Roslyn Place is a tiny and impossibly narrow street lined with small but dignified brick townhouses. So far it is little different from any of a dozen other nearby townhouse plans of the early 1900s. But it is the street itself, rather than the houses that line it, that is the attraction.
Those are not bricks that pave the street; they’re wood blocks. Here’s a closer look:
A somewhat bedraggled plaque on the handsome wrought-iron fence along Ellsworth Avenue dates the pavement to the year 1914.
Andrew Carnegie and a number of other wealthy poetry-lovers gave us this statue of Robert Burns, which stands in Schenley Park on the grounds of Phipps Conservatory, just at the end of the Panther Hollow Bridge. So I’ve made it into a perfect computer wallpaper for Burns fans everywhere. The wallpaper comes in three different proportions; click on each image for the full-scale version.
The 1600 x 1200 version can be rescaled to fit 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, 640 x 480, or any other 4-to-3 display.
The 1680 x 1060 version can be scaled to fit widescreen displays.
The 1280 x 1024 version fits most last-generation CRT monitors at their highest resolution.
The Kodak Pony is a delightful camera. It’s cheap and rugged, but it takes very good pictures with its sharp Ektanar lens, and it leaves the photographer completely in control of the picture. It’s hard for today’s photographers to imagine how little automation you can get away with. Here’s what you do to take a picture with a Pony: Set the aperture (there’s no light meter, of course); set the shutter speed; set the focus (no rangefinder, so you have to estimate the distance); cock the shutter; push the shutter release; release the film lock; and wind for the next picture.
So part of the reason I love the Pony is because I get to do everything myself. For the remainder of my argument, i offer these two pictures, taken yesterday on the grounds of Phipps Conservatory, and both showing the Cathedral of Learning in the distance.
An editorial cartoon by Jamieson of the Dispatch from 1906, when the need for a subway in Pittsburgh was already obvious and urgent. The subway downtown opened in 1985, seventy-nine years later.
A smokestack reaches for the sky from the Carnegie Institute heating plant. The picture is teeming with metaphorical possibilities, none of which will be elaborated here.
A classical dolphin in a long-dry fountain at the entrance to Grandview Park, on the edge of the cliff at Mount Washington.
In neighborhoods like Four Mile Run, nestled in a steep ravine, some of the streets necessarily turn into stairways.
Brookline today is a pleasant city neighborhood whose central avenue, Brookline Boulevard, is the broadest commercial street in Pittsburgh–a fact that will greatly surprise visitors from other cities, where residential streets may well be broader than Brookline Boulevard. In 1905, it was mostly vacant lots, but this advertisement promises a glowing future that–for the most part–actually came to pass. The neighborhood will enjoy even greater advantages when it is taken into the city of Pittsburgh: “the vote has been taken, the matter is officially settled.” The acrimonious annexation of Allegheny was still very much up in the air at that point, and the public would need assurance that Brookline would not present similar difficulties.
Rosa multiflora (it has no common name except “multiflora rose” and some nicknames too impolite to repeat here) is a noxious and invasive weed that can take over whole hillsides with its thick, rambling, thorny shoots. In June, it’s also one of our most beautiful flowers, covering itself with clusters of white roses and filling the air with rose perfume.
Here are two versions of a Rosa multiflora picture that will make a splendid desktop wallpaper for your computer. Nothing is more restful, or more conducive to productive work, than a view of green leaves and white flowers. Click to enlarge; right-click to download the full-size version.
The wide-screen version is for typical wide-screen screen resolutions of 1680 by 1050 or smaller.
The standard version is for screen resolutions of 1280 by 1024 or smaller.
The Mexican War Streets are mostly flat, but at the back end they start to creep up the hill toward Perry Hilltop. This beautiful block of rowhouses is just about perfect: the street paved with Belgian block, the houses well taken care of but not ostentatiously overrestored, and filled with friendly neighbors.
Brick sidewalks have their own charm, and they become more charming as they age and grow more difficult to walk on.
