A 4300-series CAF trolley leaves First Avenue on its way into the old railroad tunnel that leads to Steel Plaza. Pittsburghers count First Avenue as part of the “subway” section of the system (which in Pittsburgh terminology includes the stations from Station Square to Allegheny), but it is an elevated station; not until further in does the line actually go underground.
This was a very tall building when it opened in 1892. It’s certainly stretching a point to call this a skyscraper, yet it is in some ways the seed of all subsequent skyscrapers in Pittsburgh. This was the first building in Pittsburgh, and one of the first in the world, built with steel-cage construction, which makes practically indefinite height possible. Below we see the Conestoga Building with a couple of its great-grandchildren behind it: One PPG Place and Fifth Avenue Place.
Built for the Hartley-Rose Belting Company (so old Pa Pitt has no idea why the name on the awning lacks a hyphen, but he has no control over that), this is in effect a miniature Beaux-Arts skyscraper, with the regulation base–shaft–cap design. The architect was Edward Stotz, many of whose most famous commissions were schools—notably Schenley High School and Fifth Avenue High School.
Yes, since you ask, Father Pitt did plant tulips right in front of this patch of daylilies so he could take these pictures proving that these daylilies do really bloom as early as the end of tulip season. The pictures were taken on May 13, and old Pa Pitt does not know of any other daylilies blooming that early in the city. The variety has no name, since it came from a batch of mixed unnamed hybrid seedlings.
Firstside is the row of nineteenth-century commercial buildings facing what used to be the Monongahela Wharf. At one end is the Conestoga Building, one of the first steel-cage skyscrapers; at the other is the modernist Westinghouse Building.
This was built for the Second United Presbyterian Church, but the Baptists moved in in 1933 (according to the History of the Churches of the Pittsburgh Baptist Association). It is now the Union Project, an arts center and events hall.
This station (architect William George Burns) was made as splendid as possible to show that the P&LE was serious competition to the big railroads. Its front entrance opened directly on the Smithfield Street Bridge to be as convenient as possible to downtown without actually being downtown.
