The Granite Building on Sixth Avenue is an exuberant riot of textures. Whatever ornamentation could be done with granite, it has been done here.
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The Fort Pitt Blockhouse
The only building left from the original Fort Pitt, and the only pre-Revolutionary structure left in downtown Pittsburgh, is this modest little blockhouse, which somehow survived a century and a half of being surrounded by warehouses before Point State Park grew around it. These photographs were taken with an Ansco Speedex folding camera.
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Graceful Curves
The Lecture Hall, part of the giant Carnegie Institute complex in Oakland. The graceful curve of this unexpected projection from the building is balanced by an equally graceful curve in the sidewalk.
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Gothic Fantasy
The spire of Heinz Chapel on the University of Pittsburgh campus reaches toward heaven.
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The Inscription on the Monument
This is the inscription on the Civil War monument in West Park: “Erected to the memory of the 4,000 brave men of Allegheny County who fell in the great struggle to maintain the integrity of our union. The eye of God rests upon their graves even when unmarked by man, and their sleeping dust shall arise in the morning of the resurrection.”
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Day and Night
Two views from the northern end of the Sixth Street Bridge, now officially the Roberto Clemente Bridge. This is one of the famous Three Sisters; Pittsburgh is the only place in the world, it seems, where you can find three identical suspension bridges side by side. The pictures were taken to test a fifty-year-old Argus C4, which apparently passed the test.
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Autumn at the Arboretum
An arboretum planted in West Park more than a century ago is still thriving, though it was quite literally forgotten for decades. No one remembered that it had been an arboretum, but no one had cut down the trees, either. Now the trees are labeled again, and the arboretum is a beautiful spot for a picnic in the summer or a leisurely stroll in the autumn.
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The Dirty Old Cathedral of Learning
The Cathedral of Learning, the fantastical Gothic skyscraper at the heart of the University of Pittsburgh, has recently been cleaned of all the soot and grime from the old days of big steel. The building is beautiful now, but the old grime had its own character and beauty. Here are a few pictures of the Cathedral of Learning before the cleaning.
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Autumn in the Woods
Autumn in the woods near Pittsburgh. This forest is dominated by sugar maples, all of which turn the same glorious golden yellow at once.
