Father Pitt

Tag: Skyscrapers

  • 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.

  • Base of the Tower at PNC Plaza

    The base of earth’s greenest skyscraper, as it called itself when it was going up, is all shiny curves and lights and reflections.

  • Tower Two-Sixty

    Tower Two-Sixty on Forbes Avenue, seen from the northwest.

  • Four Gateway Center

    Four Gateway Center from Stanwix Street, with bonus utility work in front.

  • Geometric Patterns Through the Branches

    Once in a while old Pa Pitt attempts a bit of abstract expressionism. Here are patterns formed by Two PNC Plaza, EQT Plaza, and reflections of the K&L Gates Center.

  • Stairwell of the People’s Savings Bank Building

    This unusual external stairwell behind the People’s Savings Bank Building is one of the architectural curiosities of Fourth Avenue. Old Pa Pitt caught it when it was briefly illuminated by reflected sunlight.

  • Alcoa Building

    This is one of several works by Harrison and Abramovitz on Pittsburgh’s skyline—the most prominent, of course, being the U. S. Steel Tower, which dwarfs everything else. This one was built in 1953, making it probably the first of their works here. It was also the first aluminum-faced skyscraper (appropriate for the biggest aluminum producer in the world). To Father Pitt, it always looks like a stack of 1950s television sets.

  • Fifth Avenue Place from Fifth Avenue

    It is one of old Pa Pitt’s endearing quirks that he likes to take pictures with a bus coming toward the viewer.