Presbyterian Hospital was built in 1938 as a splendid Art Deco skyscraper with wings. The original design is impossible to appreciate from nearby, since other buildings have grown up to obscure it. But if we take a long view of it from Schenley Park, we can get some idea of how the architect intended it to be seen.
The central tower is topped by yet another imitation of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, joining Allegheny General and the Gulf Tower in the style old Pa Pitt likes to call Mausoleum-on-a-Stick.
There are thousands of pictures of the skyline of Pittsburgh by night; this is not the best, but it is probably the most up-to-date on the Web at the moment. The skyline is changing, after all, so all those other pictures are completely passé.
A very-wide-angle view of the Granite Building, designed by the prolific and versatile Charles Bickel for a German bank. He has made use of every texture and shape of which granite is capable, and the result is a particularly lively, if perhaps a bit jumbled, rendering of German Romanesque.
You may notice some ghostly figures, including a spectral automobile, in the photograph. Father Pitt would love to be able to claim privileged access to the wonders of the invisible world, but in fact this is a composite photograph taken on a busy street, and people will continue to move even when they see an older gentleman in a cocked hat trying to take a composite picture.
The Granite Building is just across Wood Street from the Wood Street subway station.
UPDATE: A revised version of this article may be found at the Historical Miscellany.
Many historians speculate that the name “Pittsburgh” was originally pronounced “PITTS-burrah,” the way Edinburgh is pronounced “ED-in-burrah.” After all, General Forbes, who gave the place its name, was a Scotsman: it would seem odd that he would not pronounce the “burgh” as in “Edinburgh.”
Today Father Pitt presents a tiny piece of evidence suggesting that the old pronunciation may have endured into the early 1800s. The evidence is only suggestive, not conclusive; but he thinks you will agree that it is at least very interesting.
Union Cemetery in Robinson Township is an old graveyard with a number of Revolutionary War veterans in it. Here we find, side by side, two early settlers’ tombstones.
First is Thomas Thornberry, a Revolutionary War veteran. His stone is regrettably so badly damaged that we can read nothing on it. But a plaque in front of the stone identifies it as belonging to Thomas Thornberry, a Revolutionary War veteran. Presumably the name comes from the church records, but Father Pitt is not sure of that. Perhaps someone from the church could enlighten us more.
Beside his stone is a legible stone for a woman who is obviously his wife.
IN MEMORY OF DINAH Wife of Thomas Thornburgh who departed this life July 26th, 1830, aged 70 years.
And here is our evidence. Inscriptions on tombstones of the early 1800s around here are commonly semi-literate; it is common to find variant spellings of the same name. Here we have the same name spelled “Thornburgh” and “Thornberry.” Now, it is not possible to imagine the name “Thornberry” being pronounced “THORN-burg,” but it is quite possible to imagine both “Thornburgh” and “Thornberry” being pronounced “THORN-burrah.” And if that is the case, then we have evidence that, in western Pennsylvania, the spelling “burgh” indicated the sound “burrah” at least to some residents as late as 1830.
Old Pa Pitt repeats that this is not evidence of very high quality. But it is some evidence.
The columns of the Mellon Institute building in Oakland are the largest monolithic columns in the world, each made from one gigantic cylinder of stone. This picture was taken on film a few years ago, but nothing much has changed.
A well-proportioned building little changed since it was put up. You may notice, by the way, that older storefronts always have inset doors. Why is that? you ask. Somehow we have forgotten the reason for this obvious precaution, but our ancestors had much more practical minds than we have. For fire safety, doors should open outward. If they are flush with the sidewalk, however, they can open outward right into the face of a passing pedestrian and break his nose.
