Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Market Street at First Avenue

    Market Street between First Avenue and the Boulevard of the Allies probably looks very similar to the way it looked in the later 1800s. In fact it probably looks very similar to the way most of the streets downtown looked before skyscrapers began to mushroom all over. But the eastern side of Market Street is scheduled for demolition, and although old Pa Pitt has not bothered to research what is replacing those low buildings, he would make an educated guess that it will be a high-rise full of luxury condominium apartments.

    111 Market Street, a tall building in the days before elevators.

    Condemned: a whole block of human-sized buildings on the east side of Market.

    The Lowman Shields Rubber Building on First Avenue seems to be scheduled for demolition at the same time as the buildings on Market Street. This fine Romanesque commercial building deserves to be kept, but the city is prosperous now, and prosperity is the enemy of preservation.

  • Wreath at the Fifth Avenue Place Arcade

    Fifth Avenue Place replaced the beloved Jenkins Arcade, and in order to soothe the feelings of appalled Pittsburghers the new skyscraper included a shopping arcade in the lower floors, connected by a pedestrian bridge to the Horne’s department store. It was very successful early on, and even now, with Horne’s long gone, it manages to keep most of the storefronts filled. For Christmas the colossal clock over the Liberty Avenue entrance is surrounded by a colossal wreath.

  • 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.