Author: Father Pitt

  • Curves and Angles

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    The dome of the Allegheny Observatory, Observatory Hill, painted gold by the declining sun.

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  • Egyptian Fantasy

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    The Winter mausoleum in Allegheny Cemetery is an Egyptian-revival fantasy. The bronze doors show Mr. Winter himself as a pharaoh embarking on his journey through the underworld.

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  • Downtown from West Park

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    The skyline of downtown Pittsburgh seen from West Park. The bare branches, jagged buildings, and high contrast of a cloudy winter day make the picture, taken with an old and slightly leaky folding camera, look like a steel engraving.

  • Beauty in Texture

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    A carriage house in the West End. Beauty lies in ambush, waiting to jump out at us when our guard is down.

  • Winter in the Garden

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    After the leaves have fallen, the bright red twigs of the red-twig dogwood make an unexpected flash of color in the outdoor gardens of Phipps Conservatory. In the background, out of focus, is the Cathedral of Learning.

  • Fun with Granite

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    The Granite Building on Sixth Avenue is an exuberant riot of textures. Whatever ornamentation could be done with granite, it has been done here.

  • The Fort Pitt Blockhouse

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    The only building left from the original Fort Pitt, and the only pre-Revolutionary structure left in downtown Pittsburgh, is this modest little blockhouse, which somehow survived a century and a half of being surrounded by warehouses before Point State Park grew around it. These photographs were taken with an Ansco Speedex folding camera.

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  • Graceful Curves

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    The Lecture Hall, part of the giant Carnegie Institute complex in Oakland. The graceful curve of this unexpected projection from the building is balanced by an equally graceful curve in the sidewalk.

  • Gothic Fantasy

     

    The spire of Heinz Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus reaches toward heaven.

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  • The Inscription on the Monument

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    This is the inscription on the Civil War monument in West Park: “Erected to the memory of the 4,000 brave men of Allegheny County who fell in the great struggle to maintain the integrity of our union. The eye of God rests upon their graves even when unmarked by man, and their sleeping dust shall arise in the morning of the resurrection.”