The Pittsburgh Playhouse building on Forbes Avenue is a harmonious addition to the streetscape. It manages the unusual feat of looking 21st-century and classical at the same time.
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Fort Pitt Blockhouse in 1887
In the nineteenth century, the Fort Pitt Blockhouse was used as a residence. It was surrounded by slum and warehouses. Guides to the city (like the guide this cut came from) always pointed it out, but a visit would not have been calculated to give a good impression of living conditions in the city.
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The Earliest Daylily
Every year these daylilies bloom at the end of May, often while the last tulips are still blooming, and weeks before most of the other daylilies in the city appear. They came from an unnamed hybrid seedling.
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Lion on the Allegheny County Courthouse
Romanesque lions guard the Allegheny County Courthouse. They would originally have been at street level before Grant Street was lowered by about a storey.
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Purple Archangel
Old Pa Pitt is trying to teach himself to call this beautiful little weed “Purple Archangel,” because it is much more poetic than the name he has always used for it, “Purple Dead-Nettle.”
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English Bluebells
Why did English bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) sprout uninvited in a small city yard in Pittsburgh? Because life is better than we deserve.
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Art Deco Doorway
It may seem hard to believe, but this Art Deco building on Forbes Avenue downtown is being turned into loft apartments.
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Two by David Gilmour Blythe
Because we cannot get to the museum right now, old Pa Pitt is bringing the museum to you. Here are two by Pittsburgh’s great satirical painter David Gilmour Blythe. Above, Good Times (c. 1854-1858). Below, Temperance Pledge (c. 1856-1860). They make a good pair. Both are in the Carnegie Museum of Art.
