Carved brackets over the front door of a Victorian rowhouse on the South Side.
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First Presbyterian Church
First Presbyterian was designed by the Philadelphia architect Theophilus P. Chandler, whose name makes him sound like the obstructive villain in a Marx Brothers farce. Above we see it from across Trinity Churchyard, with the last leaves of autumn still clinging to an oak tree in front of Trinity Cathedral. Below, details of the Gothic decoration.
Not many churches are confident enough of the permanence of their service times to have them literally set in stone.
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Spire of Trinity Cathedral
The spire of Trinity Cathedral, with the Oliver Building in the background and the pinnacles of First Presbyterian Church in front and to the right.
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Kerr Monument, Trinity Churchyard
Hidden on the left side of the cathedral is a narrow arm of the churchyard with a few old monuments, with the massive bulk of the Oliver Building towering over them. Most people who visit Trinity Churchyard never find their way to this side of it, but it’s worth a few moments of contemplation.
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Victory Building
The Victory Building, at Liberty Avenue and 9th Street, is a small skyscraper designed by Andrew Carnegie’s favorite architects, Alden and Harlow. It’s only eleven storeys tall, but it follows the classic base-shaft-cap pattern of the Beaux-Arts skyscraper style in America.
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606 Liberty Avenue
This beautiful (and odd-shaped) building at what used to be the intersection of Liberty and Oliver is now “coworking” offices, which is the trendy term for “offices with free beer.”
The last block of Oliver Avenue was absorbed into PNC Plaza, but this building remains to outline the old odd-angled intersection.
Addendum: The building was put up in 1909 for the Meyer Jonasson Company, a high-class clothing firm. The architects were MacClure & Spahr.
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Fall on Sarah Street
Fall colors persist far into November in the city, though the trees in the suburbs are mostly naked twigs by now.
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Lumière Residences
The Lumière, the latest luxury condo tower downtown, is currently going up where Saks Fifth Avenue used to be, at Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue.
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Porcelainberry
Porcelainberry (Ampelopsis glandulosa var. brevipedunculata) is another one of those beautiful ornamentals with a plot to take over the world. It was brought into this country for the delightfully subtle colors of its berries. Birds love them, and the vine is distributed everywhere. Here it was fruiting at the lower edge of the South Side Slopes. Above: before a hard freeze; below, after.
