were refurbished with inexpensive materials that matched the new houses.

    Dinwiddie Street

    It’s still not a rich neighborhood. But it’s a beautiful and welcoming streetscape again, and it’s an inspiring example of how an interrupted streetscape can be made whole. The new houses are definitely of our century, but they belong on the street. Without duplicating the Fraser designs, they make themselves at home in the neighborhood.

    Houses on Dinwiddie Street

    In this picture, the houses with stone bays in front are some of the original Fraser houses. Their more colorful neighbors are the “infill” houses.

    Fraser houses

    A pair of the original Fraser houses.

    Looking down the row on Dinwiddie Street
    Houses on Dinwiddie Street
    Dinwiddie Street
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    1. Source: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, May 29, 1889, p. 246. “The contract for the fifty modern dwellings, previously reported, to be erected on Dinwiddie street by Mr. Lockhart, has been given to Henry Shenck. W. S. Fraser, Seventh street and Penn avenue is the architect. These dwellings will be of brick, with stone fronts, bay windows and porches, and all modern conveniences.” ↩︎
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  • Herron Hill Pumping Station

    Herron Hill Pumping Station

    Why shouldn’t a water-pumping station look like a Roman basilica? It’s what the Romans would have done. This substantial building was designed by William Smith Fraser, and it has its own appropriately substantial Wikipedia article. Unfortunately the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority has thought it necessary to brick up the windows, so that what used to be an airy temple of technology must be like a tomb inside now.