17 Gulf Tower There’s nothing like walking to get you in touch Downtown Pittsburgh Walking Tour Trowbridge & Livingston (New York), architects; 17 18 with a place. You see, hear, notice, explore, E. P. Mellon, associate architect, 1932 Grant Street & Mellon Square Seventh Avenue and discover. This 44-story tower, originally constructed for the Gulf Oil 16 ––Laurence A. Glasco, author, historian, and PHLF Trustee Corporation, was the tallest in Pittsburgh until 1970. The 15 architects went down 90 feet to find a proper footing for 19 their great tower, then raised it in a sober Modernistic manner Strawberry Way 14 FREE TOURS & EVENTS that began and ended with allusions to Classical architecture: 13 20 a colossal doorway with a 50-ton granite entablature on Old Allegheny County Jail Museum 12 11 Seventh Avenue and a limestone stepped-back pyramidal top Open Mondays through October ( 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.) that recalls the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and now serves Sixth Avenue (except for court holidays) as the KDKA Weather Beacon, when illuminated at night. # 2 Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland: Guided Walking Tours 10 1 MEETING Every Friday, May through October LOCATION 18 Joseph F. Weis, Jr. U.S. Courthouse • 3 Two different free walking tours are offered each month: Trowbridge & Livingston (New York), architects, Oliver Avenue one from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and another from Noon to with James A. Wetmore (Washington, D.C.), 1932 1 p.m. Join us for one, or both. e 9 c t • Advance reservations are appreciated (see below) . a During a $68-million renovation in 200 4–05, the exterior e l e P r t stonework was cleaned, six new courtrooms were added t n S e n e d Fifth Avenue e r DOWNTOWN’S BEST in the original building light wells, and an atrium was l t e P i S f constructed to allow natural light to illuminate the new t 1 h Special Places and Spaces in a 2 /2-Hour Walk t m n i 8 4 a a i r m third-floor lobby space and historic fourth-floor courtrooms. l l i S Not free. Advance paid reservations are required (see below) . G W June through August: every Thursday, 9:45 a.m. to Noon. Forbes Avenue 19 U.S. Steel Tower Other dates by appointment for groups of 10 people. Harrison & Abramovitz (New York), architects, 1971 5 At 841 feet high, U.S. Steel Tower was the tallest building SPECIAL TOURS & MEMBERSHIP between New York and Chicago when completed. (In 1987 A self-guided walking tour, compliments Fourth Avenue Visit www.phlf.org and click on Tours & Events Philadelphia’s One Liberty Place Building at 945 feet became to find out about neighborhood walking tours in the of the Pittsburgh History & the first to surpass it.) U.S. Steel Tower has an exposed frame 7 6 Pittsburgh region, April through October. Landmarks Foundation © 2017 of Cor -Ten weathering steel (a U.S. Steel patent). Members of PHLF receive discounts on tours and free The 18 exterior columns that run the full height of the Third Avenue admission to workshops and presentations at the Landmarks building are filled with a mixture of water, anti-freeze, and N Preservation Resource Center (see below), among other STARTING LOCATION an anti-corrosive. The purpose of the fluid is to maintain a benefits. To join, visit www.phlf.org and click on Grant Street near Sixth Avenue, at the column temperature below a dangerous level during a fire. Take Action/Membership . There is an acre of space on each floor; approximately The shaded blocks of buildings are in the Pittsburgh Central Omni William Penn Hotel entrance 9,000 people work in the building; and there are 54 elevator Downtown National Register Historic District . The Allegheny cars, 11,000 windows, and 64 stories. County Courthouse is a National Historic Landmark. WORKSHOPS & PRESENTATIONS U.S. Steel Corporation and the University of Pittsburgh Landmarks Preservation Resource Center Medical Center (UPMC) are headquartered here. UPMC 1. Omni William Penn Hotel 12. The Residences at the 744 Rebecca Avenue, Wilkinsburg, PA 15221 Historic Alcoa Building is a major tenant and has branded its name on the exterior. 2. BNY Mellon Green Visit www.phlf.org and click on Tours & Events 13. Allegheny HYP Club 3. BNY Mellon Center for programs on selected Tuesdays and Thursdays. 14. Smithfield United Church 20 First Lutheran Church 4. Allegheny County Courthouse Andrew Peebles, architect, 1888 5. City-County Building 15. Verizon Building FOR DETAILS & RESERVATIONS 16. Koppers Building When this church was built, Grant Street still had the air of 6. Grant Building 412-471-5808, ext. 527 or [email protected] a small-town main street, with Henry Hobson Richardson’s 7. One Oxford Centre 17. Gulf Tower new courthouse and St. Paul’s Cathedral (now demolished) 8. Frick Building 18. Joseph F. Weis, Jr. U.S. Courthouse by far its most imposing objects. The graceful dimensions of 9. Union Trust Building 19. U.S. Steel Tower First Lutheran complement the massive courthouse, and details 10. Mellon Square 20. First Lutheran Church www.phlf.org of the church (such as the red mortar) echo Richardson’s 11. Hotel Monaco masterpiece. Services on weekdays begin at 12:10 p.m. Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation Renewing Communities; Building Pride For more information on local buildings and architects, purchase one of our books or our movie, “Through the Place”: 100 West Station Square Drive, Suite 450 412-471-5808, ext. 525; www.phlf.org . Click on Store . Pittsburgh, PA 15219-1134 © 2017 GRANT STREET & M ELLON SQUARE 1 Omni William Penn Hotel 6 Grant Building 11 Hotel Monaco Janssen & Abbott, architects, 1916; Janssen & Cocken, Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood, architects, 1930 MacClure & Spahr, architects, 1902 –03; architects, 1929; Urban Room, Joseph Urban, 1929 enlarged by Joseph F. Kuntz, architect, 1924 Pittsburgh especially is a city of monuments to its great This building has lost some exterior detailing and inner space, This classic big-city hotel is distinguished by the Art Deco but its neon beacon continues to flash P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H Hotel Monaco brings new life to the classically inspired industrialists who left behind them not only steel mills, Urban Room on the 17th floor. Deep light courts (easily in Morse code for the benefit of aviators. Philadelphia Company Building, later known as the James factories and banks, but also a number of huge buildings noticed from Mellon Square) allow the maximum number H. Reed Building. The interior is a welcome surprise, full of which perpetuate their names. Frick, Carnegie, Oliver and of guest rooms to have natural ventilation and outdoor contemporary style and connections to Pittsburgh’s history. 7 One Oxford Centre Phipps resound in the city’s architectural as well as its views. During a $22 million renovation in 2004, many Hellmuth, Obata, Kassabaum (New York), architects, 1983 12 The Residences at the Historic Alcoa Building financial annals. Like the princes of the Renaissance, the of the building’s original elements were restored. This 46-story skyscraper was built as a cluster of octagons to Harrison & Abramovitz (New York), architects, 1953 masters of these great fortunes loved to build. In steel, 2 BNY Mellon Green maximize the number of corner offices. Originally constructed for Alcoa, this corporate head quarters marble and granite is memorialized much of the history Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann, architects, and building was intended to show off as many applications of aluminum as possible. Here, aluminum siding made its of Pittsburgh’s Age of the Moguls. MTR Landscape Architects, 2002 8 Frick Building D. H. Burnham & Co. (Chicago), architects, 1902 debut in high-style construction. In 1998, Alcoa constructed –– James D. Van Trump, “The Skyscraper as Monument” Privately owned but open to the public, this greenspace gives a new building on the North Shore along the Allegheny River (The Charette; 43:4, April 1963) a campus feel to the BNY Mellon Financial Center complex. Henry Clay Frick made a number of major real-estate and donated this building to serve as the headquarters for The fountain was designed by Cindy Tyler of MTR. The granite investments that resulted in construction of a close-set group various nonprofit organizations. More recently, the skyscraper With its concentration of major historic buildings and modern monoliths and fountain symbolize the rigidity of the city of buildings in the Grant Street area: the Frick Building, the has been renovated to house apartments in the upper stories, skyscrapers, Grant Street is Downtown Pittsburgh’s showcase surrounded by the fluidity of the three rivers. A tree-lined Frick Annex (now the Allegheny Building), Union Arcade, and with offices and retail below. promenade of rustic terrazzo and granite paving leads to one the first part of the William Penn Hotel. In the Frick Building, thoroughfare. In 2012, the American Planning Association named Allegheny HYP Club of four Downtown “T” (transit) stations. the earliest of these, he created a personal monument and the 13 Enlarged by Edward B. Lee, architect, 1930 Grant Street one of America’s ten “Great Streets,” because of its location of his own office. The tall new building that was exceptional character. 3 BNY Mellon Center finished in 1902 put an end to the 14-year dominance of the 1890-period workers’ houses were remodeled to provide a gracious courtyard and cozy interiors for what was originally Grant Street takes its name from Grant’s Hil l— once 60 feet Welton Becket Associates Pittsburgh skyline by the courthouse directly across the street.