Downtown Pittsburgh Walking Tour 17 Centennial Building 241 Fourth Avenue Meeting Fourth Avenue N Situated on a peninsula jutting into an intersection of rivers, We do not know the architect of this building of 1876, but #location the composition of the façade is rather sophisticated: wall Smithfield Street the city of 305,000 is gemlike, surrounded by bluffs and bright yellow bridges streaming into its heart. planes advance and recede beneath a heavy, elaborate cornice. 2 1 “Pittsburgh’s cool,” by Josh Noel, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 5, 2014 18 Investment Building (Insurance Exchange) 235–239 Fourth Avenue 5 6 FREE TOURS This 1927 work of John M. Donn, a Washington, D.C. 7 architect, is between two buildings of the same approximate 10 Old Allegheny County Jail Museum 8 façade dimensions, but they were built about 25 years earlier. Open Mondays through October (11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) Terra cotta has yielded to limestone, and a darker and more 13 12 9 15 16 (except court holidays) textured brick is in fashion; simplicity and lightness of form Wood Street Downtown Pittsburgh: Guided Walking Tours and detailing are evident. At the top, notice the corners 14 Every Friday, May through September (Noon to 1:00 p.m.) e chamfered with obelisk-like elements. e u u e n n 17 u e e n v v e DOWNTOWN’S BEST A v 18 A A 19 (Machesney Building) s Benedum-Trees Building h t e Special Places and Spaces in a 2-Hour Walk d r b r i 221–225 Fourth Avenue u r h o o Not free. A guidebook is included. Space is limited. T F F 19 Here is a skyscraper of 1905 still evolving out of Victorian Advance paid reservations are required. elaboration into a more modern simplicity. Although strong 20 June–August: every Wednesday, 10:00 a.m. to Noon verticals dominate the composition for the greater part, the Other dates throughout the year by appointment for groups ornament of the spandrels between window levels and the Market Square 21 of five or more. elaborate cornices are carry-overs from the recent past. The choice of materials—light-colored granite, white brick and SPECIAL EVENTS terra cotta—is in a more modern spirit. Pittsburgh architect Not free. Reservations are required. Space is limited. Thomas H. Scott designed this building for H. Allen Machesney, Oct. 11 (Sat.): Bus Tour of Modernist Landmarks on September Fridays at Noon an attorney, but it was purchased in 1913 by oil prospectors The shaded area represents the Fourth Avenue National Register Pittsburgh’s North Side Michael Benedum and Joseph Trees. See the lobby. Historic District, designated in 1985 and expanded in 2013. Oct. 25 (Sat.): Bus Tour to Chatham University’s Self-Sustaining A FREE one-hour guided walking tour, Site 20 is individually listed on the National Register. Eden Hall Campus compliments of the Pittsburgh History 20 Burke’s Building 209 Fourth Avenue Fourth Avenue Area, Downtown Pittsburgh Throughout the year: Hands-on workshops and presentations & Landmarks Foundation at the Landmarks Preservation Resource Center in The façade, at least, of the Burke’s Building is the oldest 1. Dollar Bank 11. Point Park University Center Wilkinsburg work of high-style architecture in the city. Its year is 1836 2. Standard Life Building (Commercial National Bank) (preceding the Great Fire of 1845); its style is Greek Revival; (Pittsburgh Bank for Savings) 12. The Bank Tower/First National Meeting Location its architect was the English-born-and-trained John Chislett. 3. Fidelity Building Bank (People’s Savings Bank FOR DETAILS & RESERVATIONS The three-story landmark—the oldest office building in (Fidelity Trust Company) Building) 412-471-5808, ext. 527 or [email protected] Fourth Avenue and Smithfield Street, the city—is privately owned and the façade is protected in 13. Point Park University Center 4. Pittsburgh Engineers’ Building Funding from the Alfred M. Oppenheimer Memorial Fund of across from Dollar Bank perpetuity from alteration through an easement with PHLF. (Colonial Trust Company) (Union Trust Company) The Pittsburgh Foundation helps underwrite PHLF’s tour program. The Burke’s Building is listed on the National Register of 14. Arrott Building Historic Places, included in the Market Square City Historic 5. Industrial Bank 15. Wood Street Commons PUBLICATIONS District, and is a City Historic Structure. 6. Times Building (Magee Building) (YMCA Building) For more information on local buildings and architects, purchase one of our books: 412-471-5808, ext. 525; 7. The Tech Center Bunker 16. Lawrence Hall 21 PPG Place www.phlf.org Between Fourth Avenue and Third Avenue at Market Street (Keystone Bank) (Keystone Athletic Club) Completed in 1984, PPG Place is one of three downtown 8. Commonwealth Building 17. Centennial Building buildings made to show off the company product: the others (Commonwealth Trust Company) 18. Investment Building being the former Alcoa Building and U.S. Steel Tower. 9. The Carlyle (Insurance Exchange) Here, the general effect of the mirrored-glass Post-Modern (Union National Bank) 19. Benedum-Trees Building www.phlf.org buildings is Gothic, with 231 pinnacles. The 40-story tower 10. Point Park University Center (Machesney Building) Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation is 680 feet high. The architects were John Burgee with Philip (Colonial Trust Company) 20. Burke’s Building Renewing Communities; Building Pride Johnson (New York). A fountain enlivens PPG Plaza in the 100 West Station Square Drive, Suite 450 21. PPG Place Pittsburgh. Mighty. Beautiful. Walkable. summer (and an ice rink in the winter), thanks to a gift from Pittsburgh, PA 15219-1134 © 2014 the Hillman Foundation. FOURTH AVENUE WALKING TOUR 2 Standard Life Building (Pittsburgh Bank for Savings) 7 The Tech Center Bunker (Keystone Bank) 12 The Bank Tower/First National Bank Smithfield Street and Fourth Avenue 322 Fourth Avenue (People’s Savings Bank Building) Many of the early skyscrapers in American cities were inspired Boston-trained architects Colbert MacClure and Albert Spahr 307 Fourth Avenue Fourth Avenue was part of the city’s original street by Italian Renaissance palazzos with dark stonework and established their Pittsburgh firm in 1901. Remodelings have This tall building of 1901 by Alden & Harlow starts off with grid defined in 1784 by George Woods and exuberant Classical detailing. So is the case here, in a work of compromised MacClure & Spahr’s original design of 1903: the very emphatic rustication in pink granite, then continues in Thomas Vickroy. The narrow 25-foot-wide street 1903 by Alden & Harlow, the city’s leading local architectural center light court has been partially filled in and some windows deep red brick with terra-cotta detailing that has deteriorated became Pittsburgh’s “Wall Street” in the late firm between 1896 and 1908. The lower part was first refaced have been totally bricked up. Fortunately, the lions still roar badly. As with the Pittsburgh Bank for Savings 2 , these 19th and early 20th centuries. in 1921. The upper stories of the building have been converted above the entrances and an eagle stands guard atop an immense architects multiplied detailing as a response to the skyscraper into apartments. keystone. J. J. Vandergrift (1827–99), the famous Pittsburgh It was the discovery of oil by Colonel Drake in challenge. The Fourth Avenue entrance lobby and 16-story riverboat captain and oil magnate, was president of Keystone stair are delicate in contrast, and to be seen. At the corner 1859 near Titusville that sparked Fourth Avenue’s 3 Fidelity Building (Fidelity Trust Company) Bank and a founder of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange. of Fourth and Wood, look up to see the entrance arches with development. The Pittsburgh Petroleum Exchange 341 Fourth Avenue sculptures by John Massey Rhind, who sculpted the bronze moved into a small bank building on Fourth Avenue Pittsburgh architect James T. Steen designed this building of 8 Commonwealth Building (Commonwealth Trust Co.) statues for the Carnegie Institute in Oakland in 1907. in 1884. In 1886, it became the Pittsburgh Petroleum, 1889 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style: note the rough- 316 Fourth Avenue Stock and Metal Exchange. Soon a continuous trade faced granite, ornamental carving, and rounded arches. The This 20-story skyscraper with colossal Ionic columns dates 13 Point Park University Center (Colonial Trust Co.) in nearly 1,200 Pittsburgh companies took place. bronze grillework is of a later time. The upper stories of the from 1906 and is by Osterling. (Ionic columns have a scroll- 414 Wood Street building have been converted into apartments. like ornament on the capital.) The former bank building is A survey of 1908, Pittsburgh’s Sesquicentennial The Grecian Ionic front of the T-plan Colonial Trust being renovated, but no firm plans have been announced. Company is a 1926 work by Osterling, with a textbook year, showed 102 chartered banks and trust 4 Pittsburgh Engineers’ Building (Union Trust Co.) correctness not found in his 1902 façades 10 . The spacious companies here: 35 national banks, 33 state banks, 337 Fourth Avenue 9 The Carlyle (Union National Bank) skylit interior is framed in columns of Pavonazzo marble. and 34 trust companies—a doubling of those that This building of 1898 was the first Pittsburgh work of the Fourth Avenue and Wood Street The handsomely renovated University Center includes the had existed 20 years before. Chicago architects D. H. Burnham & Co.; the firm went on MacClure & Spahr introduced a new simplicity to the tall- library, television studio, classrooms, and GRW Theater. One of 18 National Register Districts in the city, to design 10 more buildings in the city including Union Station, building architecture of Fourth Avenue in the Union National the Frick Building, and the Oliver Building.