Father Pitt

Category: Bluff

  • Laval House, Duquesne University

    Laval house, front

    Duquesne University has overrun many blocks that were once crowded Bluff streets. The Academic Walk follows the course of what used to be Vickroy Street, and by almost random chance two Bluff rowhouses have been preserved in beautiful condition by the Spiritan Campus Ministry. In fact, on Google Maps we find that their address is still 952 Vickroy Street, even though they are the only remaining trace of Vickroy Street. In the 1800s, their neighbor used to be a brickyard, so the neighborhood has improved since they were built.

    A mural on the side.

  • Bell Tower, Duquesne University Chapel

    This cupola on top of the chapel still has a working bell, never replaced by loudspeakers. That is an unusual thing in Pittsburgh.

  • Mellon Hall, Duquesne University

    Richard King Mellon Hall of Science

    The Richard King Mellon Hall of Science was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and is therefore a black box on stilts. Old Pa Pitt sometimes makes fun of Mies’ black boxes on stilts, but he means it good-naturedly. The colonnades of stilts have a job, and they do it well. They humanize some inhumanly large buildings by creating a human-sized interface between building and street. They also create an expansive outdoor space that is out of the rain and snow, but still open to the world. Here we see a good use of that space, with tables being set up for graduation festivities.

    In the colonnade
    Among the stilts

  • Old Main, Duquesne University

    Old Main, Duquesne University

    The idea of a skyscraper university did not originate with Pitt: in 1885, this building—a supertall by 1885 standards—put all of Holy Ghost College under one roof. The architect was William Kaufman, and the building cost the enormous sum of $150,000. The roof originally had a cupola, which must have had amazing views of the city when the smoke parted for a while.

    The building shortly after it was built, from Allegheny County Centennial, 1888.

  • Mellon Hall, Duquesne University

    Mellon Hall

    It is surprising to discover, considering how many of his buildings sprouted in other cities, that this is the only building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Pittsburgh. (The IBM Building in Allegheny Center was by his architectural firm, but the design was actually by one of his minions in his Chicago office.) It is an unusually long and low building by his standards, but it is otherwise a typical Miesian black box on stilts. Here we see it from across the river with a long lens.

    Mellon Hall

  • South Side, Bluff, and Lower Hill

    A view from the South Side Slopes. Below, a closer look at part of Duquesne University and Mercy Hospital on the Bluff.

  • UPMC Mercy Pavilion Under Construction

    Just a few blocks away from our first Eye and Ear Hospital, Mercy Hospital is building a “Pavilion” that will specialize in eye patients. Here we see it from across the Mon.

  • View from the South Side

    A composition in cables and roofs, with the Bluff in the background and the U. S. Steel Tower behind that. This picture was taken in September of 2019, but not dredged out of the archives until now.

  • The Bluff

    Bluff

    Seen from across the river. It seldom occurs to us when we drive on the Boulevard of the Allies how precariously the highway is perched on the edge of a sheer cliff.

  • Mercy Hospital

    Pittsburgh’s first hospital is also our last remaining Catholic hospital, operating as part of the UPMC empire under an agreement that allows it to retain its Catholic principles. It sits at the top of the Bluff, and if you have to be sick one consolation may be that your room has a swell view. In this picture, the UPMC logo lowers symbolically over the complex from the top of the U. S. Steel tower.