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.
This was actually built as the Kaufmann and Baer department store in 1914—the Kaufmann of the name being another branch of the family that owned the even bigger Kaufmann’s department store two blocks away. In 1925 it was taken over by Gimbels, and it remained Gimbels until the chain evaporated in 1986, so every old-timer in Pittsburgh remembers it as the Gimbels Building. The lower floors are occupied by retail stores now; the upper floors are offices.
The architects of the building were the New York firm of Starrett & van Vleck, who were responsible for many of the flagship department stores in big Eastern cities.
We’ve seen this building elsewhere, from an angle, but here is old Pa Pitt’s best attempt (so far) at seeing it head-on from the front, the way the architects (Dowler & Dowler) might have drawn it back in 1956. The picture is a composite, and there are stitching errors if you examine it closely; but it still gives a better impression of the design of the building than any other picture of it that Father Pitt has seen.
One of the building’s most attractive features is the Pennsylvania relief with rotating globe, illustrating the slogan “Anywhere Any Time by Telephone.” The relief shows outsized Pittsburgh as “Gateway to the West,” and the clearly less important Philadelphia as home of the Liberty Bell and City Hall. The globe used to rotate to show the part of the earth currently illuminated by sunlight; but both the globe and the clock above it have stopped, and the plastic window over the globe is sadly fogged. Now that the building has become luxury apartments, perhaps an enlightened ownership will put a little money into restoring what used to be one of downtown’s unique attractions.
Workers were getting the skating rink ready today at PPG Place. Pittsburghers love to point out that this one is considerably bigger than the one at Rockefeller Center.
