Father Pitt

Tag: Buses Coming Toward You

  • Building the Tower at PNC Plaza

    Early construction on the Tower at PNC Plaza

    The Tower at PNC Plaza will be ten years old this year. It occurred to Father Pitt that he had enough pictures in his collection to make up a visual story of the construction of the building, so here they are. Above, the progress as of February 18, 2014.

    Before topping out

    June 27, 2014, before the construction of the cap began.

    In August, 2014

    August 29, 2014.

    In early March, 2015

    March 2, 2015.

    Mid-March

    March 10, 2015, with bonus bus coming toward you.

    On St. Patrick’s Day, 2015

    March 17, 2015.

    June 13

    June 13, 2015.

    September 10, 2015

    September 10, 2015, just a few weeks before opening.

    November 12, 2020

    The completed tower on November 12, 2020.

    Comments

  • Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania Western Headquarters Building

    Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania Western Headquarters Building

    Dowler & Dowler, father-and-son architects, designed this building for the Bell System’s western headquarters in Pennsylvania. We have seen the building from this angle before, but we have not seen it with a bus coming toward you, which is always an improvement.

    Wall detail
    Porch

    The Stanwix Street front has a Miesian colonnaded porch, with a cheerful abstract mosaic ceiling.

    Window

    Those cheerful square polka dots also show up in other parts of the building.

    Cornerstone dated 1956

    The cornerstone, with its late-Art-Deco lettering and date.

    Bell emblem
    Nikon COOLPIX P100.

    The Bell System emblem.

    More pictures of the building, including the unique clock and globe (unfortunately out of order).

  • East Busway

    East Busway

    Other cities have King Boulevards; we have an East Busway that is officially named for Dr. King, but no one ever uses the whole official name, because by the time you have pronounced the decasyllabic name “Mar-tin Lu-ther King Ju-nior East Bus-way,” you have forgotten what you were talking about. Why not just “King Busway?” We do less honor to Dr. King by using his full name as the name of the busway, because no one ever speaks it.

    At any rate, here is the East Busway with two of its stations, in pictures that demonstrate why this busway is such a useful transit artery. Along with the railroad, it runs in a hollow that winds through Bloomfield and Shadyside, giving it the grade separation of a subway without the construction cost. It is in effect a rubber-tired metro line. Pittsburgh invented “bus rapid transit,” and for the most part we did it right.

    East Liberty station

    Above, East Liberty; below, Negley.

    Negley station

  • Allegheny County Courthouse and Frick Building

    Courthouse and Frick Building

    Taken on film in 1999. Note the bus coming toward you; apparently old Pa Pitt has been taking bus-coming-toward-you pictures for at least twenty-three years.

  • McNally Building

    McNally Building

    The McNally Building on Penn Avenue was built in 1896. It is a good example of the kind of tall, narrow building that grew up in the early days of the elevator. But of course the most important thing about this picture is that it allows old Pa Pitt to indulge in his habit of photographing buses coming toward you.

  • Webster Hall from the Corner of Dithridge Street

    Webster Hall

    An oblique view of Webster Hall. And is that a bus coming toward us? Yes, it is.

  • Fifth Avenue, Oakland

    A picture taken back in February, but held in reserve (or forgotten about) till now: looking west on Fifth Avenue in the Oakland monument district. On this side is the Fifth Avenue bus lane, soon to be integrated into the new Oakland BRT line; across the street is a corner of the Masonic Temple (now Alumni Hall) and the Pittsburgh Athletic Association under renovation.

  • Ewart Building

    The prolific Charles Bickel designed this well-balanced Romanesque building, two doors up from another one of his Romanesque creations on Liberty Avenue, the Maginn Building. Below we see both of them in context, with, of course, a bus coming toward us, because old Pa Pitt likes to do that.

  • Fifth Avenue Place from Fifth Avenue

    It is one of old Pa Pitt’s endearing quirks that he likes to take pictures with a bus coming toward the viewer.

  • Keenan Building

    The Keenan Building in bright early-morning sunshine, seen from Sixth Avenue.