This rendering was published in 1916, before the building opened in 1917; but this is how the City-County Building still looks today. “Diamond Street” is now part of Forbes Avenue, except for the remnant of the outer end that veers off Forbes for one scraggly diagonal block to meet Fifth Avenue.
Although it’s technically in Shadyside, Rodef Shalom stands at the east end of the Oakland monumental district, the long row of dazzling architecture along Fifth Avenue. Much of the dazzle was contributed by Henry Hornbostel, and few of his buildings are more dazzling than this. It was built in 1907, and it is far and away the finest synagogue building in Pittsburgh.
Henry Hornbostel’s only real skyscraper was briefly the tallest thing in Pittsburgh when it opened in 1929, before being surpassed two years later by the Gulf Building. It’s famous for the air beacon on top—red until recently, but now green to match the logo of the Huntington Bank—that flashes “Pittsburgh” all night in Morse Code. Behind and to the left, the building with three enormous arches is Hornbostel’s City-County Building.
Pittsburgh’s favorite architect as he appeared at the height of his creative power, from Sketches, Serious and Otherwise: Men of Pittsburgh and Vicinity, by W. S. Washburn. Alert readers will note that Father Pitt himself makes a few guest appearances in this book. The Tech banner reminds us that Hornbostel established the School of Architecture at Carnegie Tech and was for many years the head of the Department of Fine Arts there.
The porch of the City-County Building is a massive, welcoming space. Something has to be done inside those gargantuan arches, and this is it: an abstract pattern of interlocking arcs that makes the ceiling look something like the vault of heaven, with the sun at its zenith, surrounded by cheerful cumulus clouds.
The City-County Building is two blocks south on Grant Street from the Steel Plaza subway station.
Henry Hornbostel’s last great work was his biggest, a late-art-deco skyscraper towering next to his own City-County Building. The original lobby has been replaced by a 1980s parody of an art-deco interior, but the building is otherwise much as Hornbostel imagined it in the late 1930s. On top is a big red light that blinks “P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H” in Morse code all night—a landmark that guided commercial aircraft from a hundred miles away in the early days of aviation.
