Sunlight filters through yellow leaves on a wooded hillside in Mount Lebanon.
-
Autumn in the Woods
-
Skinny Building
Is this the narrowest building in the world? That depends on how you define “narrowest” and “building.” At five feet two inches deep, the Skinny Building is at least remarkably skinny. A building in Vancouver’s Chinatown is listed by recordkeepers as the shallowest in the world, but although its ground floor is four feet eleven inches deep, oriels make the upper floor much deeper.
The Skinny Building is at Forbes Avenue and Wood Street, a few blocks from the Wood Street subway station.
-
Staghorn Sumac
The fruits of a Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) often persist after the brilliantly colored leaves have begun to drop off.
-
Water Over the Dam
Water pours over a little dam in North Park.
-
In the Orchid Room at Phipps
A blue Vanda. Blue is the rarest color in the orchid family, and even the blue Vandas only approach blue by way of violet.
A Dendrobium hybrid.
A Stanhopea, whose incredibly complex flowers have clever mechanics that trap the pollinating insect until it has done its job very thoroughly.
Probably some sort of Laeliocattleya hybrid.
A Paphiopedilum.
-
Rubber Ducky
It’s a giant inflatable rubber ducky. Why? There may be no good answer to that question. But, to judge by the crowds at the Point today (the duck’s last weekend in the water), it seems that a giant inflatable rubber duck was just what Pittsburgh wanted. The Port Authority is running double streetcars and Subway Locals (which serve only from Station Square through downtown to Allegheny) to handle the traffic on the subway. Downtown is full of tourists from exotic places like Iowa who came to have their pictures taken in front of the rubber duck. Traffic jams surround the Point. Street vendors are selling bags and bags of rubber ducks. Restaurants downtown are packed. All because of a rubber ducky.
-
Entrance to Bayard Manor
North Oakland is one of the few areas of Pittsburgh where large apartment blocks took root, and some of them are worth a look. Bayard Manor gives us a sort of deco interpretation of Gothic that fits well with the Cathedral of Learning a few blocks away.
-
Pond Near Wexford
A pond near Wexford reflects the autumn leaves.
-
Cathedral of Learning from Three Viewpoints
The Cathedral of Learning from three different angles. Pittsburgh is a bit unusual in having one of its tallest skyscrapers outside the main skyscraper district. Currently this is our seventh-tallest building (at 535 feet), but it will be bumped down to eighth-tallest when the new Tower at PNC Plaza (554 feet tall) is finished.
-
Ellsworth Terrace
Ellsworth Terrace, a narrow court of Craftsman-style townhouses in Shadyside, is a century old this year. It was quite modern in style when it was built. The pseudo-Victorian building at the end is a modern addition.
