Category Archive: Preservation News
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Diocese to decide on churches’ historic status
09/30/2001
By Brandon Keat TRIBUNE-REVIEW
When the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation designated 27 historic structures this year, St. Mary Magdalene Church in Homestead and St. Michael Archangel Church in Munhall were on the list.
But the Pittsburgh Diocese has not yet decided whether to accept the designations and the plaques that come with them.
Inspired by the recent events surrounding St. Nicholas Church on the North Side, where a last-minute historic designation threatens to block the diocese’s plan to sell the church, diocese officials met Wednesday to re-evaluate historic designations.
“The decision is that we want to have a procedure where, before a plaque such as that can be accepted, it will have to be reviewed by the diocese,” said the Rev. Ron Lengwin, a spokesman for the diocese.
Lengwin said a decision on the two churches should be made soon, once a specific process for arriving at a decision has been established.
“We’re just in the process of determining how approval will be given,” he said. “It’s not going to be very complex.”
Lengwin said many of the diocese’s churches have been among the more than 400 historic structures designated by the foundation since the group’s plaque program began in 1968.
He said this designation, which places a plaque on the building or structure indicating its name, date of construction and architect, has not been problematic for the diocese in the past.
Such a designation “could become a matter of pride for a parish,” Lengwin said.
“There are a number of buildings in the diocese that have received this. It doesn’t impose any restrictions on the building, it’s just recognition,” Lengwin said. “It’s a rather simple matter, but it’s part of a larger issue that’s rather important to us.”
That larger issue – one that does trouble the diocese – is other historic designations, such as the one given by the City of Pittsburgh to St. Nicholas Church.
Those designations can prevent the diocese from selling churches.
“It imposes restrictions on a building that could limit the church in its mission and ministry,” Lengwin said.
“The church supports the notion of historic preservation. It’s done that since the founding of the church. But not nonconsensual historic designation.”
In May, Pittsburgh City Council designated St. Nicholas a historic structure, which might interfere with the diocese’s plans.
Lengwin said the situation with St. Nicholas, which the diocese wants to sell to the state Department of Transportation so it can be demolished and allow for the expansion of Route 28, is not the first of its kind for the diocese. Similar scenarios have played out at St. Leo on the North Side and St. Michael on the South Side.
“There are other incidents, (St. Nicholas) is just the latest one,” Lengwin said.
Cathy McCollom of History and Landmarks said the designation does not prevent the owner of the building from altering, selling or demolishing it.
“It’s not legally restrictive,” she said.
McCollom said some structures are nominated by their owners, while others are selected by the foundation’s staff because they are “buildings that we feel are important to be acknowledged.”
McCollom said the east suburban churches were nominated by the foundation’s staff.
“They’re both built by significant architectural firms,” she said.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review
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Landmarks Completes Preservation of Hidden Valley Farm
We recently announced a rural preservation program and acquisition of Hidden Valley farm located in the Mars-Gibsonia area of the county by purchase from a charitable remainder trust established by Lucille Tooke to benefit Landmarks.
Recently, we completed the sale of the property to a private owner after he agreed to place protective easements on both the 1835 brick farmhouse and the 64 acres of beautiful western Pennsylvania hillside farm.
The buyer plans to restore the front porch and rebuild a barn similar to the original that was destroyed by a fire more than a decade ago.
The area is rapidly developing both residentially and commercially. The Treesdale Farms development is nearby as is sprawling Cranberry Township.
The proceeds of the sale will be allocated to further historic farm preservation. We are now trying to raise considerable funds to enlarge this program so that we can acquire other historic farms in Allegheny County.
Contact: Jack Miller at jack@phlf.org
Director of Gift Planning
412-471-5808 -
Wrecking ball ends quest to preserve historic house – Fast-food restaurant slated for construction on site
09/28/2001
By Daniel Reynolds TRIBUNE-REVIEW
The Wilkinsburg house where one of the pioneers of commercial radio did his earliest work was demolished Thursday, despite efforts by preservationists to save the structure.
“I feel like we failed,” said Rick Harris, treasurer of the National Museum of Broadcasting, a Forest Hills group that tried for years to convince government officials and foundations to give them the money to save the building.
Harris and his group are still trying to establish a museum commemorating Frank Conrad, the Westinghouse engineer and former Wilkinsburg resident whose engineering team sent the first shortwave radio broadcasts around the world.
But yesterday, Harris said he could only stand, watch, and snap a few photos as the house Conrad did some of his early work in was demolished.
“I think years from now people will look back and say ‘It’s just a shame that they couldn’t save it. What was wrong with people back then in the 1980s and 1990s and early 2000 that they couldn’t have gotten a few hundred thousand together to buy it and restore it?'” Harris said.
Cathy McCollom, director of operations for the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, has said her organization spent significant amounts of time working with Harris’ organization.
She said the group never could find a way to preserve the house Conrad rented in a way that would be financially feasible.
Contractors for the Wendy’s Corp. began tearing down the house at 577 Penn Ave. down yesterday afternoon.
The house that Conrad rented from approximately the mid-1910s to the early 1930s was sold to Wendy’s in August by Elks Lodge No. 577, which has since moved to Wilkins Township.
Wendy’s plans to build a new restaurant on the site. Harris said the restaurant chain has given him permission to gather remnants of the brick structure after demolition to include in a museum or some other fitting display.
Harris said the beginnings of commercial radio took place in the house’s garage and music room, where Conrad assembled groups of musicians and narrators for early radio broadcasts throughout the Pittsburgh area.
Conrad’s experiments evolved into local broadcasting stalwart KDKA, the first commercial radio station in the world.
Later on, Conrad led a Westinghouse team that broadcast the first world-wide short wave radio broadcasts from a lab in Forest Hills.
Forest Hills officials are negotiating with Harris’ group to determine whether a museum can be established in Forest Hills dedicated to Conrad’s work.
The National Museum of Broadcasting was able to salvage the Wilkinsburg garage of the home that Conrad rented. The bricks from that garage are stored on pallets in a warehouse owned by the Thomas Rigging Co. at Keystone Commons in Turtle Creek.
Harris’ group hopes to rebuild the garage as part of the museum, but Forest Hills officials have not yet announced where in the borough that might be able to occur.
In January, the Forest Hills site of Conrad’s early work was designated as historically significant by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review
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Church murals depicting spiritual, cultural lives of Croatian immigrants draw renewed attention
By Mary Thomas,
Post-Gazette Art Critic
Thursday, September 27, 2001In an overhead mural inches above the visitor, the face of the Blessed Virgin is contorted in horror. Tears well from her widened eyes as she steps between two soldiers on a battlefield, grabbing a bayonet to halt its thrust. She’s depicted as a Croatian peasant, in a blue dress that’s pleated and embellished with a panel of folk embroidery, and with the fleshy hands, shoulders and breasts of a farm wife rather than with the delicate features generally given to Christ’s mother.
This “Holy Mother” is only one of more than 20 unique murals that cover the interior of tiny St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, transforming the demure Romanesque structure into a jewel box of cultural, political and artistic expression that’s gained it National and Pittsburgh Historic Landmark designations.
The murals were painted in 1937 and 1941 by Croatian artist Maxi-milian (Maxo) Vanka, the subject of an exhibition at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. They are considered by many to be his masterworks. Beginning Saturday, the center will offer tours that combine a walk through the exhibition with a bus trip to the murals.
In the small church that clings to the side of a hill, as do many of the workers’ homes in this former mill community, visitors will see both religious and secular imagery that addresses spiritual beliefs, cultural practice and man’s humanity or lack thereof.
Vanka often paired his subjects, and two of the most compelling scenes pay tribute to the Croatian parishioners: “The Croatian Mother Raises Her Son for War” and “The Immigrant Mother Raises Her Son for Industry.” In the former, a group of women in white garments keep watch over the lace-draped coffin of a young soldier. In the background, rows of white crosses angle toward an ominous sky.
The latter pointedly illustrates that life wasn’t easy in the land of promise, where immigrants often faced savage societal prejudices and dangerous working conditions. These women mourn the death of a son who died in a mine accident. It’s based on a true Johnstown event, and the family would lose three other sons in the same day during rescue efforts.
It’s not coincidental that the women are dressed like the blue-garbed “Holy Mother.” According to folklorist Frances Babic, in Christian Slavic folk tradition the women’s communal mourning of the dead assumes “a communion with another mother: Mary, Mother of God.”
Another dramatic and effective pairing is the idealized “Justice,” countered by the breathtakingly ominous, larger-than-life figure of “Injustice,” whose face is hidden beneath a gas mask. In one hand, she holds a bloodied sword and in the other scales which tip in favor of a pile of gold that outweighs a loaf of bread — symbolic of the body of Christ.
Vanka, in a Nov. 14, 1941, article in The Pittsburgh Press, said the inspiration for the work was Nazi occupation. “Hitler says march in, take all, go into Czechoslovakia, into Poland, into all countries. There is no justice today.”
The startling image of a woman chained to a cross represents the suffering peasant mother but is also allegorical for the oppressed, seized countries of Europe.
“The mother is enchained and crucified, because for one assassinated soldier they now kill hundreds,” Vanka explained. “At her feet is a destroyed church and town, and a jail, all bloody to show the cruelty. Hands are reaching through the bars of the jail, asking for help from the mother country, but she can do nothing.”
The mural commissions
The Rev. Albert Zagar was the pastor who commissioned the murals. When he contacted Vanka, an extraordinary collaboration began between two men of faith — a deeply spiritual artist and an unequivocally trusting priest.
Zagar’s only requirement was that some of the images be of a religious character.
Vanka complimented Zagar as the “only priest in 100,000 who is courageous enough to break with tradition, to have his church decorated with pictures of modern, social significance.”
Zagar and Vanka were both born in Yugoslavia and taught at the University of Zagreb, but they didn’t know one another. In America, they came together to produce visual aids that would help the Croatian immigrants cope with their longings for home while adjusting to their new country. By 1937, more than 50,000 Croats had settled in the Pittsburgh region.
Doris Dyen, a folklife specialist who’s now director of Cultural Conservation for the Steel Industry Heritage Corp., explored the dual role of such imagery in her paper “Aids to Adaptation: Southeast European Mural Painters in Pittsburgh,” which appeared in the Library of Congress’ “Folklife Annual 1990.”
Croatians, she said, “used religious beliefs and church affiliation as a tie to the Old Country and a way of adapting to the new. Iconography and the decorative arts … were particularly significant in the process of adaptation, affording as they did a wide range of symbolic expression, while also affirming traditional values.”
Dyen also speculates that Vanka may have seen the work of Diego Rivera. Certainly Vanka’s grandiosity and social content remind one of the great Mexican muralist, who was active at the time.
Vanka also combines aspects of folk and academic painting, bringing a variety of influences together to form what is mostly the passionate expression of one man.
‘The Gift of Sympathy’
Vanka was an illegitimate child of nobility, born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1889, and taken to Croatian peasants to be raised, a common practice at the time. His birth connections did avail him later of a privileged education including studies at the Zagreb Royal Academy and the Royal Academy of Beaux Arts in Brussels, Belgium.
Contributing to his sensitive, observant and politicized nature were service with the Belgian Red Cross in World War I and an ethnographic expedition south of Zagreb. Vanka was an acclaimed portraitist and a professor at the Academy of Beaux Arts in Zagreb when he married Margaret Stetten, an American, in 1931. When the war closed in on Zagreb, the couple left for New York City, where they lived until their final move to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in 1941.
Vanka enjoyed traveling and visited many sites in the United States and abroad. He drowned while swimming off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in 1963.
The History Center exhibition, “The Gift of Sympathy: The Art of Maxo Vanka,” addresses his life and his artistic output, showing the range of stylistic and subject interests he had.
In 1990, the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the Murals of St. Nicholas — Millvale was formed to support their care and conservation. For information, call 412-820-9292.
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Expert would oversee Downtown redevelopment plan
Thursday, September 27, 2001
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
A group of Pittsburghers traveled to Philadelphia recently to look for a quarterback. But Kordell Stewart doesn’t have to worry.
The group was Mayor Tom Murphy’s Plan C Task Force, which is trying to revitalize the Fifth and Forbes avenues area of Downtown.
They weren’t seeking a football player with a strong arm. They need an urban redevelopment expert to oversee efforts to bring additional stores, entertainment and housing to the drab Downtown commercial corridor.
“We’re looking for professional advice to guide us from someone who knows what they’re doing, someone who can synthesize our thinking and make sure we’re all headed in the same direction,” said Tom Cox, Murphy’s executive secretary and a member of the task force.
Since it was formed last year, the 13-member group has been surprisingly unified on what Fifth and Forbes needs to become vibrant — intriguing shops, unusual restaurants or taverns, music clubs and housing.
The Plan C group interviewed several development professionals while in Philadelphia and is expected to discuss the quarterback position at a meeting this morning.
But Cox indicated the group is focusing on two people — Donald Hunter of Annapolis, Md., and Midge McCauley of King of Prussia in suburban Philadelphia.
“Everybody feels those two are strong,” Cox said.
Hunter, with 32 years of experience in the economics of urban centers, founded his present firm, Hunter Interests Inc. of Annapolis, in 1986.
The company specializes in Downtown and waterfront projects, said office manager Jean Clarke. It has done work on shops at the 30th Street train station in Philadelphia, the Inner Harbor waterfront in Baltimore and in Buffalo and Albany, N.Y., Tucson, Ariz., Seattle and other cities.
McCauley is director of Downtown Works, a year-old division of a 50-year-old shopping mall developer called Kravco Co., which owns the sprawling King of Prussia Mall outside Philadelphia.
In a phone interview, she said Downtown Pittsburgh had some important things going for it — major department stores and large crowds during the day — but obviously needs more stores and other attractions to keep people Downtown after 6 p.m.
“There are good stores currently [along Fifth and Forbes] and there are stores that are not so good,” she said. “Our goal would be to create a mix of stores that includes a good mix of local retailers and regional and national retailers.”
The “greatest challenge,” as she sees it, is to bring in “good, smaller specialty stores that would complement your wonderful array of department stores. Specialty stores are a key ingredient of any shopping experience.”
Adding attractive housing to increase the number of permanent Downtown residents is another key to revitalization.
“Pittsburgh has a great architectural stock of buildings, and where they can be developed into residential [uses], they should be,” McCauley said.
Once the Fifth and Forbes boss is on board, Cox said, another key issue will be how to go about buying privately owned property in the area. Two approaches will be considered — using a city agency, such as the Urban Redevelopment Authority, or letting private companies or developers acquire it.
A challenge facing any large city’s downtown, McCauley said, is “multiplicity of ownership,” because the more owners there are, the harder it can be to get everybody supporting the same plan.
In the past, the URA has assembled large sites for redevelopment. But some private companies already own key buildings in the Fifth-Forbes area that are likely to become part of the renewal project.
PNC Bank, whose director of corporate real estate, Gary Saulson, sits on the task force, owns the buildings in the block on the northern side of Fifth between Wood and Market streets.
“It’s PNC’s intention to cooperate with the city in their plan, assuming it’s acceptable to PNC,” Saulson said.
Another major real estate firm represented on the task force, Oxford Development Co., owns a large office building at 441 Smithfield St., on the edge of the Fifth-Forbes renewal area.
“There is a need for control of some of the properties, a need to assemble a critical mass of properties as they become available [for sale],” said task force member Cathy McCollom, an official of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. © Pittsburgh Post Gazette
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Pieces of history – Five eastern suburban sites among those being honored
09/25/2001
By Brandon Keat – TRIBUNE-REVIEW
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation has awarded plaques recognizing the historic significance of five structures in the eastern suburbs
The structures, among 27 sites designated by the foundation this year, include two homes, two churches and a bridge. The foundation has been awarding the plaques to Allegheny County landmarks since 1968.
“The Mon Valley has been a little weak as far as plaque building, but yet it has a lot of great architecture,” said Cathy McCollom of the foundation.
Many historic structures are nominated by their owners, while others are nominated by the foundation staff.
Staff members are responsible for nominating all five of the structures that were selected in the Mon Valley this year.
McCollom said staff members working in the Homestead historic district have been struck by the impressive structures in the Mon Valley.
“Whenever staff sees these things, they have a tendency to nominate them,” she said.
The most well known of the historic sites is the Homestead High Level Bridge, which connects Homestead to the city of Pittsburgh.
It was selected largely because it utilized cutting-edge technology when it was constructed from 1935 to 1937.
Its innovative Wichert truss allows the bridge to automatically adjust to unpredictable stresses and settling.
“This was at a time when there were no computers and you didn’t know quite how the stresses would pile under loads,” said Walter Kidney, an architectural historian with the History & Landmarks Foundation.
The two residential houses – the 1820 Muse house in McKeesport and the 1844 Walker house in Elizabeth – remain much as they were when constructed.
“There aren’t many houses of that period in that condition of integrity,” Kidney said.
Ted Erkman, a McKeesport native, jumped at the chance to buy the Muse house about 30 years ago.
He said he and his family have worked to maintain the house’s historic aspects.
He said the house, which was built by slave labor and has only had four owners since it was constructed, is “probably the oldest in McKeesport. We tried to save what we could in it. We’ve tried to keep it up.”
The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh owns the two churches that received the historic designation this year – St. Mary Magdalene at the corner of 10th Avenue and Amity Street in Homestead, and St. Michael Archangel on Ninth Avenue and Library Place in Munhall.
Kidney said both churches were designed by noted architects.
The Rev. Ron Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese, said the diocese has not decided if it will participate in the plaque program.
He said in light of the recent controversy surrounding St. Nicholas Church on the North Side, the diocese has decided to take a hard look at historic designations for its buildings.
Some St. Nicholas parishioners have fought the diocese’s decision to allow the demolition of the church to make way for the Route 28 expansion project.
St. Nicholas received a different type of historic designation – from City Council – in July.
“We’re just looking at the whole idea and determining what our position is going to be,” Lengwin said.
The nonprofit Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation was formed in 1964 to identify, preserve and educate people about important architectural landmarks, historic neighborhoods and designed landscapes.
Since 1969, it has awarded more than 400 plaques to remarkable pieces of architecture, engineering or construction that are a least 50 years old and have not been extensively altered. The plaques are expected to go up within the next six weeks.
The History & Landmarks Foundation designation does not confer any type of protection on the sites selected. And it does not prevent the property owners from making changes to their structures, though the foundation can remove the plaque if it believes the changes lessen the historical value of the site.
“It’s an acknowledgement by expert archaeologists and historians who know that the building is significant, but it does not prevent owners from changing it or affecting it,” McCollom said.
The cost of the plaque, which typically includes the structure’s name, the date it was built and the name of the architect, is shared by the property owner and History & Landmarks.
Bronze plaques cost about $200, and cast aluminum runs about $130.
McCollom said the foundation recognition can help property owners interested in pursuing historic designations from the state or federal government.
“What it does is offer some significant public acknowledgement, which sometimes plays out to help it in the future,” she said. “People know right up front it’s an important building. It’s a sign they’ve been judged by people who know.”
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Local landmarks
The following have been designated significant historic structures by the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation:
– Homestead High Level Bridge – Constructed between 1935 and 1937, it was designed by engineer George F. Richardson. The bridge utilized cutting edge technology for the time.
– The Muse House – Located at 4222 Third St. in McKeesport, the house was built in 1820.
– The Walker House – A Greek revival- style house located at 1026 Third Ave. overlooking the Monongahela River in Elizabeth. It was constructed in 1844.
– St. Mary Magdalene Church – A Romanesque church located at the corner of 10th Avenue and Amity Street in Homestead, designed by Frederick Sauer and built in 1895. A 1936 restoration was done by Button and MacLean.
– St. Michael Archangel Church – An Italian Romanesque church located at the corner of 9th Avenue and Library Place in Munhall, designed by Comes, Perry & McMullen and built in 1927. It features a statue of St. Joseph the Worker by noted sculptor Frank Vittor.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review
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Memories preserved – Foundation names home a historic structure
09/13/2001
By Maggi Newhouse – TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wanda Forsythe Clay says there’s a lot of love within the walls of her Carnegie home.
She can sit in the rocking chair her great-grandmother used to rock her grandfather George B. Forsythe, born in 1836.
She can walk into the room where her mother, Grace, gave birth to her in 1927.
And she can sit in front of the marble fireplace where she and her two sisters, Madeline and Virginia, once played parlor games.
Now her memories have become a part of local history.
The Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation designated the Forsythe Home, owned by the three sisters, as a recipient of a plaque designating it a significant historic structure in the Pittsburgh area.
The Forsythe Road home, a Georgian/Victorian style home built in 1850, was one of 27 structures given the designation this year.
One reason the building stood out for the selection committee was the sheer amount of information the Forsythe sisters were able to provide about the history of the home, said Cathy McCollom, director of operations and marketing at the foundation.
Forsythe Clay chalks that up to the lifetime she has spent in the home and the two generations of family before her.
Her grandfather, George B. Forsythe, was born in Finleyville in 1836. At age 25 he went off to fight in the Civil War. When he came back four years later, he purchased a 340-acre farm in Collier Township.
In 1886, he moved to the 90-acre farm that became the Forsythe home. That’s where he raised his three children with his wife, Lettie.
Their child Joseph, Clay Forsythe’s father, stayed in the home and raised his three daughters there along with 2,000 white leghorn chicken as a poultry farmer.
The large chicken house still stands, but along the way, the family sold off much of the land to Carnegie for the creation of Carnegie Park.
Wanda Forsythe Clay chose to stay in the home she and her sisters grew up in to raise her own four children.
Her husband, Victor, didn’t mind, she said. “He loved it.”
Now she, her husband and her sister Virginia share the home.
While the times have changed, many remnants of the past remain on the site and in the home itself. Original wood posts still stand on the front porch. The original shutters still grace the windows.
And in the side yard, remnants of an old stone spring house are still visible.
Forsythe Clay said the small structure was used to store the family’s cheese, butter and eggs. In the winter, her grandfather would go to Chartiers Creek and cut a block of ice from the frozen waters and use it to keep the food fresh through the summer.
And inside, the original wood staircase is still in the foyer of the home.
“My sisters and I used to slide down the banister,” she said with a laugh. “Luckily, my grandchildren don’t know about sliding down staircases.”
Walter Kidney, a member of the historic plaque designation committee, said the good condition of the house stood out on the sisters’ application for the plaque.
“The house itself has maintained a good bit of integrity,” he said.
Forsythe said she is thankful her family has been able to keep the home in its condition.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s a lot of work, but there are so many memories here.”
– Maggi Newhouse can be reached at mnewhouse@tribweb.com or at (412) 306-4535.
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Other historic structures
The Historic Landmarks Plaque Committee of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation awarded 27 plaques to buildings across Allegheny County. Plaques are given to structures that are remarkable pieces of architecture, engineering, construction or planning, or impart a rich sense of history and are at least 50 years old.
Structures in the south and west suburbs that will receive plaques this year are:
– The Forsythe Home, 920 Forsythe Road, Carnegie; built in 1850.
– Gilfillan Farm House, 1950 Washington Road, Upper St. Clair; built in 1857.
– Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, 214 Mansfield Blvd., Carnegie; built in 1920.
– Homestead High Level Bridge, Monongahela River at Mile 7; built in 1935-37.
– St. Mary Magdalene Church, East 10th Avenue and Amity Street, Homestead, built in 1895; renovated in 1936.
– St. Michael Archangel Church, Ninth Avenue and Library Place, Munhall; built in 1927.
– Stewart Avenue Lutheran Church, 2810 Brownsville Road, Carrick; built in 1927.
– Walker House, 1026 Third Ave., Elizabeth; built in 1844.
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review -
Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation designates 27 buildings historic
09/10/2001 TRIBUNE-REVIEW
The Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation recently designated 27 buildings in the region as significant historic structures.
Each site will be identified with a plaque. The foundation has reviewed nominations once a year since 1968 and awards plaques to structures that are a significant part of the region’s local heritage.
“In some circles, our plaque program is all people know of Landmarks,” foundation spokeswoman Cathy McCollom said. “They say, `Oh, you’re the plaque people.'”
To qualify, landmarks must be remarkable pieces of architecture, engineering, construction or planning. Alterations and additions cannot substantially lessen their value, and they must be at least 50 years old. They also must qualify for the foundation’s inventory of significant structures and landscapes, and they cannot be located in historic districts bearing a plaque.
More than 400 structures in Allegheny County have received this designation.
“It’s a way to raise awareness about the number of significant historic structures we have in Allegheny County,” McCollom said. “We hope that we’re hitting the best and the finest, and we still have more to go before we hit them all.”
This year’s designees are:
– Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science, North Side
– Troy Hill Fire Station No. 39, Troy Hill
– Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Pittsburgh Branch, Downtown
– The Forsythe Home, Carnegie
– Cecilia and Robert Frank House, Shadyside
– Gilfillan Farm House, Upper St. Clair
– Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, Carnegie
– Homestead High Level Bridge, Monongahela River at Mile 7
– Hot Metal Bridge, Monongahela River at Mile 3
– Pittsburgh Children’s Center, Oakland
– James Powers Homestead, O’Hara Township
– “Meado’ cots,” Point Breeze
– Andrew W. Mellon House, Shadyside
– Muse House, McKeesport
– Parkstone Dwellings, Point Breeze
– Penn Avenue Entrance to Allegheny Cemetery, Lawrenceville
– St. John the Roman Catholic Church (Church Brew Works), Lawrenceville
– St. Mary Magdalene Church, Homestead
– St. Michael Archangel Church, Munhall
– St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, Hill District
– Schenley Bridge, Schenley Park
– Seldom Seen Arch, Saw Mill Run Boulevard east of Woodruff Street
– Sixteenth Street Bridge, Allegheny River at Mile 1.3
– Stewart Avenue Lutheran Church, Carrick
– Walker House, Elizabeth
– West End Bridge, Ohio River at Mile One
– Wilpen Hill, Sewickley Heights
This article appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. © Tribune Review