The old Mellon National Bank Building spent some time as a Lord & Taylor department store; it is now known simply by its street address, 500 Smithfield Street.
The photo above is put together from four separate photographs; the stitching process created a slightly terrifying floating severed head in the crosswalk, which we have edited out.
The Pittsburgh Party Pedaler is a kind of mobile bar bus powered by drinkers pedaling while they sit on barstools. The employee who steers, however, is required to remain sober.
There are at least two companies operating similar vehicles. This vehicle is Dutch and purely human-powered; Pedal Power Tours has a similar vehicle with a motor to help out when the drinkers get pooped.
One Gateway Center seen from across the Allegheny. The three Gateway Center towers were one of the most-watched developments in postwar America; it seemed as though the modernist ideal of towers-in-a-park would finally obliterate congestion and unpleasantness in our cities, and the original plan was to cover the whole Point with identical towers. Fortunately money ran out long before that happened. Money concerns also spared us at the last minute from the pedestrian brick cladding that was planned for these towers; it proved cheaper to encase them in shimmering metal. The result is an International Style cruciform tower with a bit of the elegance of Art Deco.
Eggers & Higgins, the architects, were the successors to John Russell Pope, and thus responsible for completing the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Clearly they were stylistically versatile.
A young stag, his antlers still covered in velvet, rests in Allegheny Cemetery.
Taking advantage of the damp weather, mushrooms have popped up everywhere. Here are a few more from Mount Lebanon and Scott Township. Once again, Father Pitt makes no serious attempt to identify them, and welcomes identifications in the comments.
Designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, this is now the Renaissance Hotel. The entrance to the Byham Theater is on the Sixth Street side of the building; the theater is actually a different building next door, the entrance being a long passage all the way through the Fulton Building.
The grand arch in the light well seems to echo the arch of the Roberto Clemente Bridge—a coincidence, since the bridge was put up about twenty years later. It is a pleasure to see an architect making the light well a feature rather than hiding it in the rear as if he were ashamed of it.
An entire ecosystem depends on the bark of this one tree in Mount Lebanon: moss, lichens, a bug, and tiny mushrooms. How tiny are they? Below is a left index finger for scale.
A lichen expert would probably know right away what kind of lichen these are, but Father Pitt does not. He always appreciates help in the comments. The color is one of old Pa Pitt’s favorites in all of nature.
