Tag Archives: architecture

Louis Bellinger was a Pittsburgh architect worth knowing

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Louis Arnett Sargent Bellinger was Pittsburgh’s only Black licensed and practicing professional architect for more than 25 years. The Hill District resident designed and contributed to the construction of some of the city’s most historically significant buildings, including the Central Amusement Park, Greenlee Field, and the Pythian Temple (New Grenada Theater).

Few photos of Louis A.S. Bellinger have survived. They are grainy copies preserved in microfilmed newspaper articles, like this one published in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1927.

Bellinger was a South Carolina native who came from a family of builders and entrepreneurs. He was born in 1891 in Sumter, South Carolina, a city about 50 miles east of Columbia, the state capital. The Bellingers had deep ties to the Low Country and the Charleston area. That’s where Louis was raised and went to school.

He was one of 10 children of carpenter and self-employed contractor George Bellinger and his wife, Florence. Many Bellingers, by blood and marriage, worked in the building trades as carpenters and masons.

Before the Civil War, some Bellingers had been enslaved by the Middleton family. Their Charleston plantation is now a National Historic Landmark and some Bellingers use the Middleton name. Their ranks in South Carolina include religious and civic leaders, entrepreneurs, educators and at least one politician (and former Tuskegee Airman) — Earl M. Middleton, who was a state legislator in South Carolina.

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Montgomery County’s earliest ranch house?

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garden-homes-letterheadThe community builders who laid out the lots and constructed the first homes in Silver Spring, Maryland’s Northwood Park subdivision were skilled real estate entrepreneurs. The people who owned Garden Homes, Inc., selected an attractive and accessible site for their subdivisions. And, they built homes finished in popular styles they knew would sell quickly.

One home built in 1939 stood out from all of the Cape Cods and English Cottage period revival homes Garden Homes built. It was a fully modernist home plucked from cutting edge California. Several years before other builders were marketing their own California cottages in suburban Maryland, Northwood Park’s builders completed what may be the earliest ranch-style house in Montgomery County. Continue reading →

Faux homes help new light rail infrastructure blend in D.C. suburbs

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Possible Purple Line substation house. MTA photo.

Possible Purple Line substation house. MTA photo.

The Purple Line is a proposed 16-mile light rail corridor. Once completed, it will link suburban communities north of the nation’s capital in Maryland’s Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. First proposed more than a decade ago, state officials breathed new life into the project in 2007 to connect Metro transit stations in New Carrolton and Bethesda as well as the business districts between the two communities.

Planning for the project, including engineering and environmental studies, are underway. Construction could begin as early as 2015 if funding is secured.

Purple Line route. MTA map.

Purple Line route. MTA map.

The Purple Line will require multiple support structures and buildings, including 18 power substations, 14 signal bungalows (small buildings with radio and signal equipment), and a nine-story ventilation tower in Bethesda’s central business district. Residents who live along the proposed alignment told the Washington Post that they are concerned about potential impacts from the power facilities known as traction power substations. Continue reading →