The historic John A. Brashear Factory building, in its hey-day, where telescopes and precise scientific instruments were produced in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. More recent photograph at end of blog post.
(Image Source: Historic Pittsburgh. Allegheny Observatory Records, 1850-1967)
By Glenn A. Walsh
Reporting for SpaceWatchtower
A wall, close to Pittsburgh's Perrysville Avenue, of the original factory building used by
famous telescope-maker John A. Brashear, in the latter part of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century,
collapsed on Monday evening. Consequently for reasons of public
safety, the City of Pittsburgh (which at this point in time owned the
historic, yet dilapidated structure) found it necessary to demolish
the remainder of the building.
Part of a wall of the two-floor and
basement factory building collapsed onto a nearby, two-floor
apartment building March 16 at about 10:20 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
/ Tuesday at about 2:20 Coordinated Universal Time, necessitating the
evacuation of the apartment building. The American Red Cross has
provided shelter to occupants of the apartment building, until city
inspectors declare the apartment building safe to inhabit. The
Brashear Factory building had been vacant for about 20 years.
The Brashear Factory building had been
officially condemned by the city in May of 2012, due to facade and
structural damage including holes in the roof. It seems the wall
collapse was due to the freeze and thaw cycle of late Winter, as well
as a roof that was rotted-out.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto had been
trying to find funding to rehabilitate the historic building, but he
told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that time had just run-out
and the city could not afford the cost. As a City Councilman in 2012,
the Mayor had been Executive Producer of a historic documentary,
“Undaunted: The Forgotten Giants of the Allegheny Observatory,”
regarding the history of the Allegheny Observatory and John Brashear.
The author, Glenn A. Walsh, served as a historical consultant for
this documentary.
The North Side Pittsburgh building was
the headquarters of the John A. Brashear Company, which specialized
in high quality lenses and mirrors for telescopes and other optical
devices. Later in the twentieth century, this company which produced
high-quality telescopes, spectrascopes, and other high-precision
scientific instruments was known as the J.W. Fecker Company, which
moved out of the factory building in 1954.
Optics manufactured by the John A.
Brashear Company were used in the famous Michelson-Morley physics
experiment in 1887, for precisely calculating the speed of light,
which eventually led to Albert Einstein's Theory of Special
Relativity in 1905.
Finished in May of 1886, the Brashear
Factory building was accompanied by construction of a new home for
John Brashear and his family, next-door. The former Brashear home is
in good condition and is currently being used as a half-way house for
men with chemical dependencies.
John A. Brashear was a self-taught
scientist, whose craftsmanship made the telescopes and scientific
instruments he produced second-to-none in quality, in his era. His
telescopes and scientific devices were sold throughout the world and
were in very high demand.
For a time John Brashear was Acting
Director of the Allegheny Observatory, and later for a time, Acting
Chancellor of the Western University of Pennsylvania (today known as
the University of Pittsburgh); in both cases, he refused permanent
appointment to those positions. He was one of three Pittsburgh civic
leaders to be instrumental in the design of Andrew Carnegie's
Carnegie Technical Schools (today known as Carnegie Mellon
University). And, he single-handedly raised the money, in one Summer,
needed to build the new and much larger Allegheny Observatory
building dedicated in 1912.
John Brashear died at age 79 in 1920.
His ashes along with those of his wife, as well as the ashes of
another former Allegheny Observatory Director, James E. Keeler, and
his wife and son, are interred in a crypt in the basement of
Allegheny Observatory.
The cost of the land, buildings, and
factory machinery of the Brashear House and Factory on the North Side
was funded by Pittsburgh philanthropist William Thaw, Vice President
of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a trustee of the Western University
of Pennsylvania (today known as the University of Pittsburgh). Mr.
Thaw leased the land, buildings, and factory machinery to John
Brashear, free-of-charge!
This lease was only terminated by John
Brashear's death in 1920. William Thaw admired John Brashear, and
Allegheny Observatory Director Samuel Pierpont Langley (in 1887,
Professor Langley was appointed Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution, then considered the greatest scientific appointment in
America), and considered the money he provided to both as his
donation to important scientific research.
John Brashear's original home and shop,
both much smaller than the new buildings, had been located on
Pittsburgh's South Side Slopes (located on the south side of the
Monongahela River), above the mill where John Brashear had previously
been employed before deciding to start his own telescope-making
business. His new home and factory were located on the original
Observatory Hill on the North Side (across the Allegheny River from
Downtown Pittsburgh, and just up the hill from the site of what would
become Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of
Popular Science in 1939), only about a block from the original
Allegheny Observatory. Mr. Thaw had, wisely, decided to locate John
Brashear close to Professor Langley's research facility (the
Allegheny Observatory had been donated to the Western University of
Pennsylvania in May of 1867).
The Brashear House and Factory
buildings, on Pittsburgh's North Side, were listed on the National
Register of Historic Places on 2012 December 26, after a campaign
waged for such designation by Pittsburgh-area historic
preservationists including the author, Glenn A. Walsh.
Last year, the Young Preservationists
Association of Pittsburgh had placed the Brashear Factory building on
its annual list of the Top Ten Preservation Opportunities for 2014.
The list is an annual effort, by the preservation group, to promote
the restoration and reuse of historic properties.
In 1890, the main campus of the Western
University of Pennsylvania relocated, from Downtown, to a site
between the original Allegheny Observatory and the Brashear Factory
building. However, this hilltop location had limited space for
expansion, so in 1909 the University campus moved again to the
Oakland section of the city, about three miles east of Downtown. By
an act of the Pennsylvania General Assembly in the Summer of 1908,
the name was changed from the Western University of Pennsylvania to
the University of Pittsburgh.
Oakland, where the main University
campus remains today, became the city's civic, educational, and
medical center district. It is where Andrew Carnegie had constructed
his museums and main library (Carnegie Museums of Natural History and
Art, and the Main Branch of The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh) in
1895, and the Carnegie Technical Schools (today known as Carnegie
Mellon University) in 1900. Andrew Carnegie's colleague, Henry
Phipps, had establshed the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens here in1893. Schenley
Park, one of the city's four large parks, opened in Oakland in 1889.
Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and
Military Museum opened in Oakand in 1910. The Historical Society of
Western Pennsylvania established a small museum and historical
library in the Oakland neighborhood in 1914 (these were moved to a
much larger building, Downtown, in 1996). Mount Mercy College
(today's Carlow University) was added to the Civic Center district in
1929. And in addition to being the home to several major hospitals,
even the Pittsburgh Pirates called Oakand home, at Forbes Field, from
1909 to 1970!
The loss of the Brashear Factory
building is only the latest loss of historic structures related to
historic Pittsburgh astronomy. The original Allegheny Observatory
building, built in 1860 near the Brashear Factory building site, was
demolished in the 1950s. Replaced by a much larger, three-dome,
Allegheny Observatory building two miles further north in Riverview
Park in 1912, the original Allegheny Observatory building had been
used as an orphanage before demolition.
In the late 1990s, we lost the private astronomical observatory of Leo Scanlon, Co-Founder of the Amateur Astronomers' Association of Pittsburgh and strong advocate for the establishment of Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science. Built in 1930 next to Mr. Scanlon's home in the Summer Hill section of Pittsburgh's North Side, this observatory included the world's first all-aluminum astronomical observatory dome. Mr. Scanlon's observatory proved that aluminum was a strong enough material to hold-up such a dome. While the observatory had to be razed in the late 1990s, when Mr. Scanlon moved to a nursing home (he died in 1999 at the age of 96), the historic all-aluminum dome was preserved. In 2013, the Amateur Astronomers' Association of Pittsburgh donated this historic dome to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to be displayed at the Cherry Springs State Park in Potter County.
In 2002, the historic mid-1880s home of
Pittsburgh philanthropist Henry Buhl, Jr. (whose Buhl Foundation
built Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular
Science in 1939) was destroyed by a fire started when a kerosene
heater ignited items in the house. The 3 1/2-story brick North Side
home, which was vacant at the time, may have been occupied by
homeless individuals who accidentally started the blaze.
The historic 1805 homestead of Henry
Buhl, Jr.'s father, Christian Buhl, located in the north suburban
Pittsburgh borough of Zelienople, is now a house museum operated by
the Zelienople Historical Society.
The bequest of Henry Buhl, Jr. created
the Buhl Foundation in 1927, which constructed America's fifth major
planetarium in 1939. Henry Buhl, Jr. had owned the Boggs and Buhl
Department Store, which operated from 1869 to 1958, one block south
of the site where Buhl Planetarium was constructed. In 2012,
Allegheny Square (originally, the town square of the former Allegheny
City, until annexed to Pittsburgh in 1907) was rehabilitated and
rededicated as Buhl Community Park at Allegheny Square, directly
between the original Buhl Planetarium building and the site of the
former Boggs and Buhl Department Store.
Originally owned by Mr. Buhl and his
brother-in-law Russell H. Boggs, until Mr. Boggs' death in 1922, the
North Side retail establishment catered to many wealthy clients,
including several industrialists who lived less than a mile away on
Ridge Avenue. Some of the former Ridge Avenue mansions are now used
as classroom buildings for the main campus of the Community College
of Allegheny County.
The historic 1888 mansion of Mr. Boggs,
designed by famous architect H.H. Richardson (who designed the
Allegheny County Courthouse, which was also completed in 1888), is
now used as a bed-and-breakfast hotel. Now known as the Inn on the
Mexican War Streets, located in the Mexican War Streets neighborhood
of Pittsburgh's North Side (homes in this neighborhood were built
shortly after the Mexican War, 1846 to 1848), the mansion sits on
West North Avenue, just across the street from the large Allegheny
Commons West Park.
Below is a photograph of the historic Brashear Factory building in recent years, before the wall collapse that led to demolition this week. A photograph of the building in its hey-day is located at the beginning of this blog post.
(Image Source: Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh)
More on John A. Brashear: Link >>> http://johnbrashear.tripod.com/
More on the Allegheny Observatory: Link >>> http://www.pitt.edu/~aobsvtry/
John Brashear - Links to Special Resources: Brashear Telescope Factory Building:
Link >>> http://johnbrashear.tripod.com/speciallinks/brashearfactory.html
Related Blog Posts ---
Update: Historic Brashear Time Capsule (2015 April 9):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2015/04/this-4-inch-refractor-telescope-was.html
Dispute: Ownership of Brashear Time Capsule (2015 March 26):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2015/03/dispute-ownership-of-brashear-time.html
Historic Brashear Telescope Factory Time Capsule Found & Opened (2015 March 25):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2015/03/brashear-telescope-factory-time-capsule.html
Brashear House & Factory: Nomination to National Register of Historic Places (2012 Oct. 11):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2012/10/nomination-to-national-register-of.html
Historic Nomination: John Brashear House & Factory, Pittsburgh (2012 Sept. 13):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2012/09/historic-nomination-john-brashear-house.html
Centennial: New Allegheny Observatory Dedication (2012 August 28):
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2012/08/centennial-new-allegheny-observatory.html
Pittsburgh's Allegheny Observatory: New History Film (2012 April 19)
:
Link >>> http://spacewatchtower.blogspot.com/2012/04/pittsburghs-allegheny-observatory-new.html
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gaw
Glenn A. Walsh, Project Director,
Friends of the Zeiss < http://buhlplanetarium.tripod.com/fotz/ >
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Author of History Web Sites on the Internet --
* Buhl Planetarium, Pittsburgh:
< http://www.planetarium.
* Adler Planetarium, Chicago:
< http://adlerplanetarium.
* Astronomer, Educator, Optician John A. Brashear:
< http://johnbrashear.tripod.com >
* Andrew Carnegie & Carnegie Libraries:
< http://www.andrewcarnegie.
* Civil War Museum of Andrew Carnegie Free Library:
< http://garespypost.tripod.com >
* Duquesne Incline cable-car railway, Pittsburgh:
< http://inclinedplane.tripod.
* Public Transit:
< http://andrewcarnegie2.tripod.
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