The Allegheny Observatory gives its name to the Observatory Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, although—oddly—the city government knows the neighborhood as Perry North, in spite of its residents’ insistence on calling it Observatory Hill.
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A Mushroom
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Father Pitt thinks this large bracket fungus looks like Polyporus squamosus, the Pheasant’s Back or Dryad’s Saddle. He would be delighted to be corrected by someone who understands the fungus world. It was growing on a fallen log in the Kane Woods Nature Area, Scott Township.
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Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown
It used to be the Hilton, whose management kept flirting with bankruptcy. For some time the odd swoopy addition on the front was stalled half-finished; it is now completed and open. This is Pittsburgh’s tallest hotel, and probably the ugliest as well. But as a place to stay, it has its benefits—among them, spectacular views in all directions.
Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.
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Fifth Avenue Place
One of the more prominent of the skyscrapers from the Postmodernist boom in the 1980s. The spindle that sticks out the top has a particular meaning: it marks the height the builders had intended the building to reach. They were thwarted by the city government, which thought for some reason that it would be too tall at that height, although the monstrous U. S. Steel Building had not bothered them a decade and a half before.
Do you like this building better with or without a leafy frame? Father Pitt is willing to oblige either way.
Camera: Olympus E-20n.
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Gateway Station
The entrance to the Gateway station, which as a work of architecture is hard to classify. The best term Father Pitt can come up with is “whimsical.”
A train of two Siemens SD-400 cars, built in the 1980s and rebuilt a few years ago, stops at Gateway on its way to the North Side. Trolley geeks will be interested to know that St. Louis also uses SD-400s; but the St. Louis cars do not have the extra street-level doors—which old Pa Pitt calls the “Pittsburgh doors”—to cope with Pittsburgh’s odd mix of platform-level stations and street-level stops. The newer CAF cars in Pittsburgh had to make the same adaptation. One wonders whether trolley makers groan when they get a call from Pittsburgh, or whether dollar signs pop up in their eyes when they think of what they can charge for customization.
Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.
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Big Heart Pet Brands on the North Shore
Big Heart Pet Brands is the former pet-food division of Del Monte. You know the names of many of their products from endless television commercials. This attractive, though rather pedestrian, building on the North Shore is the Eastern offices of the company, which is based in San Francisco; it’s a good example of the transformation of the North Shore in the last two decades.
Camera: Olympus E-20n.
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Penn Avenue, Cultural District
Penn Avenue in the Cultural District, Pittsburgh, from the corner of Sixth Street. The view includes the O’Reilly Theater and Theater Square (architect Michael Graves) and the Penn Avenue bikeway.
Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.
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The Walled Garden in Mellon Park
A panoramic view of the Walled Garden. Mellon Park was originally the Mellons’ back yard; the Walled Garden was designed by the landscape architects Vitale and Geiffert. -
Trillium Time on the Trillium Trail
The Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel is named for the vast drifts of trilliums that grow in the woods there. There are two species: the Great White Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, and the Wake-Robin, Trillium erectum. The Great White is, as you might expect, white (though occasionally pale pink); the Wake-Robin has several color forms, of which red is the usual in most of its range, but white dominates in the Pittsburgh area.
Father Pitt’s best pictures of wildflowers always end up at Flora Pittsburghensis, which you should certainly see right now if you like spring flowers.
Great White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum).
White, red, pink, and yellow forms of the Wake-Robin (Trillium erectum).
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