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A view from the sidewalk shows the intricacy of Gustav Lindenthal’s famous Pauli truss. Taken with a Kodak Retinette.
The Smithfield Street Bridge is just across Carson Street from the Station Square subway station.
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Weekend crowds throng Point Park in the early-evening sun. Taken with a Kodak Retinette, whose tidy German precision, with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens and Compur-Rapid shutter, makes it a pleasure to take on a walk in the city.
A spiral fire escape on the side of an apartment building in Shadyside.
Looking up at Philip Johnson’s PPG Tower, the centerpiece of PPG Place and the de-facto symbol of downtown Pittsburgh, from the Diamond.
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This little corner of the Diamond (the Diamond is called “Market Square” on maps) looks like the Pittsburgh of olden times, before steel-cage construction made skyscrapers sprout everywhere. Taking away the neon and the road signs, it could be a Victorian engraving. Father Pitt begs your forgiveness for the cheap lens on this digital camera, which makes straight lines impossible.
The Diamond is a block up Forbes Avenue from the Gateway Center subway station.
Fifth Avenue Place looms over the Diamond (which is spelled “Market Square,” but pronounced “Diamond”). At night, the needle at the top is illuminated from below, so it looks as if the building is about to emit a space probe.
Downtown Pittsburgh can be as crowded for pigeons as it is for people. This tree bears its strange avian fruit in Mellon Square.
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An ornate iron grille on the side of the William Penn Hotel. Even in the most prosaic things, beauty and function can get along happily together.
The demolition of a building on Forbes Avenue downtown laid bare not only a splendid canvas for some rather unimaginative graffiti, but also half of a painted sign for a Victorian cafe that once occupied this spot. The part that survives is in an extraordinary state of preservation, so we can appreciate the rakish backslant of the bold but ornate letters that spell out “–mmel’s Cafe.”
The Three Rivers Arts Festival opened yesterday. Here we see the artist’s market behind the fountain at Gateway Center.
