Father Pitt

Author: Father Pitt

  • Grotesque Face on Fifth Avenue

    This small piece of the old façade sticks up over the undistinguished tiles that cover the rest of this Fifth Avenue building. It must have been quite a façade when we could see the rest of it.

  • One Gateway Center

    A view of One Gateway Center straight down the plaza, flanked by Two Gateway Center and Three Gateway Center.

  • Complementary Masses

    Cathedral of Learning and abstract sculpture

    If you stand in just the right place, the sculpture outside the Carnegie Museum of Art seems to be almost an exact inversion of the Cathedral of Learning.

  • Fort Pitt Bridge from Liberty Avenue

    With bonus abstract sculpture and cloud of steam from the infernal regions.

  • Christmas at the SouthSide Works

    The Town Square at the SouthSide Works, decorated for Christmas. The SouthSide Works Cinema is a good imitation of an Art Deco neighborhood movie house, though the Deco entrance leads to a modern multiplex.

  • Arrott Building from Wood Street

    The Arrott Building, still under renovation, looms over the shops of Wood Street on a grey but busy December morning.

  • Grand Staircase in the Carnegie

    The Grand Staircase is the heart of the old Carnegie Institute building, and no expense was spared in making it lavishly artistic. The murals are by John White Alexander, a Pittsburgh native who was in his day almost as well regarded as John Singer Sargent.

  • One PPG Place from Wood Street

    Looming over the smaller buildings on Fifth Avenue, One PPG Place looks like a fantasy tower in a superhero movie, which is why it tends to play fantasy towers in superhero movies.

  • Rose of Sharon Gone to Seed

    Roses of Sharon produce flowers all through the summer and fall, and the flowers each produce a pod of seeds like this. Thus the bush spreads in the city. Its favorite habitat is along fences and among hedges, where the lawn mower won’t get it; in fact, it is very good at taking over entire hedges gradually, until the hedge is nothing but Rose of Sharon. To be fair to the plant, Rose of Sharon makes a very good hedge with very attractive flowers, so you may just want to let it take over.

  • The Horne’s Christmas Tree

    For decades the corner of Horne’s department store was made into a gigantic Christmas tree every year. Though Horne’s is long gone, the current owners of the building have kept up the tradition, and for good reason. There would be riots in the streets if the tree failed to appear.