Category: Oakland

  • Cathedral of Learning and the Carnegie

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    Seen from in front of Phipps Conservatory.

  • Oakland in the Snow

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    Looking up Bellefield Avenue during this afternoon’s snowstorm.

  • Grand Staircase, Carnegie Museum

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    The Grand Staircase is meant to be the main focal point of the museum, but the unsympathetic addition of the Scaife Galleries, with a new main entrance, makes the staircase something of a backwater. It’s still grand, however, even when overrun by the International. The murals are by John White Alexander.

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  • Webster Hall

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    Webster Hall, built in 1926, was designed by Henry Hornbostel to be the grandest apartment block in the city of Pittsburgh. It still holds a prominent place in the Oakland monumental district, where Hornbostel contributed more buildings than any other architect.

  • View of Oakland from St. Michael’s Cemetery

    St. Michael’s cemetery occupies a large patch of precipitous ground on the South Side Slopes. The views from here are breathtaking and sometimes a little terrifying. Here we see Oakland in the distance across the Monongahela, with a few rows of typical Slopes frame houses in the middle distance.

  • Oakland Panorama

    A panoramic view of the skyline of Oakland from Schenley Park. Few Pittsburghers realize what an unusual phenomenon Oakland is: a second city within the city, and a city of the mind—a city whose towers are devoted to learning and research.

  • View from Schenley Park

    Pittsburgh skyline from Schenley Park in winter

    A wintry view of downtown from the Overlook Drive in Schenley Park. 

  • Turrets at Central Catholic

    Central Catholic High School in Oakland is a fantasy medieval castle out of a German fairy tale. This is a view from the east side of some of the odd turrets and projections.

  • Entrance to Bayard Manor

    Gothic doorway to Bayard Manor

    North Oakland is one of the few areas of Pittsburgh where large apartment blocks took root, and some of them are worth a look. Bayard Manor gives us a sort of deco interpretation of Gothic that fits well with the Cathedral of Learning a few blocks away.

  • Cathedral of Learning from Three Viewpoints

    The Cathedral of Learning from three different angles. Pittsburgh is a bit unusual in having one of its tallest skyscrapers outside the main skyscraper district. Currently this is our seventh-tallest building (at 535 feet), but it will be bumped down to eighth-tallest when the new Tower at PNC Plaza (554 feet tall) is finished.

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