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Fifth Avenue Place
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U. S. Steel Tower
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Looming behind Duquesne University on the Bluff.
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Gateway Towers
Gateway Towers was designed by Emery Roth & Sons. It was built in 1964, which tells us that it was the & Sons who were responsible for it, since Emery Roth died in 1948.
From a distance, this has never been one of old Pa Pitt’s favorite buildings to look at, although he is going to give it a fair chance by presenting multiple angles. Up close, however, it has a sharp classicism in its spare details that makes it much more attractive.
Good landscaping helps a lot, and all of Gateway Center has very good landscaping. The modernist ideal of towers in a park was never better implemented, and it is because the park part of the scheme was not neglected.
Canon PowerShot SX150 IS; Kodak EasyShare Z1285. -
Highland Building, East Liberty
Samsung Galaxy A15 5G. This picture is more than 13 megabytes if you enlarge it; be careful on a metered connection. Designed by Daniel Burnham, this is the only skyscraper left in East Liberty; another one, designed by Frederick Osterling, was demolished decades ago when the neighborhood’s fortunes were sinking. Now the neighborhood is once again bustling, and the Highland Building, after years of abandonment, is beautifully restored.
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Top of the Cathedral of Learning
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Edward Bigelow Contemplates the Cathedral of Learning
The statue of Edward Bigelow by Giuseppe Moretti, with the Cathedral of Learning in the background.
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House Building
This building was put up in two stages. It was built in 1902 as a seven-story building; two years later six more floors were added. Originally it had a cornice and a Renaissance-style parapet at the top, without which it looks a little unfinished.
From The Builder, April 1904. The architect, as we see in the caption, was James T. Steen, who had a thriving practice designing all sorts of buildings, including many prominent commercial blocks downtown. This was probably his largest project.
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. -
First & Market Building
At first glance this looks like a postmodernist building from the 1980s, and your first instinct is half right. It was originally an early ten-storey skyscraper built for the Shields Rubber Company in 1903. In 1989, it got a heavy postmodern makeover, with an extra floor at the top.
These views are made possible by the demolition of the buildings along the east side of Market Street.
Cameras: Kodak EasyShare Z1285; Fujifilm FinePix Hs10.
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Fourth Avenue Towers
Fujifilm FinePix HS10. Left to right: the Benedum-Trees Building (built 1905 as the Machesney Building, architect Thomas Scott); the Investment Building (1927, John M. Donn); and the Arrott Building (1902, Frederick Osterling).
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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.
