Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation

Want to learn more about the Pittsburgh region through its historic landmarks? Then join us for Pittsburgh Heritage II our continuing professional education course offered in partnership with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. This two-credit course is a continuation of Pittsburgh Heritage I, and digs deeper into the interrelated topics of local and regional history, cultural heritage, architectural styles, and visual awareness of the local environment. Click this link http...s://pa49000033.schoolwires.net/Page/2481 to register. Hurry! Registration closes March 31, 2021. Renewing Communities; Building Pride. www.phlf.org

On rainy days, we value front porches even more. A beautiful, heart-warming view, taken from the front porch of one house in the 1500 block of Shady Avenue and looking through the porches of five adjacent houses, all built around 1905. Renewing Communities; Building Pride. www.phlf.org

Thanks to corporate contributions received through the Pennsylvania Education Improvement Tax Credit program, we are creating a series of educational videos for the Pittsburgh Public Schools based on our popular field trips. We thank James Hill, Executive Assistant to Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, for providing an inside view of Council Chambers and the Hall of Mayors in the City-County Building, among other places, earlier today. This content will become part of a video fea...turing the City-Building, the first stop on our Building Pride, Building Character virtual tour. Pittsburgh videographer Randall Coleman is producing the video with additional narration by Louise Sturgess. Tyler Vietmeier is the sound technician. We were also thrilled to see one of our Poetry and Art books in the Mayor’s reception area, featuring poems and charcoal sketches of architectural details by fifth-grade Pittsburgh Public School students. Renewing Communities; Building Pride www.phlf.org

A massive fire on a sunny winter afternoon tore through one half of an historic building located at 1100 East Carson Street on the South Side of Pittsburgh on February 8. City firefighters battled the fire for hours in an effort to save the building until they were forced to evacuate it for safety reasons. Consequently, one of half of the building, constructed between 1860 and 1879, collapsed and the other half had to be demolished due to public safety guidelines. The 3-stor...y building housed the South Side Welcome Center, the South Side Chamber of Commerce’s headquarters, a first-floor barbershop, and apartments on its top floors. Located on a stretch of Carson Street designated a National Register Historic District, the building typifies the scale and style of the Victorian-era buildings of the South Side business district. It was among the first cohort of buildings that were renovated for adaptive reuse in the late 1960s and early 1970s when our organization initiated a program in 1968 to revitalize the historic South Side business district through adaptive reuse of its buildings. The Second Empire building, which at the time was owned by the late Gerald Lee Pekich and his business partner Art Silverman, was one of the first buildings they acquired, creating office and retail space on the ground floors and apartments on the upper floors. The late Mr. Pekich would go on to serve as the first president of the South Side Local Development Company, an organization we worked with over the years on the continued revitalization of the historic Carson Street business corridor. We regret to see the loss of this historic building. Renewing communities; Building Pride. www.phlf.org

Archivist Anna Samuels is hard at work transferring some of our paper-based records to acid-free folders and boxes. Our Education Department materials include correspondence, promotional materials, and newspaper clippings related to school tours, continuing education courses for teachers, and events. The Hands-On History Fair (materials pictured here) brought students and educators to Station Square to present their work, explore PHLF’s historical materials, and participate i...n activities such as the Great Pittsburgh Bridge Building Contest. Today, our Education Department continues to create engaging content for students, teachers, and families. This project is supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Historical Archives and Records Care Grant, a program funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Renewing Communities; Building Pride www.phlf.org

Architecture Feature: Hornbostel's Work Inspires Artists By David J. Vater One measure of Henry Hornbostel’s architectural achievement which has so far eluded historical scholarship is the artistic response evoked by his distinctive designs. This is best seen if we consider the surprisingly large number of prominent American artists to include his structures among the subject matter of their artworks. These painterly depictions aim to be expressive of the character of our nat...Continue reading

Calling all educators! Need to earn CPE credits for Level II certification, Master's Equivalency and/or Act 48? Want to earn them by exploring this region’s rich heritage? Then sign up for our CPE course, Pittsburgh Heritage I. This is the last week to register for this fall semester course, taught through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. Let your teaching be inspired by western Pennsylvania's history, cultural heritage, historic preservation, and architecture. ... Visit the AIU’s website to register: https://pa49000033.schoolwires.net/Page/2481 Renewing Communities; Building Pride www.phlf.org

In the early 1990s, we learned that Lowen House in Beechview, an 1860-period board-and-batten house and its grounds had fallen on hard times and was in a spiral of vacancy, disrepair, and decay. But even in its sorry state, the house, which is located on six acres of a hilltop with a remarkable view of the city, garnered significant public interest through our advocacy because of the rarity of its building style, and in 1992, it was designated a City Historic Structure. Our... organization continued to advocate for a buyer of the property, who could work with us in restoring this historic house. In 1997, Tom and Christine Simmons purchased the house and grounds at 311 Lowenhill Street, and set out to restore the house and its grounds. We aided them by purchasing a preservation and conservation easement on the house and grounds, and the owners used the proceeds to help fund the renovation of the house. The need to save Lowenhill triggered our organization’s interest in the relationship between scenic open land and urban and rural buildings, an interest that evolved into the successful first phase of our organization’s Historic Farm Preservation Program. During the 2008-09 school year, our organization involved parents, teachers, and students from Pittsburgh Beechwood in creating a book about their community. We published Beechwood’s Beechview in 2009. The 88-page book includes artwork and stories by Beechwood students in pre-school through fifth grade. The educational programs and book that we created were funded through the Teacher Excellence Center, Beechwood Parent Faculty Association, corporate donors to our Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program, and the Alfred M. Oppenheimer Memorial Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation. Renewing Communities; Building Pride www.phlf.org #ThrowbackThursday

Preserving and highlighting some of Pittsburgh's most unique buildings, we are proud to have Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation as a sponsor at this year's fifth annual event. #DoorsOpenPgh #BeNebby