Father Pitt

Tag: Apartment Buildings

  • Webster Hall

    Webster Hall

    A full view of the Fifth Avenue façade of Webster Hall. The design is by Henry Hornbostel, who successfully created a conservative Art Deco classicism that harmonizes with the other grand monuments on Fifth Avenue.

    The building was apparently put up as fancy bachelor apartments, but soon became a grand hotel (it is now apartments again). It was famous for the Webster Hall Cake, whose secret recipe is still treasured by little old ladies all over Pittsburgh. But old Pa Pitt is delighted to discover that the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle has a whole article on Webster Hall Cake, including two recipes that claim to be close approximations. Father Pitt suspects that there are still little old ladies out there who claim to have the real thing, but these recipes are a good start.

  • The Adrian

    The Adrian

    Another elegant Renaissance palace, slightly smaller but very similar in style to the Aberdeen. Once again, the view is marred by intrusive utility cables.

  • The Aberdeen

    The Aberdeen

    An apartment building in the graceful form of a Renaissance palace.

  • Bayard Manor

    Bayard Manor

    A Tudor Gothic apartment block in North Oakland whose details are worth pausing to appreciate.

  • The Fairfax

    The Fairfax, Oakland, Pittsburgh

    Note that the full picture is more than 45 megapixels.

    Apartment life was never as much of a big thing in Pittsburgh as it was in some other big Eastern cities, but the corner of Oakland next to Shadyside is mostly given over to large blocks of apartments like this. The Fairfax affects an English style; old Pa Pitt does not know whose arms are on the façade, but they do not seem to be the arms of Lord Fairfax.

  • Try Street Terminal (First Avenue Side)

    Try Street Terminal

    This is the First Avenue side of a building that occupies a whole block—or arguably more, since the little alley Gasoline Street runs right through the middle of it. Built as a utilitarian warehouse, it was repurposed as a dormitory for the Art Institute; and when that school was in its final death spiral, the building was refurbished again as—of course—luxury lofts, under the name Terminal 21.

  • Grandview Avenue, Duquesne Heights

    Duquesne Heights is the western section of Mount Washington, the part that includes the expensive restaurants overlooking the skyline and the luxury apartment towers. Here we see Grandview Pointe in the foreground, with its glass-walled elevator shaft leading up to the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto, and the Trimont in the distance.

  • River Vue Apartments with Fall Colors

    The former State Office Building, now (like everything else) luxury apartments, with the fall colors of Gateway Plaza in front. At lower right, a yellow-vested man is working on the garden in the median of Liberty Avenue.

  • Chatham Center

    This picture from five years ago (but old Pa Pitt just dug it out of his archive, where it lay forgotten) shows the unobstructed view of Chatham Center from the Middle Hill. Chatham One is the building with the name at the top; the square tower to the left of it is Two Chatham Center.

  • Lumière Residences

    The Lumière, the latest luxury condo tower downtown, is currently going up where Saks Fifth Avenue used to be, at Smithfield Street and Oliver Avenue.