Father Pitt

Why should the beautiful die?


The Grant Building

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Henry Hornbostel’s last great work was his biggest, a late-art-deco skyscraper towering next to his own City-County Building. The original lobby has been replaced by a 1980s parody of an art-deco interior, but the building is otherwise much as Hornbostel imagined it in the late 1930s. On top is a big red light that blinks “P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H” in Morse code all night—a landmark that guided commercial aircraft from a hundred miles away in the early days of aviation.

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  1. Sean

    They turned the light off a few months ago when they realized that it was actually spelling “P-I-T-E-T-S-B-K-R-R-H”. If it hasn’t been fixed yet, I hope they do so for the summit next week.

    http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09193/983408-53.stm

  2. […] Deco building in Pittsburgh, and it was very briefly the city’s tallest building, until the Grant Building surpassed it a few months […]

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