Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Entrance to the Frick Building

    The Frick Building was designed by Daniel Burnham to convey one message, and with its austere classical dignity it succeeds perfectly. The message was “Henry Frick is more important than Andrew Carnegie.” The Frick Building dwarfed the Carnegie Building next door, which had once been the tallest in the city; by the time Frick had surrounded Carnegie’s building with taller buildings, the Carnegie Building was no longer an attractive place to be, and it was demolished to make way for the Kaufmann’s annex.

  • Union National Bank Building

    The architects, MacClure and Spahr, gave this classical tower an unusual rounded corner, and drew attention to the main entrance by placing it in that corner.

  • Christmas at PPG Place

    Christmas tree at PPG Place

    In old-postcard colors, the Christmas tree and skating rink at PPG Place.

    Christmas tree at PPG Place

  • Base of the Tower at PNC Plaza

    The base of earth’s greenest skyscraper, as it called itself when it was going up, is all shiny curves and lights and reflections.

  • First Presbyterian Church

    First Presbyterian was designed by the Philadelphia architect Theophilus P. Chandler, whose name makes him sound like the obstructive villain in a Marx Brothers farce. Above we see it from across Trinity Churchyard, with the last leaves of autumn still clinging to an oak tree in front of Trinity Cathedral. Below, details of the Gothic decoration.

    Not many churches are confident enough of the permanence of their service times to have them literally set in stone.

  • Spire of Trinity Cathedral

    The spire of Trinity Cathedral, with the Oliver Building in the background and the pinnacles of First Presbyterian Church in front and to the right.

  • Kerr Monument, Trinity Churchyard

    Hidden on the left side of the cathedral is a narrow arm of the churchyard with a few old monuments, with the massive bulk of the Oliver Building towering over them. Most people who visit Trinity Churchyard never find their way to this side of it, but it’s worth a few moments of contemplation.

  • Victory Building

    The Victory Building, at Liberty Avenue and 9th Street, is a small skyscraper designed by Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects, Alden and Harlow. It’s only eleven storeys tall, but it follows the classic base-shaft-cap pattern of the Beaux-Arts skyscraper style in America.

  • 606 Liberty Avenue

    This beautiful (and odd-shaped) building at what used to be the intersection of Liberty and Oliver is now “coworking” offices, which is the trendy term for “offices with free beer.”

    The last block of Oliver Avenue was absorbed into PNC Plaza, but this building remains to outline the old odd-angled intersection.

    Addendum: The building was put up in 1909 for the Meyer Jonasson Company, a high-class clothing firm. The architects were MacClure & Spahr.

  • Lumière Residences

    The Lumière, the latest luxury condo tower downtown, is currently going up where Saks Fifth Avenue used to be, at Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue.