Father Pitt

Tag: Lions

  • Lion on the Keystone Bank Building

    Lion on the Keystone Bank

    Fourth Avenue has a denser population of lions than anywhere else in Pittsburgh, and possibly anywhere else in North America.

  • Commercial National Bank

    Commercial National Bank

    This little bank on Fourth Avenue was originally designed by Alden and Harlow. The central section has been ruthlessly mutilated, with the elegant arch replaced by a cartoon suggestion of an arch. For reasons unknown, much of the rest of the building was left untouched (although it is pretty clearly missing its top), and the details there are enough to make it worth our while to stop and admire them.

    Of course there are lions. How could there not be lions?

  • The Lionhead, Shadyside

    Twin lion heads guard the entrances to the Lionhead, an apartment building in Shadyside.

  • Decorations on the Parkvale Building, Oakland

    The richly decorated Parkvale Building on Forbes Avenue is currently under renovation, so we can hope that these splendid reliefs will continue to delight future generations of Pittsburghers.

  • Lion on the Allegheny County Courthouse

    Romanesque lions guard the Allegheny County Courthouse. They would originally have been at street level before Grant Street was lowered by about a storey.

  • Lion on the Colonial Trust Building

    Another Fourth Avenue lion ornament, on a building that was a later work of Frederick Osterling.

  • Lion on the Commercial National Bank Building

    No street in Pittsburgh, and possibly in the country, is denser with lions than Fourth Avenue. These little lions decorate the Commercial National Bank building by Alden & Harlow, one of the small but richly ornate banks that filled in the gaps between the famous bank towers.

  • Dollar Bank Lions

    Your money is safe, because these lions, though they are invariably friendly to customers, will not tolerate thieves at all. The originals were sculpted by Max Kohler in 1871; they have been moved inside the lobby for preservation and replaced with these painstakingly accurate duplicates.

  • Lions on the People’s Savings Bank Tower

    These distinctive lion heads hold up the arch of the tympanum over the Wood Street entrance to the People’s Savings Bank tower.

  • Lions on the Arrott Building

    The Arrott Building is the most lavishly ornamented of the Fourth Avenue bank towers. The ornaments near the top may be best appreciated from another one of the Fourth Avenue bank towers—or with a very long lens from the street.