This unusual external stairwell behind the People’s Savings Bank Building is one of the architectural curiosities of Fourth Avenue. Old Pa Pitt caught it when it was briefly illuminated by reflected sunlight.
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Decorations on the Buhl Building
The Buhl Building on Fifth Avenue, one of Benno Janssen’s earlier works, is covered with terra-cotta reliefs in Wedgwood colors.
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Liberty Theater (Baum Building)
Like many buildings on the southeast side of Liberty Avenue, where the two grids of our eighteenth-century street plan collide, the Baum Building is forced into a triangle. It began its life as the Liberty Theater, but it lasted for only a few years before being turned into offices. Now, under the ownership of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, it has gone back into the entertainment business as an art gallery.
Addendum: The architect was Edward B. Lee. The theater was built in 1912; the conversion to offices was done in 1920, and Father Pitt suspects Lee supervised that as well. See this page in The Brickbuilder from 1913 for a picture of the building as originally built.
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Kosciusko Way, South Side Slopes
Kosciusko Way, apparently named for the famous Polish hero of the Revolutionary War, is a narrow and crowded street that makes a brave attempt to go straight up from Josephine Street into the South Side Slopes, but makes it only a block before being utterly defeated by topography.
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Virginia Creeper in Fall Color
Some of the brightest and purest reds in the fall come from Virginia creeper, or woodbine. It is a beautiful vine all summer, but when its glossy dark green leaves turn fiery red in fall, it can light up whole tree trunks in the woods. These vines grew (and fruited) at the edge of a small parking area on the South Side Slopes.
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Fall in Mellon Square
Mellon Square is one of the few open spaces downtown, and the only way a whole block could be opened up was by, in effect, making an inverted building under it. Several layers of parking garage are under the square, and the Smithfield Street side, which is below the level of the square, has a row of storefronts along the street.
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Spire of the Smithfield United Church of Christ
The first structural use of aluminum was this ornate tracery spire on the Smithfield Congregational Church by Henry Hornbostel. Unfortunately the decorative stamped concrete that covers the rest of the church is crumbling, and it will cost millions to repair. The church has been shrouded in mesh for years now, but the spire still proudly catches the early-morning sun.
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Wood Street
A view down the whole length of Wood Street from Liberty Avenue, early on a rainy morning.
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Alcoa Building
This is one of several works by Harrison and Abramovitz on Pittsburgh’s skyline—the most prominent, of course, being the U. S. Steel Tower, which dwarfs everything else. This one was built in 1953, making it probably the first of their works here. It was also the first aluminum-faced skyscraper (appropriate for the biggest aluminum producer in the world). To Father Pitt, it always looks like a stack of 1950s television sets.
