The Art Nouveau date stone in Phipps Conservatory, in the rear of the palm house.
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1892
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Stone and Brick
The courtyard of the Penn Brewery in Dutchtown at the base of Troy Hill. This was the old Eberhardt and Ober brewery; the building is still the same, but the beer is now some of the best in the world. The restaurant serves some of the best German food in Pittsburgh.
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Landscapes in Glass
Glassmaker Dale Chihuly has filled Phipps Conservatory with whimsical creations that look like mad experiments in botany. Chihuly may be the only installation artist working today who consistently manages the extraordinary feat of appealing equally to three-year-old children and old grumps.
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Luminarias
The plaza at the center of PPG Place is now filled with a skating rink in the winter. But a few years ago, before the skating rink, on Light-Up Night it used to be filled with luminarias—paper bags weighted with sand and lit by candles. (Luminarias, normally associated with Latin American culture, are an old tradition in Pittsburgh for some reason.)
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A Canyon in the City
Streets in downtown Pittsburgh are extraordinarily narrow by American standards. Here Oliver Avenue cuts through a narrow gorge formed by some celebrated buildings (the Union Trust Building, the William Penn Hotel, the Oliver Building) and some slightly less celebrated buildings.
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A Stroll Among the Millionaires
The sidewalk of Lincoln Avenue in Allegheny West. A hundred years ago, this neighborhood had more millionaires per square mile than anywhere else on earth.
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A Proper School
The Linden Avenue School in Point Breeze. Learning must be something beautiful and important if it takes place in a building like this.
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More Gothic Fantasy
There are three Ralph Adams Cram churches in Pittsburgh, but by far the most fantastical of the lot is Holy Rosary in Homewood.
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The Gulf Building
The Gulf Building, an Art Deco tower with a top modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, is rendered here in old-postcard colors through the marvel of modern digital technology.
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Carson Street Victorian
Italianate detail on the upper floors of a storefront on Carson Street, South Side.