Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Granite Building

    A very-wide-angle view of the Granite Building, designed by the prolific and versatile Charles Bickel for a German bank. He has made use of every texture and shape of which granite is capable, and the result is a particularly lively, if perhaps a bit jumbled, rendering of German Romanesque.

    You may notice some ghostly figures, including a spectral automobile, in the photograph. Father Pitt would love to be able to claim privileged access to the wonders of the invisible world, but in fact this is a composite photograph taken on a busy street, and people will continue to move even when they see an older gentleman in a cocked hat trying to take a composite picture.

    The Granite Building is just across Wood Street from the Wood Street subway station.

  • Dusk on the Allegheny

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    Camera: Olympus E-20n.

  • Skyline and Sixteenth Street Bridge

    From the shore of the Allegheny. The immensity of the U. S. Steel Tower is particularly obvious from this angle.

    Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

  • Scattered Showers

    A shower hits downtown, as seen from the 31st Street Bridge. The rain moved rapidly eastward, leaving Father Pitt not quite enough time to walk to the end of the bridge with his dignity intact. But he kept the camera dry, which is the important thing.

    Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

  • Misty Morning

    Camera: Canon PowerShot A540 (hacked). The panorama at top is made from six photographs.

  • First Presbyterian Church

    Composite picture, about 36 megapixels.

    This splendid Gothic church sits on Sixth Avenue right next to Trinity Cathedral (Anglican/Episcopal) and right across from the Duquesne Club, forming a perfect triangle of old money. The architect was Theophilus P. Chandler, Jr., who also designed Third Presbyterian in Shadyside and the Duncan mausoleum in the Union Dale Cemetery.

    An interesting feature of the front is the outdoor pulpit, perfectly positioned for thundering denunciations at the rich robber barons coming out of the Duquesne Club. But that never happens.

    Camera: Olympus E-20n.

  • Cluster of Skyscrapers

  • Thompson’s Restaurant Building

    Thompson’s was a Chicago restaurant chain that pioneered many of the ideas we associate with modern chain restaurants. It specialized in lunches for hurried businessmen. There were several in Pittsburgh in the early twentieth century; this one on Market Street just off the Diamond is beautifully restored.

  • Three PNC Plaza

    An architectural rendering of the first of the new wave of “green” skyscrapers in Pittsburgh. In spite of its modest dimensions, it was the largest building put up downtown in many years, and kicked off what will probably be remembered as the third downtown Renaissance.

  • Two PNC Plaza

    Seen from the Smithfield Street side of the plaza. The “plaza” itself could have been a distinctive and beautiful urban space, but poor and seemingly random planning—of which the intrusive parking-garage entrance here is a good example—has marred it.

    Earlier we published a view of Two PNC Plaza from the Liberty Avenue side.