Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studio

160 Warden Street in Pittsburgh’s West End neighborhood is a two-story, buff brick, commercial building constructed in 1913 as the headquarters and workshop of Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios (PSGS). For more than a century, and continuing to the present day, the company has been a leading designer of windows for homes, businesses and especially places of worship in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, while also establishing a national reputation built upon their artistic and technical excellence. The studio has designed and created thousands of windows, which can be found in over two dozen states and in multiple buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

While many talented people have helped to make the success of Pittsburgh Stained Glass Studios possible, the present landmark nomination focuses on the contributions of the four founders, Axel T. Peterson, William W. Kable, Albert W. Weitershausen, and Frederick C. Coppes, along with the partnership of chief designer Howard G. Wilbert and president John D. Weaver, Sr., who led the company for decades during the middle of the twentieth century. Also included is an overview of more recent accomplishments under the leadership of current PSGS president, Kirk Weaver.

In partnership with PSGS, Preservation Pittsburgh submitted the landmark nomination for consideration in April of 2024.

 

Beth Abraham Cemetery Complex

Founded in 1890 by Jewish immigrants to Pittsburgh’s Hill District, Beth Abraham Cemetery complex (which includes Shaare Zedeck (est. 1891), Shaare Torah (est. 1890), and the Marks Family Cemetery (est. 1916) us the final resting place for thousands. Now owned and maintained by the Jewish Cemetery & Burial Association of Greater Pittsburgh, it uniquely represents the most complete surviving physical record of the Jewish ethnic milieu in Pittsburgh before World War II. It is also significant because of the stylistic evolution of tombstones over generations that reflect changes and assimilation of these immigrant communities into American society.

If landmarked, it will become the first cemetery to be recognized for its historic value by the City of Pittsburgh.

 

Allegheny Turn Halle

The former Allegheny Turn Halle (855 S. Canal Street) is historically significant because of its unique association with the Turners and patterns immigration and assimilation of some of the German-speaking peoples in Pittsburgh. It is also historically significant because it is the work of prominent Austrian-American architect Joseph Stiller and because it remains a prominent feature of the Schweitzerloch neighborhood.

 

Ella & Emil Keller House

201 N. Murtland is historically significant because of its unique association with Ella & Emil Keller, eclectic Pittsburgh house that successfully and uniquely blends Prairie style form with Neoclassical decorative elements. It is also distinguished by the overall quality of its design, the number of innovative features that Emil and Ella Keller specified for their new home, and the continued presence of most of these features.

 

Temple Rodef Shalom

On November 9, 1856, Rodef Shalom Congregation was chartered, to fill the need for a German religious society to facilitate Jewish worship and establish a school for the instruction of the young in “the Hebrew religion as well as general branches of knowledge.” Today, it is the oldest Jewish congregation in Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny Mountains and is noted for the instrumental role it played in shaping Reform Judaism.

In 1907 the congregation moved from downtown to its current home in Shadyside, to a Beaux Arts masterpiece designed by nationally-renowned architect Henry Hornbostel. Hornbostel’s design for Rodef Shalom is significant for directly reflecting the principles of the Pittsburgh Platform, which articulated “a view of the Hebrew Bible that is distinctly inflected by Enlightenment philosophy in an effort to reconcile ancient texts and practices with the views of a Progressive age.”

Temple Rodef Shalom is historically significant because of its unique Beaux Arts design, its association with prominent architects like Henry Hornbostel, Ingram & Boyd, and Sharove & Lefkovitz, its role in Jewish history, and because it is a familiar visual feature within the neighborhood and the city.

 

Engine Company No. 28

In May of 1898 the site at the corner of Filbert and Elmer Streets was selected for the new engine house and purchased for $8,550. This was to be the first recorded building located at the site. The city’s resolution that year, No. 566, dedicated $33,324 plus extra work as required for the construction of the building by the firm Kerr & Fox. The building was designed by Harry S. Bair, an architect who was serving as the chief architect for Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Safety

Upon its completion, the building boasted several features. The first floor included a sitting room, wash room, an apparatus room, and stalls for six teams of horses. The second floor consisted of the dormitories for 18 men, a work room, lavatories, and the hay loft. The basement also included spaces such as a kitchen, drying room, dressing room, and a 10’x13’ swimming pool. Contemporary newspaper articles from the building’s period of construction described the new facility as “one of the best in the city…provided with all modern apparatus and conveniences” and “the handsomest building of the kind in Allegheny county.”

The former Engine Company No. 28 building is historically significant because it embodies the architectural style of Italian Renaissance Revival, and is representative of the revival architecture associated with the national Eclectic Movement. Also because of its association with prominent architect Harry S. Bair, its connection to the history of firefighting in Pittsburgh, and because it is a prominent feature of the neighborhood in Shady Side.

 

Mellon Park

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Mellon Park began as the 11 acres was the estate of Richard Beatty Mellon and his wife, Jennie King Mellon. After the Mellons died in the 1930s, their 65-room mansion was demolished, and their children Richard King Mellon and Sarah Mellon Scaife donated the landscaped grounds to the city for a park in 1943. Additional donations and land acquisitions by the city increased Mellon Park’s size to 33 acres by 1950. Landscapes and gardens designed for the Mellons in the 1910s, ‘20s, and ‘30s by Alden & Harlow, Vitale and Geiffert, and Olmsted Brothers are examples of the best private landscape design money could buy in those years.

Subsequent landscape work commissioned to adapt the Mellon estate and adjacent properties for use as a public park displays the work of notable landscape architects of the mid-20th century, including Ralph Griswold, Gilmore D. Clarke, and Simonds and Simonds, and shows sensitivity to the original landscape’s historic character.

Mellon Park is an excellent example of Landscape Architecture (National Register under Criterion C). Its period of significance is 1910-1952 (from the year that the Mellon estate was built to the design of Alden and Harlow and ends in the year that the various private estates comprising Mellon Park were unified by the City (working from a plan by Simonds and Simonds) as a single public landscape). Features of Mellon Park from 1910-1931 exemplify the best private landscape design from that period that money could buy. In the 1940s and 50s, a new generation of landscape architects worked with Pittsburgh Parks officials to adapt this and adjacent private estates, once enjoyed by a wealthy few, to a public park accessible to all.

 

Hanauer-Rosenberg Residence

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Caroline Nelson had 415 through 419 Lockhart Street built between 1888 and 1889 while members of the Kaufman family of Cedar Avenue had 421 and 423 Lockhart Street built at the same time.  Caroline Nelson was the wife of William Nelson, Pittsburgh’s first stained glass manufacturer.  William Nelson made stained glass in Pittsburgh between 1852 and 1892 and worked in an era from which little construction documentation remains.  His stained glass that remains in at least two houses in the row is his only known surviving work in Pittsburgh.  The Nelson family lived in the Woods Run section of Allegheny City, and rented 417 Lockhart Street to tenants. 

The earliest occupants of the house were Hugo Rosenberg, a merchant, and Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg, who founded the National Council of Jewish Women, its Pittsburgh section, and other Pennsylvania sections while living in the house.  The Rosenbergs were socially prominent, and Pittsburgh social directories noted that Pauline Rosenberg received guests at 417 Lockhart Street on the first and second Wednesdays of each month.  Rosenberg also hosted meetings of the Pittsburgh Women’s Club at the house and frequently had out-of-town guests at the house who were prominent state and national members of progressive causes particularly related to education, immigration, women’s rights, and the Jewish community. 

Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania in 1863 to prominent proponent of education Henrietta (Lehrberger) and Meyer Hanauer.  She was educated at Pittsburgh's Central High School, belonged to Rodef Shalom Congregation (Western Pennsylvania's oldest Jewish congregation and one instrumental in shaping the national Reform Judaism movement), and married Hugo Rosenberg.

In Allegheny City & Pittsburgh Rosenberg served on the Boards of Allegheny General Hospital Ladies Auxiliary, Pennsylvania Federation of Women's Clubs, was president of Pittsburgh's Woman's Club, Civic Club, Needlework Guild, Free Kindergarten Association, Tenement House and Public Bath Committee, Personal Service Society among many other organizations.  In 1896, Rosenberg played a leading role in founding the Columbian School & Settlement (later known as the Irene Kauffman Settlement House whose work is continued on through the Hill House Association and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh), which advanced the civic, intellectual, and social welfare of the surrounding community.  She was also involved in the local women’s suffrage movement.  Rosenberg attended Barnard College and Columbia University and upon her return to Pittsburgh played an instrumental role in advocating for Pennsylvania's 1903 Juvenile Court Act, created a local branch, and brought the first parole officer to Pittsburgh.

Although Rosenberg's involvement and leadership had a considerable impact on Pittsburgh, it was her efforts founding, shaping, and leading the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) that had a state, national, and international impact.  Prior to the founding of the NCJW, no such organization existed on a national level for Jewish women.

In March 2020 the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission awarded a State Historic Marker recognizing Rosenberg’s work and accomplishments.  On April 24, 2020 the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office determined the Hanauer-Rosenberg residence eligible to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places also because of its association with Pauline Hanauer Rosenberg.

 

Highland Park - National Register

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The site which is now Highland Park consists largely of land first assembled by the Negley family after the Revolutionary War. Alexander Negley (1734-1809), a German immigrant, moved his family west from Philadelphia in about 1788 and settled on a 300-acre farm, “Fertile Bottom,” on the banks of the Allegheny River. His son, Jacob Negley, expanded the family’s holdings to about 1500 acres. During the 19th century, Jacob sold off portions of this tract to his descendants and to individual farmers outside of the family, resulting in a patchwork of small farms by the time of the Civil War.

Edward Manning Bigelow, a city engineer, visited the Highland and Brilliant reservoirs with City Controller E. S. Morrow and, according to an account in his obituary, conceived the idea for Highland Park. Bigelow had joined the Department of Public Works as a surveyor in 1880 and went on the become its director in 1889, a position he used aggressively to bring his vision of a park system for Pittsburgh to fruition.

With Morrow’s support, in 1889, Bigelow persuaded City Council to set aside 46 acres of City-owned property around the Highland Reservoir and another reservoir on Herron Hill, about five miles west in the Hill District, as parkland and to authorize the Department of Public Works to add to and improve them. He then set about acquiring additional land to expand Highland Park by negotiating with some 120 individual property owners over 15 years.

In his annual reports, Bigelow credited Francis Xavier Berthold Froesch (1867-ca. 1920) with the design of Highland Park. Froesch was a German-born landscape designer who lived in the nearby neighborhood of Morningside. Froesch worked on the 1893 World Columbian Exposition, and in 1912 designed the landscape for Rea House, now part of Chatham University’s campus.

As a result of our efforts, Highland Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2019.

 

Former Jones & Laughlin Headquarters Building

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The Jones & Laughlin Building was constructed in 1907 as the headquarters of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, one of the largest steel producers in the United States.  Founded in 1853 as an iron manufacturer on the South Side, the company transitioned into steel production and built blast furnaces and vast mills on both sides of the Monongahela River and in Aliquippa.

Jones & Laughlin designed the steel structure of its office building at its Keystone Works structural plant, which moved from the South Side to Second Avenue in the Hazelwood portion of the facility in 1908. The company engaged architects MacClure and Spahr to design the building’s exterior skin and interior spaces. The company commissioned five additional stories to be added to the Jones & Laughlin Building in 1916, and this addition—also designed by MacClure and Spahr with structural steel plans by the J&L Keystone Works—was constructed in 1917.

Jones & Laughlin management relocated from 200 Ross Street to more modern accommodations at Gateway Center in 1952. The City of Pittsburgh and a pair of quasi-governmental city agencies—the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh (URA) and the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh (HACP)—purchased the building from the Jones & Laughlin Corporation in 1952. They renamed it the John P. Robin Civic Building, after the first executive director of the URA, who led the agency’s efforts to implement Renaissance I in the 1940s and 50s.

The Jones & Laughlin Building should be considered an historic landmark because it is directly associated with the activities of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation and its impact on the economy, urban geography, and identity of Pittsburgh, the western Pennsylvania steel-producing region, and the nation. The building is also a high-quality, high-integrity example of the Jacobean Revival Style of architecture applied to a major commercial building and a significant work of MacClure and Spahr. Finally, the Jones & Laughlin Building has been an established and familiar visual feature of downtown Pittsburgh for over 100 years.

 

Shrine of the Blessed Mother

Shrine of the Blessed Mother, 1957.

Shrine of the Blessed Mother, 1957.

The Shrine of the Blessed Mother (a.k.a. the Virgin of the Parkway) located off of Wakefield Street in South Oakland came into existence in 1956. Multiple accounts of miraculous visions surround the shrine’s early creation identify Sophie Toma, Anna Cybak, Mary Sunyoga, and Phillip Marraway as the shrine’s founders and caretakers. Over the course of several decades to today the shrine would have multiple caretakers and evolve to include structural, sculpted, and landscaped elements. It would also face, and survive, multiple threats to its existence.

The Shrine is historically significant because of its meaning and importance to the community of worshipers who have provided for its upkeep and growth for the past six decades and its association with the period of rapid expansion of Pittsburgh's freeway system. It is also significant because of its unique connection to Pittsburgh’s natural springs and its visual prominence on the hillsides of South Oakland.

This nomination was researched and written at the request of Councilman Bruce Kraus, in whose district the Shrine resides. The nomination of the Shrine of the Blessed Mother was supported by a donation made in honor of the P. F. Gallagher Family. 

 

Herron Hill Pumping Station

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The Herron Hill Pumping Station has played a significant role providing water to much of Pittsburgh for more than a century.

In 1896, City Council set aside 100 thousand dollars from the sale of bonds for a new Herron Hill Pumping Station lower on the property, closer to Centre Avenue and out of harm’s way from the landslides of the previous pumping station. Work proceeded at a rapid pace and the building was completed by the end of the year, with the date commemorated in the frieze above the front entrance. With the new Herron Hill Pumping Station in place, water could be pumped to the Herron Hill Reservoir or to the Bedford Basins and then distributed by supply mains to tanks in residential areas in the East End. This became known as the Herron Hill Service.

The Herron Hill Pumping Station is an important historical landmark because it is an example of the Classical Revival or Neoclassical style successfully adapted to the specific program of a late nineteenth-century water works. Important from a design standpoint was the desire to provide large quantities of natural light and ventilation into the building along with the ability for the public to confidently view clean modern infrastructure at work inside. The Herron Hill Pumping Station is also significant as a skillfully-designed, surviving example of the work of late nineteenth-century Pittsburgh architect William Smith Fraser. The Herron Hill Pumping Station is significant for its role in dependably providing public water to Pittsburgh’s notoriously hilly neighborhoods for over a century and for allowing rapid urban development of the city’s East End in the early twentieth-century.

Finally, the Herron Hill Pumping Station is significant for a number of reasons as a visual landmark in North Oakland, a neighborhood that is undergoing a considerable amount of new development. Top among them is it is important aesthetically for the historic composition of its site. Fraser placed his Classical Revival building appropriately upon a pedestal. The grassy knoll from which the building rises not only adds to its prominence, but would have offered sweeping views of the East End and the much of the Herron Hill Service area when first constructed.

The nomination of the Herron Hill Pumping was supported by a donation made in honor of Kathleen Gallagher.

 

Gallagher-Kieffer House

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Annie Neville Craig Davison had 234 North Dithridge Street built in 1893, possibly as a home for her newly married daughter, Mary Davison Reed.  The house was used as a rental from 1893 until 1914 and was home to such notable tenants as the Reverend Henry T. McClelland, tenured pastor of the Bellefield Presbyterian Church; and Melvin Johnston, Vice President of Duffs-Iron City College.

Annie Davison hired the contracting firm of Bennett and Stitely to build the home at a cost of $4,600.  The house was constructed in the Shingle style, characterized by a brick, stone, or clapboard first floor with the second floor and third or partial third floor covered by wood shingles, and is reflected in 234 North Dithridge Street’s steeply pitched gambrel roof, shingled second floor walls without corner boards, and the absence of highly decorative detailing.

In 1914, 234 North Dithridge Street was purchased by Patrick F. and Katharin Gallagher at a cost of $10,000. Patrick F. Gallagher was the President of Duquesne Construction Company, and he helped build many of the schools and churches around the Pittsburgh area, most notably Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Shadyside and St. Boniface Church on the North Side.

The Gallaghers raised nine children at 234 North Dithridge Street, and their descendants still live in the home today.  The Gallagher House has been owned by only two families in its almost 130-year existence.

The house is historically significant because of its association with the noted Pittsburgh builder Patrick F. Gallagher and because it is a unique example of Shingle Style architecture, tailored by P.F. Gallagher and the crafts and trades people with whom he worked.

This nomination was researched and written at the request of the Gallagher-Kieffer House’s current owner and submitted in partnership.

 

Mowry-Addison Mansion ("Echo")

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The Mowry-Addison Mansion (“Echo”) was constructed between 1830 and 1832 on a 100-acre tract situated between the Allegheny River and present-day 51st and 52nd Streets, extending back over a mile. The property’s layout reflected a common rural landscape of the period, known as a ribbon farm, which had a short width of riverfront and large depth containing the farmland.  This allowed several farm owners access to the river for transportation reasons without compromising fields and pastures.

At the time of home’s construction, the property was owned by Dr. Peter Mowry and his wife, Eliza Addison Mowry.  Born in 1770, Dr. Peter Mowry was one of Pittsburgh's most prominent physicians during the first third of the 19th century.  His medical practice made him wealthy, and he appears to have also profited from owning real estate in Downtown Pittsburgh, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and near Canton, Ohio.  Mowry also taught medical students, was a trustee of the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh) and was a vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church, Downtown. He died in 1833, not long after 5134 Carnegie Street was built.  Following his death, he willed the dwelling and furniture to his wife who lived in the mansion with family members until she died in 1871.

The house is historically significant because it is a significant example of domestic Greek Revival style within the city of Pittsburgh and its Lawrenceville neighborhood, its represents of early settlement patterns of the area prior to the expansion and annexation of Lawrenceville during the second half of the nineteenth century, and because it is a prominent feature of the neighborhood.

This nomination was researched and written at the request of the Mowry-Addison Mansion’s current owner and submitted in partnership.

 

The City-County Building

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Constructed between 1914-1917 the City-County Building, seat of government for the City of Pittsburgh, was designed by prominent architect Henry Hornbostel and noted engineer Edward Lee. The City-County Building’s distinct physical appearance creates one of the most recognizable visual features within the City of Pittsburgh and its unofficial downtown historic civic district (roughly bounded by Fifth Ave., the Crosstown Blvd., Boulevard of the Allies, and Cherry Way).

Hornbostel, in designing the City-County Building, specifically tailored the registers of the façade to reflect those in the Allegheny Courthouse. Yet the smooth, grey granite of the façade stands in stark contrast to the vary array of materials, textures, and hues that define the courthouse.

The building is significant for, among other things, its association with Henry Hornbostel and Edward Lee, its unique Beaux Arts design, its affiliation with important social and cultural aspects of Pittsburgh’s history, and that it is a prominent landmark in the city.

 

Former Pennsylvania National Bank Building

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The former Pennsylvania National Bank Building, located at 3480 Butler St., was constructed in 1902-03 to replace the older, three-story bank building that existed on the same site and housed the Lawrence Savings Bank. The current Beaux Arts building, now the offices of one of Pittsburgh’s prominent design firms, creates what is perhaps the most notable entrances into Lawrenceville.

The former Pennsylvania National Bank Building is significant because of its striking use of Beaux Arts design, its association with the architects Louis & Michael Beezer, and because its is a prominent visual feature in Lawrenceville.