Father Pitt

Tag: Seventh Avenue

  • Some Details of the Triangle Building

    McCance Block or Triangle Building

    Originally called the McCance Block after its owner, this came to be known as the Triangle Building for obvious reasons. As Father Pitt has mentioned before, it fills what may be one of the smallest downtown city blocks in the country, so that every side of a relatively small building faces the street.

    Andrew Peebles was probably the architect—but old Pa Pitt has not sorted that out completely yet, because he has also heard of Thomas Scott as the architect. His current hypothesis is that the building rose in two stages: the first four floors by Peebles, and the top two floors, which are simpler and built with brick of a very slightly different shade, by Scott some years later. The building has recently been refurbished for (you guessed it) luxury apartments.

    Smithfield Street entrance
    Lantern
    Capital
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Chamber of Commerce Building

    Chamber of Commerce Building
    From The Chamber of Commerce Building, 1917, published just before the building opened.

    The Chamber of Commerce Building seems to be neglected in Pittsburgh lore; nobody mentions it, and in fact the Skyscraper Page Pittsburgh skyscraper diagram skips right over it, ignoring it completely, though the diagram includes a number of considerably smaller and shorter buildings. Even old Pa Pitt has never featured this building before, mostly because it is difficult to get a picture of the whole building. So here is an illustration of the building when it was new; it has changed very little. It is easier to pick out details with a versatile lens, so here are a few of the interesting decorations. The architects were Edward B. Lee, who moved his office into the building when it was finished, and James P. Piper.

    Entrance
    Pilaster capital
    Terra-cotta decorations
    Pilaster base
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.
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  • Telephone Building

    Telephone Building
    Canon PowerShot SX20 IS.

    This building stands out among the skyscrapers that surround it like a strange relic of a lost civilization—the pre-skyscraper age. It was built in 1890, and the architect was young Frederick Osterling. He would soon master the Richardsonian Romanesque style and become one of our most accomplished practitioners of it, but this is pre-Richardsonian Romanesque. The weighty but graceful eyebrows over the arches, the complex and irregular rhythm of different sizes, and the surprising but flowing curves all remind us of Osterling’s old master Joseph Stillburg, whose Romanesque ideas went back to his native Austria.

    Front elevation
    Composite picture from 2019.

  • Centre City Tower

    Centre City Tower

    Built in 1971, this is now number 23 on the list of tallest buildings in Pittsburgh. The architects were the venerable Chicago firm of A. Epstein and Sons.

    To make a more realistic-looking rendition of the building than is optically possible, old Pa Pitt adjusted the perspective on two planes. This adjustment has comical effects on the background, but the main subject looks natural now.

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  • Entrance to the Koppers Building

    Koppers Building

    This is the lushest Art Deco of all our Art Deco skyscrapers. Graham, Anderson, Probst & White were the architects. The firm was one of the successors to Daniel Burnham’s practice, although Burnham would hardly have recognized the world of skyscraper design by 1929, when this building opened.

    Entrance to the Koppers Building
    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.
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  • Bell Telephone Building

    Fujifilm FinePix HS10.

    At the corner of Seventh Avenue and William Penn Place is a complicated and confused nest of buildings that belonged to the Bell Telephone Company. They are the product of a series of constructions and expansions supervised by different architects. This is the biggest of the lot, currently the 25th-tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh, counting the nearly completed FNB Financial Center in the list.

    The group started with the original Telephone Building, designed by Frederick Osterling in Romanesque style. Behind that, and now visible only from a tiny narrow alley, is an addition, probably larger than the original building, designed by Alden & Harlow. Last came this building, which wraps around the other two in an L shape; it was built in 1923 and designed by James T. Windrim, Bell of Pennsylvania’s court architect at the time, and the probable designer of all those Renaissance-palace telephone exchanges you see in city neighborhoods. The style is straightforward classicism that looks back to the Beaux Arts skyscrapers of the previous generation and forward to the streamlined towers that would soon sprout nearby.

    Hidden from most people’s view is a charming arcade along Strawberry Way behind the building.

  • 421 Seventh Avenue

    This building—a remnant of the pre-skyscraper age on Seventh Avenue—has been many things in its life. These days it is known only by its address. For a long while it was the Federated Investors Building. In 1923 it belonged to the Stevens & Foster Co., which Father Pitt believes was a maker of steel pens. In 1910 it was marked Geo. A. Kelly Co. Wholesale Drugs. Before that, it belonged to J. N. McCullough. It was built in the 1890s on the site of the First United Presbyterian Church, whose congregation had moved to the East End.

    This is another one of those pictures where old Pa Pitt has created an impossible perspective by distorting different sections of the picture differently. Sometimes the best way to tell the truth about a building is with a little bit of fakery.

    Addendum: The architect appears to have been George Orth & Brothers. Source: Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, May 19, 1897: “On the site of the First U. P. Church on Seventh avenue, a ten-story brick building will be erected by Mr. Harry Darlington. The plans will be made by Architects Geo. Orth & Bros., Stevenson building.” The building as it stands is four floors shorter, but buildings often shrank between initial announcement and final construction.

  • Looking Up

    Koppers and Gulf Towers

    …at the Koppers Building (left) and the Gulf Building (right).

  • Renovating the Triangle Building

    Triangle Building

    The Triangle Building, originally called the McCance Block, is currently under renovation for luxury apartments. It fills what may be one of the smallest downtown city blocks in the country, so that every side of a relatively small building faces the street.

  • Letterbox in the Koppers Building

    Letterbox in the Koppers Building

    The brass letterbox in the lobby of the Koppers Building (now called Koppers Tower, because every Building became a Tower while you weren’t looking) is a stylized model of the Koppers Building itself.