Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Italian Sons and Daughters of America Building

    Italian Sons and Daughters of America Building

    A streamlined Art Deco classicism makes this building stand out on its corner of Wood Street and Forbes Avenue. Its decorative flourishes, though minimal, were nevertheless too embarrassing for the modernist age, and for many years the building was wrapped in an orange metal shell. The metal panels came off in 2012, “to the spontaneous applause of passers-by,” according to the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PDF).

    Eagle ornament

    The building was put up in 1929; the architects were Hunting, Davis & Dunnells, whose successors, LLI Engineering, are still in business.

    419 Wood Street

  • Koppers and Gulf Buildings, with the Federal Reserve Bank

    Koppers and Gulf Bldgs., with the Federal Reserve Bank at the Right

    An old postcard from Father Pitt’s accumulation of Pittsburgh miscellanea; we do not know the date, but it must be before 1952, since the back of the card specifies “PLACE ONE CENT STAMP HERE.”

  • Nicholas Building

    If you see a student of architecture suddenly stop in the middle of the Diamond and burst out laughing, this building is the subject of the mirth.

    When it was announced that a gigantic complex to be designed by Philip Johnson was going to take over one corner of the Diamond, the owners of the Nicholas Coffee building, who happened to be ready for a renovation, decided to welcome their new neighbor with a parody of what was then Johnson’s most famous work. At that time, Johnson was notorious everywhere for his AT&T Building (now called just 550 Madison Avenue), which was a deliberate poke in the eye of orthodox modernism; and you have only to see it to get the Nicholas Building’s joke.

    Photograph by David Shankbone; cropped by Beyond My Ken.

  • 8 Market Square

    8 Market Square

    This building on the Diamond has lost its cornice, but the rest of it is intact, and the details are worth a closer look.

    Eagle

  • PNC Firstside Center

    PNC Firstside Center

    Lou Astorino’s firm designed this building with an unusual sensitivity to context. Father Pitt will point out two obvious details. First and more obvious is the curve along the river face of the building: it echoes the curves of the adjacent Parkway ramps. Next, note how the materials and the shapes harmonize with the Try Street Terminal in the rear—so much so that, at first glance, you might suppose that the Try Street Terminal was part of the same complex.

  • 2 Market Square

    Pittsburgh dates from 1758, but downtown has prospered and burned and been rebuilt and prospered and decayed and prospered again so much that little remains from before the Civil War. This is one of the few survivors from the antebellum era: it was built before 1852, to judge from old engravings.

  • Some Late-Winter Skyline Pictures

    Wide-angle skyline of Pittsburgh
    Skyline of Pittsburgh
    A different wide angle

  • St. Mary of Mercy Church

    This long-lens view from Mount Washington shows us how architect William P. Hutchins crammed as much church and diocesan office space as possible into a tiny downtown lot. The church was built in 1936 in a part of town that was not the most fashionable at the time, and the location and the Depression probably account for the general modesty of the structure. But within its modest limits, it certainly makes the most of its lot.

    Hutchins is not one of our most celebrated architects, but he did give the Catholics in Pittsburgh some distinguished buildings. An article about St. James Church in Wilkinsburg gives us some more information about him.

    Old Pa Pitt was about to link to some of his earlier pictures of St. Mary of Mercy and discovered that he never published them. Here are a few pictures from ground level.

    St. Mary of Mercy
    Gothic arcade
    St. Mary herself
    Corner tower

  • Weldin’s Building

    Until a few years ago, this building was the home of Weldin’s, the venerable stationer that had been selling pens, ink, and paper since well before the Civil War. Weldin’s itself is no more—the business moved to the Gulf Tower for a few years, and then vanished in the early months of the COVID pandemic. But the extraordinarily rich Italian Renaissance front of this building remains as a highlight of an extraordinarily rich row of small commercial buildings on Wood Street.

    Addendum: Although the building itself is considerably older, the front is the work of architect George Schwan, who designed a new front for the building in 1913. From the Construction Record, December 13, 1913: “Architect George H. Schwan, Peoples Bank Building, has plans nearly completed for altering a three-story brick mercantile building on 415 Wood street, for J. R. Weldin & Company, 431 Wood street. Cost, $10,000.” In 1913, $10,000 would have bought an entire replacement of the front and much of the interior.

  • Wood-Allies Garage

    Wood-Allies Garage

    A whimsical Postmodernist design that opened in 1984; it echoes Pittsburgh landmarks without pretending to be anything other than a parking garage. Father Pitt believes the architects were Burt Hill Kosar Rittelman Associates, who also designed Liberty Center (including the Federated Tower). If anyone has better information, it will be accepted with gratitude.

    Front