The Tower at PNC Plaza will be ten years old this year. It occurred to Father Pitt that he had enough pictures in his collection to make up a visual story of the construction of the building, so here they are. Above, the progress as of February 18, 2014.
June 27, 2014, before the construction of the cap began.
In the engraving, the Fidelity Building on Fourth Avenue as it was designed. In the photograph, the building as it exists today (or actually as it existed in 2015, but not much has changed—even the posters for ABC Imaging were the same the last time old Pa Pitt looked). Father Pitt has tried to arrange the comparison to make the one substantial difference obvious: at some point between design and construction, one more floor was added.
The architect, James T. Steen, was an early adopter of the Richardsonian Romanesque style: Richardson’s courthouse, which set off the mania for Romanesque in Pittsburgh, was still under construction when this building was put up. This was before the age of skyscrapers, when the base-shaft-cap formula gave architects a simple way of extending height indefinitely by multiplying identical floors in the middle. Here, Steen seems to have decided that just duplicating one of the floors would make the top of the building undersized and underwhelming. Instead, he added a new sixth floor between the fifth floor and what had been the sixth but now became the seventh floor. He gave this new sixth floor arches smaller than the ones below but larger than the ones above, and transferred some of the weighty stone detail from the fifth floor to the new sixth floor. The result was a composition that still seems rightly balanced, and you would probably never guess that the height had been extended if you had not seen the earlier drawing.
This was the home of the Rodef Shalom congregation for a very short time. It was downtown on Eighth Street, a narrow one-block alley where its site today is a parking lot. In those days, however, Eighth Street was crowded with buildings and institutions, including the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Christian Home for Working Girls, and the North Public School. Having outgrown their previous building, the Rodef Shalom congregation hired Charles Bickel, probably the most prolific architect Pittsburgh ever had, to design a magnificent temple that told the city its Jewish residents were proud to be part of the social fabric.
Building the new temple required tearing down the old one, but the people of the Second Presbyterian Church around the corner (not the Reformed Presbyterians next door) opened their doors to their Jewish neighbors, and for a year the two congregations shared the Second Presbyterian building, one worshiping on Saturday and the other on Sunday. A news story at the time tells us that, among the Rodef Shalom congregation, “there were many expressions of good feeling over this neighborly act on the part of the Presbyterian neighbors” when the agreement was announced.
The new temple opened in 1901. But the congregation was growing so quickly that, by 1904, it was already too small. Rodef Shalom had to find new quarters, with more land to spread out.
Rodef Shalom today worships in one of the most admired synagogue buildings in America, the magnificent temple on Fifth Avenue designed by Henry Hornbostel.
When we look at the two buildings, designed less than a decade apart, it’s striking how different they are in style. Bickel’s design looks old-fashioned; Hornbostel’s looks forward to the future, and it has stood the test of more than a century’s radical changes in taste.
But a comparison of the two buildings also reveals how much they have in common. Almost all the same design elements are in both buildings (with the prominent exception of the turbaned towers on the Bickel building); it almost looks as though the congregation had told Hornbostel, “We want the same thing we have downtown, but bigger.” (Though it’s not visible in either picture, another feature both buildings share is a large central dome.)
The Bickel building had several decades of life after Rodef Shalom moved out. The congregation sold it to their good friends at the Second Presbyterian Church, who moved into the relatively new building, and were thus able to sell their valuable corner location at Penn and Seventh, where Katz Plaza is today. For many years, the Second Presbyterians and the Reformed Presbyterians coexisted side by side on Eighth Street. The old Bickel building was still there in 1957, according to aerial photos; by 1967 it was replaced by parking lot, which is what has been there ever since.
The Manor, which opened in 1922, was designed by Harry S. Bair, who did a number of theaters around here (including the Regent, now the Kelly-Strayhorn in East Liberty). As the caption says, it was “a distinct departure from the conventional,” and the Tudor half-timbering of the exterior advertised the sumptuous club-like atmosphere of the interior. Today the exterior has been simplified, and the building expanded, but it still feels like an outpost of Merrie England on Murray Avenue.
This gable on the Darlington Road side of the building still preserves all its intricate diagonal brickwork and half-timbering.
These little chimneys should have their own separate landmark status.
Almost nothing remains of the original interior, though the Manor is still a movie house, now divided into four small theaters. Originally, the lobby was a feast of luxurious furniture and decoration.
And that was just the entrance lobby. If you were meeting someone or just waiting for something, you could retire to the parlor:
There was also a men’s club room with the atmosphere of an old English manor:
After all that, movies seem almost superfluous, but the auditorium was just as luxurious as the rest of the building:
Old Pa Pitt particularly likes the arrangement of tropical plants in the orchestra pit.
Today, although the Manor is still a very pleasant place to take in a movie, almost nothing is left of that sumptuous interior except a bit of ceiling and this fine chandelier:
The 1922 pictures all came from a two-page feature in Moving Picture World for August 5, 1922, and we reprint the text of the article here (making a few silent typographic corrections).
The flag on top of the cupola shows us that what today’s designers call “Photoshopping” has a long history reaching far back into the analogue era.
The Wabash Terminal was a magnificent folly, like the railroad it represented. The building was designed to say that Jay Gould’s new railroad, a competitor to the well-established Pennsylvania Railroad, was here to stay. It opened in 1904, and the railroad went bankrupt four years later.
The Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway had to perform enormous feats of engineering just to get into Pittsburgh. The Wabash Tunnel, now a little-used automobile highway, led to a new bridge across the Monongahela. All the land downtown was already taken up, so the Wabash had to make an elevated freight yard, which cost fabulous amounts of money.
The building itself was designed by Theodore C. Link (whose famous St. Louis Union Station still stands), and it was as extravagant as the rest of the enterprise. These pictures were published in The Builder for November of 1904, a Pittsburgh-based architectural magazine. They show us that the terminal building was up to the same extravagant standard as the rest of the operation. Carved decorations were provided to a lavish extent by Achille Giammartini, Pittsburgh’s best decorative sculptor.
After its railroad went bankrupt, the Wabash terminal still served passengers on some lines until 1931. It was converted to offices after that. Disastrous fires gutted it shortly after the Second World War, and it sat as a looming wreck until 1953, when it was demolished to make way for new buildings at Gateway Center.
This doorway shows us some of Mr. Giammartini’s work.
The Hotel Henry was on Fifth Avenue; it was replaced in 1951 by the Mellon Bank Building (525 Fifth Avenue). Here we see a huge banquet for the newspapermen of Pittsburgh in 1904, which incidentally gives us a look at the posh appointments of the banquet hall.
Hotel Henry logo from a fragment of plateHotel Henry at some time around 1900, from the Historic Pittsburgh site. Note that the offices of the Leader are two doors up from the hotel; those reporters didn’t have far to walk for dinner.
“Margaret Buckey, well-known soprano, who is familiar to the fans who tune in on Station KQV, Pittsburgh, is shown above.” A large portrait from the front page of Radio Digest, November 1, 1924.
In the 1920s, when radio was young, the relatively few stations could be heard for long distances, depending on atmospheric conditions and, of course, the size of your aerial. The days before radio networks were a brief glorious age of distributed talent, when the chief entertainers of any city might be heard nationwide and develop a following. Radio networks changed all that: by distributing the same programs nationwide, they concentrated all the radio celebrities in New York, where their studios were.
Father Pitt does not know much about Margaret Buckey, except that she seems to have been a familiar voice on KQV in its very early days. Here is a program scheduled on KQV for December 27, 1922:
10:00 P. M. Program will be given by Miss Margaret Buckey, soprano and Ken Hudson, ukulele and steel guitarist, both of Pittsburgh, who will present a holiday program of the most popular sort. Miss Buckey excels in the songs being heard on Broadway and will sing several new ones and Mr. Hudson will play guitar accompaniment to some of them. The Hawaiian songs, native to his own country to also be a part of the program. Interspersed a number of new dance novelties will be broadcast. A program with a flavor of the holiday season. Ralph Skiles, guitarist will furnish some of the ensemble for both instrumental and vocal numbers. Program: Soprano Songs: “Three o’clock in the Morning,” with duet guitar accompaniment: “A Kiss in the Dark,” by Herbert; “A Little Street in Gay Paree,” from “The Spice of 1922;” “A Corner up in Heaven,” by Berlin, “Home, Sweet, Home,” with string accompaniment. Instrumental numbers: “Kalima” Waltz, for two guitars; “Hawaiian Hula Medley,” two guitars; Hawaiian Song, with ukulele. (selected); “Kanaha Kiki,” ukulele solo. —Radio Broadcasting News, December 23, 1922 (PDF).
Harold W. Arlin, the first paid announcer in the history of radio, who was part of KDKA’s first programming and was still working for KDKA in 1924.
In the summer of 1924, commercial radio was only about three and a half years old. Yet it was already a thriving business, and stations were popping up all over the country. There were not enough of them, however, to clutter the airwaves too badly, so that a powerful station could often be heard coast to coast. Thus the national radio magazines ran schedules for all the stations across the country, and radio fans competed to see who could pull in the most distant station.
Pittsburgh had three radio stations listed in Radio Digest, and they all drew on local talent to fill their programming hours, which in those days were still limited. Their schedules for a week (which begins on Wednesday) give us a priceless snapshot of Pittsburgh culture in the 1920s.
Father Pitt regrets having missed some of these programs. Wouldn’t you like to know the story of Epaminondas and his Auntie?
Two of these radio stations are still going. KDKA, of course, has never been off the air. KQV has been kicked around since Richard Mellon Scaife, who had pasted it in his media album, passed on to his reward, but it was on the air again the last time old Pa Pitt checked. Most Pittsburghers have never heard of WCAE, and its call letters were reassigned decades later to a public television station in Indiana; it was a radio station operated by the Kaufmann & Baer department store, which was soon to be bought by Gimbels.
Wednesday, July 16
KDKA, E. Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, 326)
5:30 p.m., Pittsburgh Athletic association orchestra; 6:30, The Pied Piper, “Kiddies’ Buddy”; 8, Valeris Chambordon Gregory, soprano; Bert Berberick, tenor; Emil Wolff, violinist; Edwin Menznemalor, accompanist.
KQV, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, Daylight, 270)
5-5:30 p.m., Sunset stories and “Diary of Snubs Our Dog” 8:45-9, “Fifteen Minute Song Revue,” Ben and Thelma Fields; 9-10, Mary Christine Seberry, reader; Eleanor Conley, lyric soprano; John M. Hierholzer, flutist; special adaptation with piano, voice and flute obligato of dramatic reading of “The Pied Piper of Hamlin.”
“The Pied Piper of Hamlin” was one of the “Headliners of the Week,” programs singled out for special notice. “ ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin,’ that hoary old rascal of legend who lured all the kiddies away with his piping will be presented from KQV, Wednesday. The flute and piano will help to charm you.”
WCAE, Pittsburgh, Pa., (Eastern, Daylight, 337)
3 p.m., Fred Rosenfeld, pianist; 6:30, dinner concert, William Penn hotel; 7:30, Sunshine girl; 9:30, musical program, Prof. C. P. Schwan
Thursday, July 17
KDKA, E. Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, 326)
11:15 a.m., Scalzo’s orchestra; 5:30 p.m., KDKA Little Symphony orchestra; 6:30, songs for the children, Merry Heart; 7, “Shrubs and Perennials that Bloom in July”; 7:15, farm program; 8, KDKA Little Symphony orchestra; Barbara Wellman, contralto; 10, concert.
KQV, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, Daylight, 270)
5-5:30 p.m., Sunset stories and “Diary of Snubs Our Dog”
WCAE, Pittsburgh, Pa., (Eastern, Daylight, 337)
6:30 p.m., dinner concert, William Penn hotel; 9:30, Julia Saam and co-operating artists, pupils of Casper Koch; 11, late concert.
Friday, July 18
KDKA, E. Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, 326)
11:15 a.m., Daugherty’s orchestra; 5:30 p.m., Paul Fleeger, organist; 6:30, Uncle Wiggely story for the children; 8, Pennsylvania Railroad system night: Altoona band; triple quartet, Car Service division; address, Elisha Lee; Louis Smith, tenor; I W. Dalrymple, xylophonist; Helen J. Upperman, soprano; H. W. Farrand, monologist; Blowden Lewis, contralto; Allegro Mandolin sextette; Ruth Radkey, pianist; Helen J. Upperman, soprano; Vera J. Burke, reader.
KQV, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, Daylight, 270)
5-5:30 p.m., Sunset stories and “Diary of Snubs Our Dog” 9-10, regular artists’ evening program.
WCAE, Pittsburgh, Pa., (Eastern, Daylight, 337)
4:30 p.m., special children’s program, Sunshine Girl; 6:30, dinner concert, William Penn hotel; 9:30, Bohemian musical program, “Liberty,” National Croatian Singing society, J. V. Krabec, director
Saturday, July 19
KDKA, E. Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, 326)
5:30 p.m., dinner concert, Westinghouse band; 6:30, Epaminondas and his Auntie, Radio children; 8, Westinghouse band; Chester sterling, bass.
KQV, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, Daylight, 270)
9-10 p.m., regular artists’ evening program.
WCAE, Pittsburgh, Pa., (Eastern, Daylight, 337)
6:30 p.m., dinner concert, William Penn hotel; 7:45, Lew Kennedy, baritone; Irene Setzler, pianist; 9:30, Brown’s Original orchestra.
Sunday, July 20
[No listings for Pittsburgh stations.]
Monday, July 21
[No programming on KDKA.]
KQV, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Eastern, Daylight, 270)
5-5:30 p.m., Sunset stories and “Diary of Snubs Our Dog” 8:45-9, fifteen minute song revue, Ben and Thelma Fields; 9-10, Marguerite Lang, soprano; Indira Hesh, contralto; James P. Johnstone, accompanist; artists from studio of Mme. Fitz-Randolph.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, much more famous for his work on the United States Capitol, was Pittsburgh’s first resident professional architect. This is his only remaining work here, and the only original 1814 building left from the Allegheny Arsenal.
This plaque was originally on the gatehouse to the Arsenal grounds.
A memorial put up by the Daughters of 1812 appears to have had a bronze relief, probably stolen many years ago.
The Arsenal is most famous in history for exploding during the Civil War, killing dozens of the workers, many of whom were children. We note that the building where the powder was stored did not explode—an indication, perhaps, that the architect knew his business.
DESIGNED BY BENJAMIN H. LATROBE; BUILT BY CAPTAIN ABRAM R. WOOLLEY ON LAND PURCHASED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FROM WILLIAM B. FOSTER. SERVED AS AMMUNITION PRODUCTION CENTER DURING INDIAN, MEXICAN AND CIVIL WARS. THIS TABLET COMMEMORATES AT LEAST 79 CIVILIAN WORKERS—MEN, WOMEN AND MANY CHILDREN—KILLED IN THREE MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSIONS, SEPTEMBER 17, 1862.
Old Pa Pitt would add that the explosions were not as mysterious as all that. It was an arsenal. The place was devoted to manufacturing things that explode, using explosive materials. Everyone knew that Dupont & Co. had been supplying powder in leaky barrels, probably reused in spite of the specific requirement not to reuse them. Everyone knew there was explosive stuff dusting the ground here and there. The only mystery was which of several possible causes set off the first spark, and that mystery will probably never be solved.
The remains of the dead were buried in a mass grave in Allegheny Cemetery, where an expensive marble memorial was put up. The marble eroded into illegibility by the 1920s, and it was replaced with a new monument with a bronze plaque that will last a few more centuries if it is not stolen and melted down.
Today the powder magazine sits in the middle of a pleasant urban oasis called Arsenal Park. Instead of explosive materials, it has rest rooms.
A century ago, radio had become a huge business—yet by the middle of 1925 commercial radio was only a little more than four years old. The growth of the industry astounded even the people most involved in it; the only phenomenon of our time that can remotely compare is the growth of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. (And here is a hint to producers of period movies: your mid-1920s backdrops are not complete unless all the buildings are festooned with improvised radio aerials.)
In the June 1925 issue, Radio Age interviewed “the world’s pioneer radio announcer,” H. W. Arlin, who started announcing for KDKA shortly after it began a seven-day broadcasting schedule. In the interview, he describes some of the daily duties that keep an announcer’s job incessantly entertaining. We should remember that, in those early days, a powerful station could be heard across the country, so Mr. Arlin regularly had to answer telephone calls and telegrams from distant places.
We wonder, incidentally, how much of his insistence that he was never tired was publicity puffery. In spite of his celebrity status, Mr. Arlin left the radio business shortly after this interview was published—though it may have been because he was offered a management position in Westinghouse, and the money was too good to pass up. He lived sixty more years, returning to national radio only once, to announce the returns from the Eisenhower-Stevenson election in 1952.
Catering to the Whims of a Fickle Audience Is No Child’s Play at KDKA
H. W. Arlin, the World’s Pioneer Announcer, Has Never Tired of the Radio Game; Here are Some of His Reasons
Announcing radio programs might be called the world’s most recent profession, because announcers for broadcasting stations were introduced first about four years ago when KDKA, the world’s pioneer station of the Westinghouse Company at East Pittsburgh, Pa., was started.
H. W. Arlin, the world’s pioneer radio announcer, made his debut early in 1921 and has been continuously “on the air” since. Thus his long service entitles him to the honors of being the veteran of radio announcers.
Mr. Arlin’s studio experiences have been many and varied. Life as a radio announcer is not a drab affair, as there is a necessity of being continually on the “qui vive.”
In the following interview Mr. Arlin tells of some of his studio experiences and some interesting contacts with his radio public.
He Never Tires
“I am often asked the question, ‘Do you become tired of announcing?’ or ‘Does radio work become monotonous?’ My answers to such questions are always in the negative, thanks to an ever-curious and an assisting public. By such an answer, I mean that any motonony which might otherwise tend to creep into the almost continual execution of programs is quickly dispelled by a multitude of extraneous duties with which an announcer is confronted.
“Probably one of the most interesting phases of studio work comes through contact with the public, not entirely by personal association, but also through the telephone and telegraph. No work can become monotonous or tiresome where the public is involved. On the contrary, I have found that a study of the whims and fancies of the public has been an exceedingly interesting one. Paraphrasing the famous expression of Abraham Lincoln, ‘You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time; but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.’ Not radio, at any extent. This statement could be applied to the view of the public on any one phase of radio entertainment such as music or sports. When applied to all of the phases of radio, it becomes many more times effective. What one person likes, another dislikes, and what one person condemns, another approves; so an announcer is almost justified in concluding that a ‘fifty-fifty break’ with the listening public is fair enough. However, 100 per cent satisfaction is always the goal.
“In telling of the announcer’s contact with the public we may take into consideration only one phase of this contact; that of telephone conversations. The nature of the telephone messages received, together with the conversations that follow, tend to create in one a desire for the study of people. The thoughts and ideas which prompt these many calls are perhaps innumerable; perhaps some one conceives an idea by which radio can be of aid to him in his own personal advancement or the advancement of some pet theory, or possibly some one desires some information which may vary from that of a query regarding what is the proper food to give a sick baby to that of certain details regarding a program to be broadcast several weeks hence.
Some of the Questions
“A few of the seemingly endless number of such questions and requests may be of interest. A confiding interest in our listeners, (this same public) will necessitate the omission of the names of any personalities involved in the following:
“One of our good Canadian friends recently called to tell us about a circular parking station he had invented for automobiles which would handle two hundred cars and which could be operated by one man. Appreciating the need for better parking service and predicting great success for his venture, he requested that we advise the radio public of his invention with full details as to where to purchase these stations.
“A lady calls us and requests that we announce that she has just left a package of pajamas on the street car and would like to have the service of the radio in recovering them. After being informed that we never make local announcements except in cases of robberies, kidnapping, lost persons and such emergencies, she replies, ‘Well, this is an emergency case, because it is the only package I had.’
“An elderly lady, apparently a student of nature, calls and gives us the following important news item: ‘Will you please announce that there is about four inches of snow in my back yard and that I have just seen two cardinal red birds?’ Of course, a very unusual sight for this time of the year.
“No sooner is the telephone receiver on the hook than the bell again rings and an innocent feminine voice pops the following impression: ‘I just heard you announce that you had received a telegram from New York commenting on the program. I would like to know if you are also broadcasting to Ohio tonight, as I would like to request a number for some friends out there who do not have the advantages of a radio.’
“It has also been brought very forcibly to my attention that radio has made a greater impression upon the public than has music. Of the many proofs of this statement, I might cite an occasion on which a program was being presented by the great Fritz Kreisler. The telephone rings and the following question comes from one of our listeners: ‘Do I have to listen to that novice all evening?’ A very provoking question to ask an announcer on such an occasion. He was then asked if he knew who he was listening to and after replying in the negative, he was very politely told that if his set was not working properly or that if he didn’t appreciate the music, he was in no way obligated to keep on listening the rest of the evening. This, apparently, answered his first question satisfactorily, and was an answer which fortunately savored very little of the thoughts that were running through the announcer’s brain.
The Fickle Public
“A lack of appreciation for the success of artists or for the repertoire used by them sometimes results in requests which provoke a smile from the person to whom they are addressed. When presenting a program at KDKA recently, Mrs. Christine Miller Clemson who before her marriage was one of the country’s contraltos and a concert singer with an enviable record, was requested to sing the jazz number ‘Red Hot Mamma.’
“Perhaps one of the most common requests received is that requesting an artist to sing a particular number. In spite of the fact that there are thousands of songs, a good many listeners cannot quite understand why the singer does not have the particular number they request. Song pluggers are requested to sing ‘Arias’ and grand opera stars are requested to sing jazz numbers by the well-meaning audience. It also happens quite often that in spite of the fact that we receive hundreds of requests for numbers during a particular evening, some well meaning individual is at a loss to know why his or her particular request was not granted.
“Oftentimes a party will call and ask the following question or a similar one: ‘I have a five-tube neutrodyne set and cannot hear anything. Will you please tell me what is the matter with my set?’ The opinion seems to be quite prevalent among a good many listeners that the wavelength determines the distance which a station can be heard, and usually the belief prevails that the distance a station can be heard varies directly with its wavelength. This opinion is the cause of some very humorous questions being asked.
“Among the innumerable questions are such questions as these: What time is it? Where is station WXY located? What is the name of the waltz the band played last Saturday night? What is the wavelength of station WXY? How far are you broadcasting tonight? Who is going to give your program on the 2nd of next month?’
“And so the announcer soon finds himself converted into an information bureau from which the dissemination of news adds a very colorful diversion to his vocation.”
