It is the civic duty of every Pittsburgher who entertains out-of-town visitors to take them up to Mount Washington and show off the skyline. These two pictures were taken a few years ago, but the overall impression changes little.
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Sunset or Sunrise?
Stained glass from a mausoleum in Allegheny Cemetery. Is it a sunset or a sunrise? That depends, perhaps, on what we think of death.
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Curves and Angles
The dome of the Allegheny Observatory, Observatory Hill, painted gold by the declining sun.
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Egyptian Fantasy
The Winter mausoleum in Allegheny Cemetery is an Egyptian-revival fantasy. The bronze doors show Mr. Winter himself as a pharaoh embarking on his journey through the underworld.
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Downtown from West Park
The skyline of downtown Pittsburgh seen from West Park. The bare branches, jagged buildings, and high contrast of a cloudy winter day make the picture, taken with an old and slightly leaky folding camera, look like a steel engraving.
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Beauty in Texture
A carriage house in the West End. Beauty lies in ambush, waiting to jump out at us when our guard is down.
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Winter in the Garden
After the leaves have fallen, the bright red twigs of the red-twig dogwood make an unexpected flash of color in the outdoor gardens of Phipps Conservatory. In the background, out of focus, is the Cathedral of Learning.
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Fun with Granite
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.