Father Pitt

Tag: Monochrome

  • The Morgue

    The Allegheny County Morgue (or Mortuary, when the coroner was feeling fancy) was designed by Frederick Osterling to match Richardson’s courthouse. It was originally built where the County Office Building stands now, and it was moved to make way for that building, inch by inch, while the coroner and staff continued to work inside the crawling building.

  • Waterfall on First Avenue

    This waterfall fountain runs down the gentle slope along First Avenue in front of the PNC Firstside Center.

  • Obelisk at PPG Place on a Summer Morning

    The obelisk rests on four spheres like cannonballs; Peter Leo used to call it the Tomb of the Unknown Bowler.

  • Cathedral of Learning on a Winter Morning

    Morning sun illuminates the Cathedral of Learning.

  • St. Bernard’s from the Mt. Lebanon Cemetery

    Views of St. Bernard Church on a slightly snowy winter day.

  • Complementary Masses

    Cathedral of Learning and abstract sculpture

    If you stand in just the right place, the sculpture outside the Carnegie Museum of Art seems to be almost an exact inversion of the Cathedral of Learning.

  • One PPG Place from Wood Street

    Looming over the smaller buildings on Fifth Avenue, One PPG Place looks like a fantasy tower in a superhero movie, which is why it tends to play fantasy towers in superhero movies.

  • Entrance to the Frick Building

    The Frick Building was designed by Daniel Burnham to convey one message, and with its austere classical dignity it succeeds perfectly. The message was “Henry Frick is more important than Andrew Carnegie.” The Frick Building dwarfed the Carnegie Building next door, which had once been the tallest in the city; by the time Frick had surrounded Carnegie’s building with taller buildings, the Carnegie Building was no longer an attractive place to be, and it was demolished to make way for the Kaufmann’s annex.

  • Union National Bank Building

    The architects, MacClure and Spahr, gave this classical tower an unusual rounded corner, and drew attention to the main entrance by placing it in that corner.

  • Spire of Trinity Cathedral

    The spire of Trinity Cathedral, with the Oliver Building in the background and the pinnacles of First Presbyterian Church in front and to the right.