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Decorations on the Parkvale Building, Oakland
The richly decorated Parkvale Building on Forbes Avenue is currently under renovation, so we can hope that these splendid reliefs will continue to delight future generations of Pittsburghers.
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Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral
There are at least three cathedrals in Oakland, in addition to the Cathedral of Learning, which is a cathedral metaphorically but not the seat of a bishop. Most Pittsburghers would be able to identify St. Paul’s, the Roman Catholic cathedral. Many would remember that there’s a Greek Orthodox cathedral, because its famous food festival attracts enough of a crowd to have an impact on Oakland traffic. This is the third. It was built as a Syrian Orthodox church in 1955, and it interprets traditional Eastern Christian forms with a sort of modernist severity.
Addendum: According to James D. Van Trump, the architects were the firm of Diamond & Reisner.1
- “Our Eastern Domes, Fantastic, Bright…”: Some Orthodox and Byzantine-Rite Churches in Allegheny County, by James D. Van Trump. Reprinted from Carnegie Magazine. PHLF; The Stones of Pittsburgh No. 12. ↩︎
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Mushrooms on a Log
Mushrooms growing on a decaying log in the Kane Woods Nature Area, Scott Township.
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Looking Down Forbes Avenue
The lively and varied streetscape of Forbes Avenue in Oakland, looking toward the Cathedral of Learning.
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Butterflies
Old Pa Pitt is not enough of an entomologist to identify these creatures reliably. He is almost certain the first one is a Silvery Checkerspot, but the other one eludes him, and he would be happy for an identification from a better-informed reader.
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Buses on Fifth Avenue
Old Pa Pitt is a transit extremist. He believes in a subway between downtown and Oakland, and nothing less. But the “bus rapid transit” now in progress will certainly be an enormous improvement over what we have now, which is herds of buses getting stuck in inbound Fifth Avenue traffic. Here we see them piled up in front of the fancy new Atwood Street station.
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Periwinkles
Catharanthus roseus in most classification systems, but Vinca rosea in the garden trade.
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Mount Lebanon Station
A southbound Red Line car leaves the Mount Lebanon subway station, as seen from the Alfred Street crossing.
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The Iroquois
The Iroquois Building, which takes up a whole block of Forbes Avenue, was designed by Frederick Osterling, Pittsburgh’s most consistently flamboyant architect. Osterling designed in a variety of styles: he had his own ornate version of Richardsonian Romanesque, and his last large commission was the Flemish-Gothic Union Trust Building. Here, as in theArrott Building downtown, he adapts Beaux-Arts classicism to his own flashier sensibilities. The building was finished in 1903.
This clock sits in front of the central light well—a typically ornate Osterling detail.
A naked brick front would never do for Osterling; it must be constantly varied in shape and texture. These grotesque reliefs help.
