Ozark Witch Hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) blooms in any warm spell from January through March, filling the air with a delightfully strong perfume. When the weather freezes again, the petals curl up and wait for another warm spell. The bush is not native to Pittsburgh, but it is requires no care once it is established, and it does not make a pest of itself.
The Gateway station is full of fascinating geometries. These pictures were taken shortly after the station opened in 2012.
Edmond Amateis was the sculptor who created this whimsical fountain for the Mellon estate. These pictures were taken in November of 2008 with a Kodak Retinette.
You used to come down these stairs from the street to enter Gateway Center, and if you were lucky you would hear the sound of wheels squealing around the loop, indicating that you were just in time.
The old Gateway Center station closed forever on October 30, 2009, as the new line to the North Side was under construction. These pictures were taken on the old station’s last night in service. A new Gateway (not Gateway Center) station, much larger and more pleasant, is open now, but the old Gateway Center is still there as a ghost station, almost unchanged since the day it was abandoned. If you are leaving Gateway headed for Wood Street, you can see the old station on the right side of the car.
Approaching the platform…
The last time old Pa Pitt glanced out the window at the ghost station, those posters on the right were still there.
There was only one platform. Gateway Center was the end of the line, so the cars came in from the east (above), passed the station, went around a squealy loop, and came back in from the west. Watching the car pass straight through the station often gave out-of-town visitors a moment of panicked confusion.
Here we are looking toward the loop, listening to the squealing wheels as our car comes around for us.
At last our car enters the station. Note the lower-level platform, blocked off by this time, that was built to accommodate the old PCC cars, some of which ran in Pittsburgh until 2003. (Some of those same cars, completely rebuilt, are now running in San Francisco.) These lower-level platforms can still be seen at Steel Plaza and Wood Street. The PCC cars were also the reason for the loop: the more modern Siemens and CAF trolleys are double-ended, but PCC cars went in only one direction.
We board our car for the very last time, knowing that we will never hear that loop squeal again.
For some time after the new station opened, the announcements on the cars were still clearly the old recorded announcements, but truncated: the professional announcer voice said “Approaching Gateway C—” as the car rolled into the station. Those announcements have now been re-recorded, but old Pa Pitt secretly enjoyed them. Many cities have ghost stations in their subways, but Pittsburgh was the only city with a ghost sibilant.
Every once in a great while, old Pa Pitt attempts something artistic. In this case, he was deliberately imitating with his camera the effect of a painting in the collection of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Biches dans une forêt de sapins by Gustave Doré (better known these days for his book illustrations). Obviously the landscape of this hillside in Frick Park is very different from the stream valley in Doré’s painting, but old Pa Pitt was pleased with the effect of the light and the colors.
The small but richly gorgeous lobby of the Arrott Building as it appeared in 2013, before the current renovations.
Above, one of the towers of St. Augustine’s in Lower Lawrenceville. Below, a view down 36th Street from Penn Avenue, with the startling forms of St. Augustine’s illuminated by a shaft of sunlight. These pictures were taken in 1999, back when the neighborhood was forgotten and practically invisible to most outsiders.
The narrow streets on either side of St. George’s Church, taken in 1999. Above: Proctor Way; below, Climax Street.
