I recently had the privilege of giving a talk to the Senior Mens Club at the Sewickley YMCA, in response to a request from an old Dravo colleague, Earl Edwards. The title of the talk was “Pittsburgh’s Heritage Buildings”; it was based on a chapter I contributed to the American Society of Civil Engineers, Pittsburgh Section, book “Engineering Pittsburgh”.
The summary of the talk included a timeline of the completion date for each of the buildings that succeeded to the title of “Pittsburgh’s Tallest Building”. First in this long list is the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, located on Sixth Avenue between Smithfield and Wood Streets. Constructed in 1872, its soaring steeple towered two hundred feet above street level and was credited to architect Gordon Lloyd.
The Cathedral’s reign as top dog ended in 1888 when Henry Hobson Richardson’s magnificent Allegheny County Court House was completed on Grant Street. A massive Romanesque structure of pink Milford granite, its tower reached a height of two hundred and fifty feet and dominated the city’s skyline for the rest of the nineteenth century.
In 1902 a new champion was crowned – the Frick Building on the corner of Grant Street and Fifth Avenue. By then the partnership between Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick had degenerated into enmity. When Frick planned his new building, he gave architect Daniel Burnham two instructions – to be the tallest in the city and to keep the neighboring Carnegie Building perpetually in the shade. At 315 feet and twenty stories tall the Frick Building achieved both those goals. Better yet, ten years later, the removal of “the Hump” lowered Grant Street fifteen feet and converted the Frick Building’s basement into a brand new first floor.
Although Frick is remembered as a Robber Baron and the villain of the 1892 Homestead Strike, his career includes some very favorable anecdotes. The site on which the Frick Building was built originally housed St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. Frick had it dismantled carefully, each block marked, transported up Forbes Avenue to Oakland, and then reconstructed at the corner of Forbes and Craft Avenues. A century later Carlow College demolished the church and replaced with an ugly science building. Sometimes it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
In 1910 a new champion was crowned when the Oliver Building was constructed on Smithfield Street. Also designed by Burnham, its twenty-five stories gave it a height of 347 feet. Henry W. Oliver had died in 1904, but his will dictated the construction of this masterpiece. Its tenure was two years; its successor was the First National Bank Building, on the northern corner of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street.
Actually First National was only sixty-seven feet and five stories tall when it was originally built in 1909. Three years later Burnham added twenty-one stories and 320 feet to it, topping out at a new Pittsburgh record of 387 feet. It was demolished in 1969 to make way for One PNC Plaza, thirty-seven feet taller. It is not clear how the original building was modified to support the massive additional weight.
Following World War I the Roaring Twenties kicked off another flurry of skyscraper construction in Pittsburgh, with three different buildings vying to take over the title of tallest. The Koppers Building, the Grant Building, and the Cathedral of Learning each claimed the title late in the decade, although the precise definition of completion muddles the claims. We will arbitrarily use our own definition, in order to credit each structure with a share of the glory.
The Koppers Building, at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Grant Street, was completed in 1929. An Art Deco example, it has thirty-four floors and rises 475 feet above street level, with a copper chateau-like roof. By this time, Burnham had died; his successors formed a firm, Graham, Anderson, Probst, and White, to design it.
The same year saw the completion of the Grant Building at 310 Grant Street. Designed by Henry Hornbostel, it was forty stories and 485 stories tall, of Art Deco design. Its immediate trademark, one that continues today, was the tall beacon on its roof which spells out “Pittsburgh” in Morse Code.
Also being completed in 1929 was the University of Pittsburgh’s pride and joy, the Cathedral of Learning. At 535 feet and forty-two stories its Late Gothic Revival architecture immediately qualified it as a world class structure. The architect was Henry Klauder. Homer Balcom was responsible for designing its steel frame; his credentials included a similar responsibility for the Empire State Building.
In 1932 the Gulf Building was completed and a new champion crowned. It is 582 feet and forty-four stories tall, also of Art Deco design. Its roof is a stepped pyramid, which was originally lighted with a simple code to report weather conditions. Blue meant dropping temperatures; red, rising temperatures. Either one blinking indicated precipitation. The code has been modified to include humidity and wind velocity plus six different temperatures and two values for each of the other properties.
The Gulf Building’s reign ended in 1970 with the construction of the US Steel Building. At 841 feet and sixty-four floors, it has raised the bar to a level that may never be exceeded in Pittsburgh. Its architect was Harrison, Abramovitz, and Abbe; the massive structure was designed by Les Robertson. Although there are many much taller needle-thin buildings in the world today, no other building has 41,000 square feet of useable space 841 feet above street level. It also is unique in being the first major building constructed of un-painted weathering steel in the world.
The story of the continued contest to build the tallest building in Pittsburgh parallels much of the city’s historical legacy. We are supposed to rejoice that Pittsburgh has made the transition from a manufacturing center to one dedicated to services. I am not convinced that seeing UPMC take over the US Steel Building is progress.