Father Pitt

Category: Downtown

  • Thirteen Stars, Thirteen Stripes

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    Those plucky colonials have raised their rebel flag over the blockhouse at Fort Pitt, Britain’s most important Western fort.

     

  • Firstside from Across the Mon

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    “Firstside” is the row of human-sized buildings along the Monongahela (with their backs on First Avenue). It’s a little taste of pre-skyscraper Pittsburgh. The picture below puts Firstside in context.

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  • The Point Fountain Again

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    More pictures of the Point Fountain, because it was a day of inspiring clouds.

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  • Lobby of the Benedum Center

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    The lobby of the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts, just before a show. Like Heinz Hall just down the street, the Benedum was built as a movie palace, but has been converted to a live theater—Pittsburgh’s largest and busiest. The Pittsburgh Opera, the Civic Light Opera, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and numerous traveling shows all share this magnificent venue.

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  • The Point Fountain Is Back

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    After four years of rebuilding, the glorious fountain at the Point is flowing again—now with substantial improvements that make it more accessible for recreation, without changing the simple elegance of the original design.

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  • Heinz Hall Details

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    You need a sharp eye, and a long lens, to pick out some of the details on Heinz Hall from ground level. At first the exterior appears to be rather staid, but it rewards close examination with some charmingly whimsical decorations. (The white spots visible in these pictures are snowflakes.)

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  • Eye Benches at Katz Plaza

    Katz Plaza in the theater district: a dusting of snow highlights the contours of these eye-shaped benches by Louise Bourgeois, who also designed the waterfall fountain in the background.

    If you sit on a bench whose back looks like a giant eyeball, shouldn’t you be able to see behind you?

  • Lobby of the Benedum Center

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    The lobby of the former Stanley theater, an opulent former movie palace that is still the largest theater downtown. This is yet another cell-phone photo, with too much glare and grain, but it gives us some idea of what the place looks like.

  • Cruising on the Monongahela

    The Duchess, one of the Gateway Clipper fleet, putters down the Monongahela late in an autumn afternoon.

  • Diamond Building

    The Diamond Biulding, at Fifth and Liberty Avenues, is a curiously shaped irregular pentagon, one of the many buildings forced into odd shapes by the colliding grids along Liberty Avenue. Except for the shape, it’s a fairly standard beaux-arts tower, with base, shaft, and cap, and  an exuberant bronze cornice at the very top. The building was designed by MacClure and Spahr, a Pittsburgh firm that gave us several other distinguished buildings, including the Union National Bank building on Fourth Avenue.