Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-02-14
Pittsburg Spends SlO,OOO.0OU for
the Erection of Thousands of
New Structures in 1890.
A CITY'S WONDERFUL PROGRESS
Shown by the Statistics for Ten Years
Embodied in the Building
Inspectors Report.
GROWTH OF ARCHITECTURAL TASTE.
Fire-Escsps Must Be Erected Upon Every Eigh
Building

Pittsburg during the past year has pushed
herself into the front rank of the beautiful,
cultured and progressive cities of the earth.
But while learning little arts and graces,
and improving her style generally, like
bright, pretty, ambitious woman, Pittsburg
showed a streak of sound, common sense,
not always found in a society belle, and In
vested some of her pin money where it would
do the most good.
Ten million dollars were spent in this city
during the year 1890 in the erection of build
ings. They range from the humble chicken
coop, wherein the industrious hen lays eggs,
while her proud mate calls the heavens to
witness that ne, and he alone, is the sole in
ventor and patentee of the embryo chicken,
10 the ten-storv granite structure, with
towers and turretS, which shelters men who
never use the dollar-mark without adding
long tail OF ciphers, until 1t looks like
golden meteor flashing across hard-luck
sky. Between these two extremes were the
modest, yet comfortable, dwellings of the
men OF skill and Drawn, who are the
bulwark of Pittsburg's prosperity; the
large, solid factories and mills in which
these men convert raw materials into the
finished ware; the palatial residences of the
wealthy, clubhouses for social intercourse,
schoolhouSes for education of little Amer.
ican patriots, temples for the worship of
God, and all the different descriptions of
buildings which 90 to make up great city.
Progress Shown by Official Figures.
These facts were brought out officially
yesterday in the annual report of the Bureau
of Building Inspection to the chief of the
Department of Public Safety. During 1890
there were erected in Plttsburg 3. IVA build
ings, of which IS were stone, 10 iron, 40
ironclad, ,036 brick and 700 frame. Of
the buildings erected were banks, 3 brew
cries, IL churches, clubhouses, blast
furnaces, 2, 800 dwelling houses, 3 hotels 2
hospitals, 6 ice factories, 155 kitchens, %
Office buildings, 81 shops, 141 stores,7 school
houses, 161 stables, 25 warehouses, theater,
/ city pumping station, police patrol
stations, fire engine houses, orphan asy-
lun and others of less public interest.
The total cost of these buildings, as re-
ported to the bureau, was s.. .079, ,567, but a
conservative estimate of the actual cost
places it at SIC, 100000. There are two rea-
sons for this apparent discrepancy. One is
that the fee for building permit is based
upon the cost of the structure, ana this pre-
vents any braggadocio on the part of the
owner of the projected building, and in his
anxiety to be modest and incidentally save
a dollar or two, he occasionally under-esti-
mates the cost The other reason is that
there are very few instances on record where
a building has not cost at least 80 per cent
more than the original estimate, due to
changes in the specifications resulting, from
the taste for architectural beauty cultivated
in the owner as the building grows beneath
the hands of the artifcers, and the daily in
vention of improved and costly appliances
for comfort and adornment.
A Taste for Handsome Structures.
There were 81 less buildings erected in
1890 than in 1889, but those put up in the
former wear were of a much finer character,
as is shown by the fact that the total cost in
1890 exceeded that of 1889 by S233, ,945. The
receipts from permits in 1899 were SIS, ,O74 IS.
The following tabulated shows the num-
Der of brick and frame buildings erected in
each ward during the past year. These
structures are pretty generally dwellings,
although among them are some business
houses: