This 1890 building was designed by Frederick Osterling, who also gave us the Arrott Building and the Union Trust Building. It now functions as a kind of parasite on the skyscraper Bell Telephone Building next door, but it is still an impressive work of architecture.
Mellon Square is one of the few open spaces in downtown Pittsburgh: a whole block of landscaped park (with, curiously, shops underneath it on Smithfield Street, because the park is flat and the land is not). Above, fountains; below, a view of the square looking toward the William Penn, designed by Benno Janssen and built to be the best hotel in America when Henry Frick financed it, and still quite a luxurious hotel. In the middle distance is a Mennonite choir, which is the sort of thing you might stumble across in Mellon Square.
The Wood Street subway station and the Wood Street Galleries occupy the old Monongahela National Bank building, one of the many peculiarly shaped buildings along Liberty Avenue where the two grids collide in the John Woods street plan from 1784. This one is a right triangle.
The picture is a composite, and if you click on it to enlarge it, you can have fun pointing out several ghosts among the people waiting for buses outside the station.
The Granite Building was once the headquarters of the German National Bank, and this sign is still legible on the back of it (along with remains of other generations of painted signs). Father Pitt has altered the perspective and contrast to make the old lettering as plain as possible; below is what you actually see today.
EQT Plaza reflected in the K & L Gates Center, and the Keenan Building and the Clark Building reflected in Two PNC Plaza.
Camera: Samsung Digimax V4.
For decades this clock, on the Kaufmann’s department store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street, marked the busiest corner of Pittsburgh’s retail district. “Under the clock” was the designated meeting-place downtown, and Kaufmann’s premier restaurant was called the Tic-Toc in its honor.
The Kaufmann’s building (like everything else) is being redeveloped as condominium apartments, and the clock is featured prominently in the advertising art.
These unusual grotesque caryatid pilasters are seldom noticed by visitors admiring the famous Dollar Bank lions, but they add to the impression of Victorian exuberance in the Dollar Bank’s façade.
A splendid lion roars over the entrance to the Keystone Bank Building on Fourth Avenue.
Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3.
The distinctive pinnacles of PPG Place are reflected in more PPG Place across the street.
Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3
The Union National Bank Building of 1906 is one of the most splendid of the Fourth Avenue bank towers. It was designed by the prolific and tasteful MacClure and Spahr. As “The Carlyle,” it is now a luxury condo tower.
