The Clark Building, designed by the Hoffman-Henon Co of Philadelphia, was built in 1927 at the same time as the Stanley Theater by the same architects. This late-Beaux-Arts skyscraper has for a long time been the center of the jewelry district downtown, with at least a dozen jewelers in the building (“over thirteen,” a sign on the building says, meaning, what, fourteen?) and more within a block or so.
The former State Office Building was designed by the firm of Altenhof and Bown (also responsible for the 1964 Federal Building on Grant Street; otherwise they seem to have specialized in schools). There was some grumbling when the state sold the building to private developers to be turned into luxury apartments, since space had to be found for the state employees, and some analyses suggested that the state would spend far more on leasing space than it would have spent on renovating the building. But it is certainly a first-rate location for apartments.
The Keenan Building in bright early-morning sunshine, seen from Sixth Avenue.
Three Gateway Center (1952, architects Eggers & Higgins), seen down the western end of Forbes Avenue from the Diamond. The distinctive stainless-steel facing of the first three Gateway Center towers was an afterthought, and a very lucky one. They were to be faced with brick, which would have made them humdrum undistinguished vertical warehouses like a thousand other modernist cruciform brick towers around the world. But bricks were in short supply after the Second World War, and for once budget constraints led to a much more pleasing result.
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.
A view of Sixth Avenue from the porch of the First Presbyterian Church, looking toward the Keenan Building with its fantastical dome. On the right in front of the Keenan Building are the Wood Street Galeries and Wood Street subway station.
EQT Plaza reflected in the K & L Gates Center, and the Keenan Building and the Clark Building reflected in Two PNC Plaza.
Camera: Samsung Digimax V4.
Two PNC Plaza (with the PNC logo at the top) and Three PNC Plaza (center, with the notch cut out of it), as seen from Liberty Avenue.
One of old Pa Pitt’s favorites of the 1980s Postmodernist additions to downtown. It presents a different aspect from every angle, but everything is harmonized perfectly. It can be read as a 1980s update of the Beaux-Arts towers of eighty years before.
Looking up Third Avenue from the Stanwix Street end. In the distance we can see the towering striped octagons of One Oxford Centre.
