Father Pitt

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Allegheny County Airport

When this airport was built, it was the largest in the world in terms of runway footage; it is still one of the busiest airports in Pennsylvania, though there are no longer scheduled commercial flights. Moving the commercial flights to Greater Pitt meant that this airport never had to be rebuilt or modernized, so that the terminal (designed by Stanley L. Roush in 1931) is perhaps the most perfectly preserved Art Deco airport terminal in the world. It has played the airport in several period movies, and somewhere in a box or file Father Pitt has a picture of the terminal with the name “Bruxelles” replacing “Allegheny County Airport.”

Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

May 25, 2015
Remembering Those Who Served in the Civil War

The Civil War monument in Richland Cemetery, Dravosburg. The sculpture bears a maker’s plaque: “Manufactured by the W. H. Mullins Co., Salem, Ohio, U.S.A.”

Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

May 25, 2015
Memorial Day

Flags fly over veterans’ graves in the Homewood Cemetery.

Camera: Olympus E-20n.

May 25, 2015
Peony

Camera: Olympus E-20n.

May 24, 2015
Sycamore Bark

The American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) is a splendid tree with a curious habit of shedding its bark in huge chunks. The result on a mature tree is often a very smooth surface mottled all over with decorative patterns. These trees are in the Smithfield East End Cemetery in Squirrel Hill.

Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

May 24, 2015
Rhododendron Season

Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.

May 23, 2015
Orange Mushrooms

Old Pa Pitt is not a mushroom expert. He believes these to be Mycena leaiana, but any correspondent is invited to correct (or confirm) his identification. The ones below are a little past their prime, but still decorative.

Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

May 22, 2015
Visitor Center, Riverview Park

A very attractive little building put up in the 1940s, and doubtless influenced by the style of all the WPA work that had been done in local parks in the previous decade; here we see it in evening light, when the flowers for summer have just been planted.

Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.

May 22, 2015
Design for the City-County Building

This rendering was published in 1916, before the building opened in 1917; but this is how the City-County Building still looks today. “Diamond Street” is now part of Forbes Avenue, except for the remnant of the outer end that veers off Forbes for one scraggly diagonal block to meet Fifth Avenue.

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May 21, 2015
Horne’s

The Joseph Horne Department Store was Pittsburgh’s second-biggest (after Kaufmann’s, “The Big Store,” now Macy’s). The original 1897 building was designed by Boston architects Peabody & Stearns, also responsible for the Liberty Market (now Motor Square Garden) in East Liberty; additions over the next few decades greatly expanded the store. It was still going strong in the 1980s, when it was connected by a pedestrian bridge to the new Fifth Avenue Place shopping arcade; but the Horne’s chain was sold to Lazarus, which closed this store after it built a new store on Fifth Avenue, and then closed the new store down a few years later.

The building still stands, though, and you can see on the corner the brackets that hold the famous Horne’s Christmas tree, an enduring holiday tradition that has survived the demise of two department-store chains.

May 19, 2015