Father Pitt

Category: Bridges

  • Bellefield Bridge

    Bellefield Bridge and Carnegie Library
    From Greater Pittsburg, 1905.

    A view across the Bellefield Bridge toward the Carnegie Library in Oakland. The bridge is still there, but you can’t see it. The hollow was filled in with the bridge still in place, and the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain sits on top of the buried bridge now.

    This view shows the library building before the enormous expansion in 1907. The two towers were victims of the expansion—but also perhaps victims of some negative criticism. The building in general—designed by Longfellow, Alden & Harlow—was highly praised, but some critics thought the towers a bit embarrassing. When Alden & Harlow (Longfellow had decided to stay in Boston) designed the new addition, the towers came down.

  • Smithfield Street Bridge

    Smithfield Street Bridge
    Portal to the Smithfield Street Bridge
    Smithfield Street Bridge
    Smithfield Street Bridge
    Smithfield Street Bridge
    Smithfield Street Bridge
    Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
    Comments

  • Panhandle Bridge

    Panhandle Bridge with railroad ties in the foreground

    The picture above required a lot of manipulation: it was built from three separate photographs at different exposures in order to capture the detail in both the light and misty distance and the dark railroad ties in the foreground. The result may look a little artificial, but it makes a good illustration of the bridge. The pictures below, with no relevant details in the foreground, are less manipulated.

    Panhandle Bridge
    Panhandle Bridge
    Fujifilm Finepix HS10.

  • Pylon of the Tenth Street Bridge

    Pylon of the Tenth Street Bridge

    Below, with bonus pigeons on a wire.

    Pylon of the South Tenth Street Bridge
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

  • Rachel Carson Bridge

    Rachel Carson Bridge, Pittsburgh
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    The Rachel Carson or Ninth Street Bridge, Pittsburgh, seen from six floors up on Liberty Avenue.

  • Fort Pitt Bridge

    Fort Pitt Bridge, with Point State Park and Acrisure Stadium in the background
    Sony Alpha 3000.

  • Rachel Carson Bridge

    Rachel Carson Bridge

    The Ninth Street Bridge, now named for our world-changing naturalist Rachel Carson, is the third of the Three Sisters going by street numbers, but it was the first to be built. Here we see it during the recent Three Rivers Arts Festival, when the artists’ market spilled outward across its entire length.

    Entrance
    Lantern
    Plaque
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    It is old Pa Pitt’s belief that every work of architecture or engineering ought to bear a permanent record of all the information a future historian will want.

  • Andy Warhol Bridge

    Andy Warhol Bridge

    An album of views of the middle of the Three Sisters, taken on a cloudy day and a sunny day.

    Andy Warhol Bridge with downtown Pittsburgh in the background
    Andy Warhol Bridge with Rachel Carson Bridge
    Seventh Street Bridge
    Pylon
    Andy Warhol Bridge with Roberto Clemente Bridge and PNC Park
    Andy Warhol Bridge and Alcoa Corporate Center

    Cameras: Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Kodak EasyShare Z981.

  • Roberto Clemente Bridge

    Roberto Clemente Bridge
    Composite of four photographs.

    The Three Sisters bridges—Sixth Street, Seventh Street, and Ninth Street—were built between 1925 and 1928 after the War Department determined that the existing bridges over the Allegheny were too low and impeded navigation. As engineering feats they are technically interesting: they had to be made self-anchoring to avoid tearing out huge chunks of valuable property downtown. As architecture they are memorable, and not just because this is the only place in the world where you can see three identical suspension bridges side by side. The Sixth Street Bridge, now named for Pirates star and philanthropist Roberto Clemente, was the most beautiful steel bridge built in America in 1928.

    Sixth Street Bridge

    On baseball days the bridge is closed to motor vehicles, which allows a gentleman in a powdered wig to stand right in the middle of it with his Kodak.

    Sixth Street Bridge plaque

    The architect was Stanley Roush, the king of public works in Pittsburgh at the time. You may think Father Pitt was being a bit hyperbolic in calling this the most beautiful steel bridge of 1928, but he was merely reading off its credentials.

    American Institute of Steel Construction—Annual Award of Merit—Most Beautiful Steel Bridge—1928
    Kodak EasyShare Z981.

  • Bridge and Stadium

    Acrisure Stadium and the Fort Pitt Bridge
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.