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Fifth Avenue from Grant Street
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County Office Building
Stanley Roush, the county’s official architect, designed this building to hold the offices that were spilling out of the Courthouse and the City-County Building as Pittsburgh and its neighbors grew rapidly. It was built in 1929–1931, and it is an interesting stylistic bridge between eras. Roush’s taste was very much in the modernistic Art Deco line, but the Romanesque Allegheny County Courthouse, designed by the sainted Henry Hobson Richardson, was a looming presence that still dictated what Allegheny County thought of its own architectural style. Roush’s compromise is almost unique: Art Deco Romanesque. We have many buildings where classical details are given a Deco spin—a style that, when applied to public buildings, old Pa Pitt likes to call American Fascist. But here the details are streamlined versions of medieval Romanesque, right down to gargoyles on the corners. Above, the Ross Street side of the building; below, the Forbes Avenue side.
One of the entrances on Forbes Avenue.
Moses with the tablets of the Law. His beard obscures the Tenth Commandment, so go ahead and covet anything you like, except—if you are Lutheran—your neighbor’s house, or—if you are Catholic—your neighbor’s wife or house. Counting up to ten is harder than it looks when it comes to Commandments, and you may need to refer to Wikipedia’s handy chart to find how the numbering works in your religious tradition.
The bridge in this medallion looks a lot like the Tenth Street Bridge, which by pure coincidence was designed by Stanley Roush.
Decorative grate with an Allegheny County monogram.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Some very expensive columns, smooth and classically proportioned but with elaborate Deco Romanesque capitals.
We have more pictures of the decorations on the County Office Building, including those gargoyles we mentioned.
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The Skyline in Pink
October is the month when major corporations pink up the night in honor of breast-cancer awareness.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10; Sony Alpha 3000.
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The Blue Elephant
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Very few people pay any attention to the Manor Building. It would be a large building except for the fact that it lives against a backdrop of much larger buildings, so its blackish bulk—which was originally blue—makes little impression in the postcard view of Pittsburgh from Mount Washington. But it has an interesting history.
The building was announced in 1955; the design was by Wyatt C. Hedrick of Fort Worth.1 The owner was the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was investing heavily in real estate. Executives noticed that Pennsy stations often sat on valuable land in expensive business districts. Why should all that value go to waste when you can build upward and profit from rentals? “Utilization of the air rights over railroad property where the property is strategically located in Downtown areas is becoming more prevalent,” the Press reporter noted when this building was announced.
That was what was going on here. For a long time the Pennsylvania had had a small commuter station here—the Fourth Avenue station. It was at the mouth of the tunnel that is now used by the subway. The station itself was a small building and a couple of platforms, but the land had become very valuable. So the plan was to build three floors of parking garage, and then ten floors of offices above the garage. There would still be a station in the basement. It should have been a profitable scheme.
From the beginning, however, there seemed to be a curse on the building. “It suffered one delay after another while being built,” said a Post-Gazette story in 1961.2 “Then, after finally being completed in 1958, it was tied up for a year by litigation involving the contractor.”
By the time it was ready for renters, the building was notorious. People called it the Blue Elephant—and nobody wanted to move in.
Not until 1961 did the building overcome its jinx and begin to fill up. After that it prospered. By the next year, it was completely filled.
So there you have the story of the Blue Elephant, and now that you have heard it, perhaps you will notice the building the next time you pass it on the Crosstown Boulevard or go under it on the subway. Then you will forget it again, because it does not make much of an impression on the skyline.
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Liberty Bridge
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Entrance to One Mellon Center (BNY Mellon Center)
In theory there is no reason to take digital pictures in black and white, since they can always be desaturated later. In practice, knowing that the picture will never have any colors in it makes one think more in terms of lines and shadows. Here are two pictures taken with a camera from the Neolithic era of digital cameras, which Father Pitt keeps set to black-and-white mode.
Samsung Digimax V4.
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McBride Building
Because it’s impossible to get a picture of the whole building like this without standing very close in Pittsburgh’s narrow streets, the perspective of this picture has been adjusted on two planes to look more natural. You can see the seam if you enlarge the picture to 100%, so go ahead and do that if you’re curious. Built in 1901 for the W. W. McBride Paper Company, this near-skyscraper was designed by Frederick Sauer.1 A few alterations have been made, but the building still stands much as Sauer designed it.
A casual look at the building gives the impression that it has a stone base, but the effect comes from using white face brick for the lower two floors—with inset ridges to imitate cut stone—and Sauer’s favorite buff brick for the rest.
Mitchell’s on the ground floor claims to have been established in 1906, so it has been going since shortly after the building opened.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. By 1923 this was known as the Bowman Building, but W. W. McBride ghost signs are still visible on the northern side.
- Source: Record & Guide, February 27, 1901, p. 136. “Plans are in course of preparation by F. C. Sauer, Hamilton Building, for a seven-story brick warehouse to be erected for W. W. McBride, at Third avenue and Ross street.” ↩︎
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Grant Street Entrance to the Union Trust Building
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J. D. Thompson Building
This building on Wood Street, right across from the subway station, was probably put up in the 1880s; it appears on an 1890 map as belonging to Jonathan D. Thompson, and in 1923 still belonged to J. D. Thompson. The elaborate stone front is liberally decorated with incised patterns. We would call the style Italianate; the architect probably thought of it as Italian Renaissance.
Update: Note the comment from “Camerafiend” below, which gives us news clippings to show us that this building was designed by E. M. Butz and built in 1874. E. M. Butz is perhaps most famous as the architect of the Western Penitentiary.
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EQT Plaza
