The Tower at PNC Plaza, the biggest skyscraper project in Pittsburgh since the 1980s, has just begun to rise at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street. Traditionally skyscrapers have grown in a doughnut-shaped area of the Golden Triangle, with the hole in the Fifth Avenue shopping district; but now that much of the shopping has moved elsewhere, the hole may begin to fill in.
The top of the Benedum-Trees Building, one of the famous bank towers that made Fourth Avenue one of the wonders of the world at the very beginning of the age of skyscrapers. The Fourth Avenue historic district is a few blocks’ walk from the Steel Plaza subway station.
The Clark Building and the Keenan Building, two Liberty Avenue landmarks, reflected in an ugly building across the street.
One Oxford Centre is a typical 1980s tower that looks like a cluster of interlocked octagons. Those horizontal stripes are certainly distinctive, if perhaps a bit monotonous. The lower floors are a shopping arcade for the rich, famous, and prodigal. A skywalk connects the arcade to Macy’s (formerly Kaufmann’s) two blocks away.
One Oxford Centre is a short walk from the Steel Plaza subway station.
The Gulf Building, an Art Deco tower with a top modeled after the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, is rendered here in old-postcard colors through the marvel of modern digital technology.
