Some seldom-seen details at the top of the Fulton Building (now the Renaissance Hotel), including an oddly incongruous television aerial.
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The Top of the Fulton Building
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
Some Details of the Fulton Building
The Fulton Building was one of a pair of buildings designed for Henry Phipps by New York architect Grosvenor Atterbury; the complementary but not identical Bessemer Building has long since been replaced by a parking garage. In the close view of the light well above, we can see how much thought went into sucking up every photon for the interior offices. Those bays take in light from every possible angle. In many of our prominent buildings, the light well is hidden in the back, but in the Fulton Building it is made the characteristic feature of the front that faces the river.
The picture above was taken in 2015, before the Renaissance Hotel put a sign at the top of the building.
The name on the marquee is new, but the marquee itself came with the building. It is attached to the wall with a pair of steampunk chimeras:
Elaborate chains supporting the marquee are attached to these monogram brackets:
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z981; Olympus E-20n.
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The Henry Phipps Row Under Construction
Henry Phipps was responsible for much of the development in this corner of the Triangle. This photograph appeared in The Brickbuilder for October, 1905. The Fulton Building (apparently called the New York while it was going up) is not quite finished in this picture. Its matching companion the Bessemer Building was replaced by a low parking garage. The Phipps Power Building still stands, though the face of it is obscured by more recent additions. If you enlarge the picture, you can see the Gayety theater at left, which would later be renamed the Fulton and have its entrance routed through the Fulton Building to connect it with Sixth Street and the rest of the theater district; it is now the Byham. You will also notice the long-gone Duquesne Way elevated rail line under construction in front of the buildings.
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Fulton Building
Camera: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3.
Designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, this is now the Renaissance Hotel. The entrance to the Byham Theater is on the Sixth Street side of the building; the theater is actually a different building next door, the entrance being a long passage all the way through the Fulton Building.
The grand arch in the light well seems to echo the arch of the Roberto Clemente Bridge—a coincidence, since the bridge was put up about twenty years later. It is a pleasure to see an architect making the light well a feature rather than hiding it in the rear as if he were ashamed of it.
