A lion in Mellon Park guards a formal green.
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A Niche in Mellon Park
What this niche really needs is a statue of Diana, or of some other chaste goddess who appreciates nature. Not one of those urban party-girl goddesses.
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November Colors in Mellon Park
Leaves in colors from bright gold to deep mahogany; ornamental grasses in browns, yellows, and oranges; a perfect day.
All these photographs in Mellon Park were taken with a Kodak Retinette, whose Schneider-Kreuznach lens and Compur-Rapid shutter make it a fine choice for a light, compact 35-mm camera. It has no rangefinder, which has the salutary effect of forcing the photographer to think clearly about focus and depth of field.
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Wrought Iron in Mellon Park
A wrought-iron fence and gate in Mellon Park, surrounded by the rich and subtle colors of early November.
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A Fountain in Mellon Park
Early November: the gaudy colors of the maples have fled, but the oaks and birches take over with richer and subtler tones. This fountain is a bit medieval, a bit magical, and a bit silly, which makes it just about perfect.
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Webster Hall
Webster Hall in Oakland, designed by Pittsburgh’s favorite architect Henry Hornbostel, was a grand hotel in its day. Now it’s turned into apartments, but church ladies all over Pittsburgh still treasure the recipe for Webster Hall Cake.
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Streetcars Still Run in Beechview
Many Pittsburghers from between the rivers firmly believe that streetcars are extinct in Pittsburgh. They are indeed extinct between the rivers, except where they run underground in the subway; but south of the Mon they still run on the street in Allentown and Beechview, and on their own right-of-way far out into the southern suburbs.
Above, a Route 42S car rolls outbound up Broadway in Beechview. Below, an inbound car begins its crossing of the viaduct between Fallowfield and Westfield.
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Monolithic and Megalithic
The columns of the Mellon Institute are supposedly the largest monolithic columns in the world. For scale, note, if you can make him out, the man with the backpack walking down the steps.
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Free to the People
Late-afternoon sun glows on the main entrance to the Carnegie Library in Oakland. Andrew Carnegie, who thought it was a scandal to die rich, attributed his own success to the access he had as a child to a kindly gentleman’s library. There are still Carnegie Libraries in towns and cities all over the United States, but this is the greatest of them all.
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Heinz Chapel, Inside and Out
Somehow Charles Z. Klauder managed to create perfectly Gothic buildings with an Art Deco sensibility in every detail. His Cathedral of Learning is the most perfect Gothic skyscraper in the world; it’s organically Gothic, not just a skyscraper with Gothic trimmings.
On the same ideally landscaped square in Oakland sits Heinz Chapel, Klauder’s last work, a building with more modest dimensions but more flamboyant ornament. Its lacy spire is a remarkable work of Gothic fantasy. Its transept windows, designed (like all the other stained glass in the building) by Charles J. Connick, are supposedly the tallest stained-glass windows in the world, or among the tallest, or rather tallish, depending on which source you consult. It’s one of Pittsburgh’s favorite wedding sites, and on a Saturday afternoon weddings follow one after another as though the brides were on a conveyor belt.
The cornerstone identifies the date in figures that perfectly match the Deco Gothic spirit of the building.
These photographs were taken with a Zorki-4 bearing a Jupiter-8 f/2 lens, which is a fine camera for a day out in the city. It’s versatile, it’s built like a Soviet tank, and the lens is sharp and fast (and interchangeable with any screwmount Leica lens). And there were literally millions made, so if it does break you can just get another one.