Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Decorations by Achille Giammartini on the German National Bank

    Romanesqu apital with face

    The German National Bank—now the Granite Building—is one of the most ornately Romanesque constructions ever put up in a city that was wild for Romanesque. The architect was Charles Bickel, but much of the effect of the building comes from the lavish and infinitely varied stonecarving of Achille Giammartini, Pittsburgh’s favorite decorator of Romanesque buildings.

    We have sixteen more pictures in this article, and this is only a beginning. Old Pa Pitt will have to return several more times with his long lens to document Giammartini’s work on this building.

    (more…)

  • Fifth Avenue

  • 819 and 821 Penn Avenue

    819 and 821 Penn Avenue

    A pair of commercial buildings with striking terra-cotta details—especially No. 819, on the left. The huge windows would have allowed light to pour into workshops on the upper floors.

    Bracket
    Greek key and egg and dart
    Spiral
    Vitruvian scroll
    Cornice

    Truly enlightened zoning regulations would mandate cornices with lions’ heads on all buildings more than four storeys tall.

    Diamond
    Side by side

  • Three Rivers Arts Festival

    This year the Artists’ Market was moved to Fort Duquesne Boulevard, which felt much less claustrophobic than last year’s location on Penn Avenue. To judge by the crowds, it was a big success.

  • Squonk Performs Hand to Hand

    Squonk performing Hand to Hand
    Hand to Hand

    Thirty years ago, Squonk Opera was a struggling alternative band performing in the standard struggling-local-band venues. But at some point early on, the group discovered that they could actually succeed by rebranding themselves as performance artists and getting commissions from arts organizations. Since then the “wacky provincial opera company,” now calling itself just Squonk, has been a regular at artsy events all over the world, but especially the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

    Jackie Dempsey
    Jackie Dempsey, keyboards, is one of the two original members of Squonk. Steve O’Hearn, who plays a variety of implausible wind instruments, is the other.

    Squonk will be performing Hand to Hand on Sunday, June 11, at 2:00 p.m. and again at 4:00 p.m. They claim that these are the world’s largest puppet hands, and who is going to argue?

    Squonk

  • Setting Sun

    BNY Mellon Center with setting sun

  • Three PNC Plaza

    Designed by Lou Astorino, this is our twentieth-tallest skyscraper (tied with Three Gateway Center), which is not a remarkable record. It was, however, the tallest building that went up in Pittsburgh during the long pause between the 1980s boom and the current boom that began with the construction of the Tower at PNC Plaza. The somewhat taller building to the right is One PNC Plaza, built in 1972 to a design by Welton Becket Associates.

  • U. S. Steel Tower

    U. S. Steel Tower

    Three views of the U. S. Steel Tower from Duquesne University. Below, with Chatham Center in the foreground.

    With Chatham Center
    Again with Chatham Center

  • Tower of the Courthouse

  • Back of the City-County Building

    Ross Street entrance

    The back entrance to the City-County Building would seem spectacular if we didn’t know what the front looked like. Below, the building seen from Ross Street.

    City-County Building from Ross Street