Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Skyline from the West End Overlook

    Skyline from the West End Overlook

    Downtown in autumn light with autumnal colors, as seen from the West End Overlook in Elliott.

    Like most of old Pa Pitt’s pictures, these are donated to Wikimedia Commons. If you go to the Commons hosting page for the very wide picture above (you may have to push the “More details” button), you can see that Father Pitt has made use of one of Wikimedia Commons’ clever features. Hover over the picture, and you will see yellow rectangles; hover over those, and labels will appear for prominent landmarks.

  • Early-Morning Skyline

    A new day dawns in the city. Below, with bonus coal barge.

  • Victorian Commercial Buildings on the Boulevard of the Allies

    Among the few human-sized buildings left in the area, these two at the corner of Stanwix Street are dwarfed by the skyscrapers around them. The large windows suggest workshops of some sort on the upper floors; the tasteful ornamentation suggests prosperity.

  • United Steelworkers Building from the Boulevard of the Allies

    Architects Curtis and Davis enlivened what would have been a simple square box with a distinctive diamond-grid facing that continues down into the pillars at ground level.

  • Reflections in PPG Place

    Artsy if not artistic pictures of PPG Place reflecting PPG Place and nearby buildings.

  • Sunshine and Clouds

    Skyline of Pittsburgh from Point State Park

    Downtown Pittsburgh seen from Point State Park. From this angle, you might suppose that the city did not exist at all before the Second World War—although, if you enlarged the picture, you might wonder why there was a British colonial flag flying.

  • Fifth Avenue Place from the Southwest

    Fifth Avenue Place

    Seen down Liberty Avenue from the entrance to Point State Park.

  • Summer at the Point Fountain

    Point Fountain

  • Independence

    Colonial flag with One PPG Place

    Something like this might still be our flag but for some good luck and a great deal of help from the French. This colonial-era British Red Ensign flies at Point State Park near the Blockhouse.

  • 101 Smithfield Street

    101 Smithfield Street

    In the little corner of downtown Pittsburgh near First Avenue there are still some half-blocks that never entered the skyscraper age. Here we can see some of the humbler pre-skyscraper commercial architecture of Pittsburgh. The first floor of the front of this building has been heavily altered, probably by someone who wanted to make it look more Victorian and ended up making it look more 1978. But the rest of the building is a typical small Italianate structure of the 1870s.