Giuseppe Moretti, one of Pittsburgh’s two favorite sculptors (the other being Frank Vittor), gave us the statuary on the Highland Avenue entrance to Highland Park. Moretti loved Pittsburgh, and predicted it would be the Athens of America; Pittsburghers probably laugh when they read that, but if they counted the number of priceless sculptures and great works of architecture they passed every day, they might realize that Moretti was closer to right than they thought.
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In early September, countless thousands of Wingstem flowers (Actinomeris alternifolia) line the Salamander Trail in Fox Chapel. Wingstem can grow up to ten feet high when it’s happy. This picture is how old Pa Pitt always wants to remember late summer.
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Late-summer flowers line the banks of the Squaw Run as it meanders through Salamander Park in Fox Chapel.
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A large spider waits for customers on a Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in a park in Fox Chapel. Perhaps an arachnophile correspondent can identify the spider.
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Right on the border between Oakland and Shadyside, the Church of the Ascension is one of the diminishing number of black stone buildings in Pittsburgh. Father Pitt hopes that his pictures will preserve the memory of our black stones when the last stone building has been sandblasted.
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A pigeon perches on a Bessemer converter preserved at Station Square.
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The South Side Cemetery in Carrick does not have monuments by famous architects like the ones in the Allegheny Cemetery, but some of its residents did have good taste in sculpture.
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Helen Clay Frick built this charming Renaissance palace in her back yard to give the people of Pittsburgh a chance to admire her art collection. It’s a small collection—a Reynolds here, a Boucher there—but an extraordinarily rich one for its size. And in a city where the collective museum culture has decided that expensive admission fees are the rule, the Frick is always free.
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From our sister site Flora Pittsburghensis we borrow this picture of a very happy bumblebee bathing itself in the pollen of a Cut-Leaf Teasel (Dipsacus laciniatus) in Cranberry Township.
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This extraordinarily tasteful Renaissance octagon (built in 1925) is so unusual that Father Pitt suspects it may be based on a historical model. He would be delighted if one of his readers could find the original and point it out to him. John Robison McCune III was a banker, head of one of the biggest banks in the city (Union National, which after being devoured by Integra and National City is now part of PNC).
The interior is as elegant as the exterior. McCune took nothing of his private life with him to the grave—no Masonic or even religious symbols. His mausoleum, including the exceptionally fine window, is dedicated solely to beauty.
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