MARCH 6, 2010

PITTSBURGH WALKABOUT

PAGE THREE...

The Steel Building from a distance looks black, but when you get closer, you see that it's actually a rust color, the rust being

deliberate on the part of the builders. Tiny bit of the Gulf Tower on the far left.

This was another of the contrasts, the roof of the Union Trust Building through the stone thingies in the center of the park.

I discuss the reason for this roof a bit further down this page.

And this is One Mellon Center through them.

Around the edges of the central stone, um, columns, itsy pansies were beginning to bloom. I think my personal snowpack

in my yard has shrunk down to just above my knee by now.

I just looked for things that caught my eye quickly, like the Steel Building and the bare branches reaching out into the blue sky.

The steeple top of the old Lutheran church between the stone columns and backed by modern striping.

This was looking straight up the Steel Building, in which you can see how light-colored it is in the sunlight, the bottoms of the UPMC at top.

It also so foreshortens it that it doesn't really look all that tall.

Playing with the steeple again. That's the old Alcoa building on the left.

This is the portico of the Steel Building, looking down Grant with the Gulf Building on the left, toward the Federated Tower.

Again it was the angles and lines that attracted me.

Past the Steel Building is the 1934 post office, which is two blocks long. I took this looking up its side, thinking the way the

windows were made was interesting. Somehow the pattern in the marble around the doorway here looks like cobwebbing to me.

And this was my goal at the very edge of downtown, the old Union Station. There's a space under the big arch I'd seen pictures of

but had never had the chance to see in person. I was hoping this would be the train station my characters in my Johnstown flood story

I'm writing would have left Pittsburgh on, but it wasn't built till 11 years after the flood. Still, I wanted to see the space with camera in

hand. It's built of ocher terra-cotta and brick.

This is a file photo of the whole building. The taller section were offices for the Pennsylvania Railway Co and are now condominiums in what

is called The Pennsylvanian.

This is another file photo, taken in 1910.

Close-up of one of the square tops on either side of the rotunda.

My first view of the rotunda itself.

Standing under the outer arch of the rotunda, looking back with the post office in front, the Steel Building, the Federated Tower on the right,

the Gulf Tower (used to be called simply the Gulf Building and in  1932 was the tallest in the city) and behind that just a bit of Koppers showing.

I just loved this space! I knew I would. This is actually one of my favorite shots due to all the curves. I liked the color of the stone, too.

This is Joey lying in the very center under the rotunda, taking a shot looking straight up. This space was actually the turning space for the

carriages arriving to bring people to the train station. It was easy to imagine a procession of them doing just that. Good thing for Joey,

though, that not another soul was anywhere about this early Sunday afternoon.

Each of the four supporting arches has a city name...New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg. There is a story why it's

spelled here with no 'H'. General John Forbes named the city Pittsburgh after William Pitt back in the 1700's, but in 1891 the

US Board of Geographic Names changed it to Pittsburg, dropping the 'H'. This was a very unpopular move among the locals,

who by 1911 had organized enough protests that the 'H' was put back where it should be and officially restored. As Union

Station was built from 1900 to 1903, it was during the H-less period.

Along the left side of the building.

Looking back at the Gulf and Koppers buildings (also post office and Federated Tower) but what I'm interested in here is

Gulf and Koppers. See file pictures below.

I always notice Koppers from a distance because of its top, a copper chateauesque thing, built in 1929. Heinrich Kopper founded his

company to provide coke ovens for the steel mills and for a brief while this was the tallest building in the city, until Gulf beside it went

higher. The Gulf Tower's top is also interesting, modeled after the Mausoleum of Helicarnassus as a step pyramid or ziggurat. A light

atop it flashes P I T T S B U R G H in Morse code and also beams out when the Pirates hit a homerun. The pyramid used to change

colors according to the weather, but now is merely lit from without by spotlights. The top of the Koppers at night has always looked

to me like its own separate thing, a white chateau atop a skyscraper. I kinda like that Koppers has a copper top.

This is the Mellon Arena, beyond the highway, framed in a rotunda arch.

That didn't show too well, so I zoomed and took another view of it.

And this, too, was a deliberate bit of framing.

Walking back up Grant Street toward our car, alas, some distance away now and my ankle having almost completely given out by this time, the

distance seemed MUCH greater, I'd like to have gone down this cross street, 6th Avenue, to take pictures of the Dominion Tower (1984) with

its top designed to look like one of our big bridges, and the Prussian-helmeted Keenan Building (red top in the center) built in 1907. I was

really into building tops today, but my broken bones from last year just still give out too soon...though I managed 30 city blocks even so.

On the left is the old Alcoa Building, which to me is quite ugly. Their new one across the river with its sweeping curve of a front facade is ever

so much nicer! This one here was built in 1953 and sheathed in stamped aluminum panels. When I'm up for our riverwalk expedition, I hope to

get some good pictures of the new one.

This is the new Alcoa building in a picture I took from a riverboat in August of 2007.

Link to that page with lots of views of the city from the river HERE .

Now back to the neatest top of all...the Union Trust Building, just across Grant from One Mellon Center. I took this one through a tree and

the one below treeless.

This was built in 1917 by Henry Clay Frick, one of the great Pittsburgh magnates of the steel era.  Frick had built his white,

neo-classical office building beside it in 1902 and thought it would be nice to have a shopping arcade near by. So that was

the original purpose of this structure, and it had 240 shops inside. I've always wondered why its steep Mansard roof was

designed like it was and found out that this piece of land was once occupied by St. Paul's Catholic Cathedral. When it was

gone and the land available, the Diocese of Pittsburgh knew Frick was going to build a business sort of structure on the site,

so they placed a restrictive covenant on the land so that even though a building with purely commercial purposes would

now stand there, its appearance would always remind people that a cathedral had once been there. I just love knowing

the 'why' of something and was so glad to find this out.

The roof is actually designed after the Municipal Hall at Louvain, Belgium, which was later partially destroyed

by the Germans. Its design is called, ahem, Flemish Flamboyant Gothic and it's made of terra-cotta. Joey and I

were calling it 'the cake building' because of its frosting look.  It's studded with little dormer windows in 3 sizes.

This is the Grant Street entrance to it.

And this is a file photo taken inside it.

A file photo to give you a view of the whole thing and showing its own little chateau up top.

That's the red brick William Penn hotel to its right, built in 1928.

Looking back at it and actually seeing a bit of its top chateau, with the Wm Penn beyond it, the old courthouse shaded on the right,

and a bit of the Frick Building on the left front. Even though Frick built both buildings, he chose entirely different styles.

Going on down Grant and getting *puff* *puff* *puff* now within two blocks of the car, Joey attracted my attention to

the fact the sun was right at the top edge of the tower of the old courthouse, so we both took pictures of it, me with

tree branches, of course.

This is the 5th Avenue side of the old courthouse looking toward the fat, round tower of the old jail across Ross. That distant

corner is again where Russell first came into view. What's interesting along here is the change in color of the stone above the

first level of the old courthouse. This part of town used to have a hill, called The Hump, which was hated by drivers of wagons

and carriages and even early automobiles...and walkers. Buildings along Grant like the courthouse, the Frick Building, etc. all

had foundations that went down into the Hump. Over a period of years, ending in 1913, the Hump was done away with by

much effort, so now the first level of the foundations of the buildings became the actual first FLOOR at street level, causing

much rejiggering of doorways and windows, so most of the structures along here have two-storied entrances and are taller

buildings than they were originally considered.

Joey enchained, but happily so.

This is a lion along the front of the old courthouse, showing its two-storied entrance, and with One Mellon Center looming

modernly behind.

I'm putting this file aerial shot here to show the area of the city and the relationships of the buildings better. On the far right is the dome

of the Mellon Arena. In the curve of the highway between it and the tall, black Steel Building is the peach-colored old Union Station.

To the left of the Steel Building is the tall, silver tower of One Mellon Center and moving down Grant St. toward the bottom left corner

you can see the tower of the old Courthouse. Behind that tower is the roof of the Union Trust Building and immediately to the tower's

left is the Frick Building with its stepped black roof. The lower square with two black bands is the newer City County building. The silver

one with 4 towers sorta banded together is the Oxford Center. The new jail is the several-sectioned red brick with white trim structure

near the bank of the Monongahela River. PPG Place is out of range just off to the left.

And THIS I took out the side window of our car just before we got home, to show that the snowpack outside of the city is still

much larger.

I actually took this one out my side window on the way into Pittsburgh this morning. I liked the utter simplicity of it...the white hill

and the perfectly blue sky. Alas, the square thingie in the sky is a reflection from inside the car, which I could take out in photoshop,

but obviously haven't yet. These two snow pictures were taken right across the road (Kemmerer Hollow) from each other and both

areas had big round bales of hay dotting them in the fall.

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