{"nrhp_refnum":"86002690","name":"McCleary Elementary School","other_names":["McCleary Traditional Academy"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Holmes St. and McCandless Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Pittsburgh","county":"Allegheny County","state":"PA","lat":40.48032290500004,"lon":-79.95118758899997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-09-30","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"McCleary Elementary School is a school building in the Lawrenceville area of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, built around 1900 for the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education. It is also known as the 18th Ward Public School and was named for a Mt. Albion sub-district principal.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the school is among the most historically evocative schools of its period and that its surviving decorative accents compare favorably with other schools designed by Ulysses J.L. Peoples, an important Pittsburgh school architect. The building was constructed at a cost of $140,000, described as high for the time. It was built to serve a rapidly growing working-class population following the opening of nearby blast furnaces.","narrative":"Built around 1900 in Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, McCleary Elementary School is a Renaissance Revival brick school designed by Ulysses J.L. Peoples, an architect the nomination describes as important to Pittsburgh's school buildings. The school sits on a sloping lot, with its five-bay main facade below street level on Holmes Street behind an iron fence. Its central entry has a rounded arch, a heavy cornice and foliate spandrels bearing the construction date. Inside, a two-story rotunda ringed by classrooms once held a stained glass dome, now removed. Surviving interior features include wood wainscoting, cast iron stair balustrades with lion-head newel posts, marble stair treads and Classical door surrounds. The school was built at a cost of $140,000 to serve a working-class neighborhood that grew quickly after nearby blast furnaces opened. Its design has lost its original roof and dome, but its decorative accents are still regarded as among the finest surviving examples of Peoples's school work.","period_of_significance":"1881-1900","architect_builder":"U.J.L. Peoples","architectural_style":"Renaissance Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"The original hipped roof and skylight were replaced by a flat roof, and the stained glass dome of the rotunda has been removed.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:32.357422-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/86002690.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86002690/5e8cf8d0b0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86002690/5e8cf8d0b0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Lee Paxton","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McClearyElementarySchool.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Lee Paxton</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McClearyElementarySchool.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"100004020","name":"Lawrenceville Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/pennsylvania/lawrenceville-historic-district-100004020/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71992142","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCleary_Elementary_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15252509"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/allegheny-county/mccleary-elementary-school-86002690/"}