Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-13
RELICS OF HISTORY.
BuiIding Inspectors Find Many Dangerous
Houses at the Point-Liable to Collapse
without Warming.

| Binding Inspectors Find Many Dangerous
Houses at the Point-Liable to Collapse
Withou. Warming.
Building Inspectors Hoffman and Brown
yesterday spent the day in making a tour
in what they termed the slums of fPittsburg,
being that portion of the city known as the
Point district. AS a result of their tour
they will report to the Chief of the Depart
ment of Public Safety that there are at least
so buildings in that portion of the city that
should be carefully examined as q measure
of safety and to protect the lives of the in
digent occupants. The examination made
by the Inspectors yesterday was only super
fetal as they had no authority to go further
than that. Under the law, complaints must
be officially made by at least two property
holders in the vicinity before the Building
Inspector has any right to enter building
and make a technical examination
to determine its safety. Nothing of this
kind has been done about any of the build
ings in question, but the inspectors, while
they refuse to specify for publication, say
they will report to their chief the condi
ton in which they found many old build
ings in their tour.
The locality specially designated by the
Inspectors as containing many decrepit
buildings was the Schenley property on
which stand the oldest buildings erected in
the city. The habitatio2s of many
of the people in this district are rotten and
shaky in the extreme, and several buildings
are in such dllapidated condition that the
withdrawal of two or three bricks would
oauea fharo 70 oor,o furo linr Joup ovar fho
heads of the occupants One house in par
ticular, situated in an alley in the rear of
the old foundry of Warden & Nicholson, on
Penn avenue. and located near the old
block house, is specified as very danger
Gus abode. That house is said to have at
one time sheltered General Washington for
several DAYS, 1t was built about the same
time as the block house was, on level with
the street, as it was at that time, but the
streets have since been filled up in that
neighborhood and now access is gained to
the first floor of the old house by the descent
of six or seven steps, One feature of nearly
all these old buildings noticed by the In
spectors was, that they are built in the style
known as the "old jackson frames" being
first put up with frame joist and the space
between the joist filled in with brick.
The Inspectors had some amusement along
with the many discomforts and disagreea-
BILE odors they encountered in making their
way through the narrow courts and alleys at
the Point At one house which they de-
sired to enter to examine they were met by
big red-faced Irish woman who mistook
them for Law and Order detectives looking
for speak-easies, and she compelled them to
depart with considerable more haste than
dignity by her forcible use of the broom
stick. At another place they encountered
group of boys wrestling with Jackpot in
an old deserted shanty. The lads supposed
the Inspectors were police officers after
them, and they skipped out, leaving their
hats, deck of cards and the Jackpot of Is
cents lying on the floor. Several groups
infantile gamblers were discovered by the
Inspectors, but the boys all beat hasty re-
treat at their approach and their antics
were very amusing.