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PHLF NewsPublished for the members of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation No. 155 August 1999

S p e c i a l I s s u e

In this issue:

3Marketplace at Fifth and Forbes

6A Great Space and Departed Hopes

8A Tale of Two and

Sometimes Three Cities

12Memoirs of a

Disgruntled Consumer

15We Believe in Pittsburgh

Downtown is “hot”: the place to beand be seen, shop and live, walk andwindow shop, eat and work, do all theother things possible ONLY in the kindof downtown that offers the variety ofsocial, economic, and physical experi-ence never possible in a mall.

Yes, downtown is hot. Corporationsknow it. Developers know it. And evensome government officials know it.Downtown inferiority complexesshould be a thing of the past with thosecity officials smart enough not to sellout and sell short exactly what makestheir downtowns appealing. This is thereal challenge in the era of big chains,big malls, big developers, and big publicfinancing. The necessary, expensive, and

inappropriate downtown projects areseductive, but never foster enduringappeal: they are a waste of public funds.

Downtown may be “in,” but this istrue only of the downtown districts andstreets that dare to be different, dare tobe their own places, dare to resist themall formulas. Only those downtownsthat reflect the characters of their citiesare growing in prestige and appeal.Fans come and go to stadiums. Visitorscome and leave convention centers. Butit is the people with vested interests andlong-term connections to a locality whocome, stay, live, work, spend money,and thus enliven a vital center. Withoutthem, active life cannot evolve; endur-ing economic vitality doesn’t have achance.

Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard,Boston’s Newbury Street, Pittsburgh’sCarson Street, Norfolk’s Granby Street,Denver’s Larimer Square, New York’sSoHo, Denver’s Lower Downtown: inthese, interesting rebirth is visible.These are not streets dominated bychains or enclosed malls: locally owned,modest-scale businesses and local eventsgive a place character. Character ofplace can not be either bought or“developed.” It happens only wherelocal people dominate.

In the end, the most essential need ofa downtown is character. Character isthe most effective engine for genuine

economic development. If nothingdistinguishes downtown from the strip,the mall, the nearest megastore, or theformula chain, why would someonebother to come downtown?

Character is what old buildings, notjust facades, can contribute. Historydisappears from view when old build-

This special issue of PHLF

News is devoted to the new

downtown retail development

being proposed by the City of

Pittsburgh for the Fifth and

Forbes Avenues corridor, and to

the conversion of the Mellon Bank

building at Fifth Avenue and

Smithfield Street into Lord &

Taylor’s.

For over a year, the Pittsburgh

History & Landmarks Foundation

and Preservation Pittsburgh have

been trying to work with City

officials to encourage the preser-

vation of downtown landmarks

and the continuation of unique

local businesses and ownership

as we all work to enliven the

downtown.

Downtown is “Hot”Roberta Brandes Gratz

Roberta Brandes Gratz isan urban critic and authorof the classic Living City:Thinking Small in a BigWay and the recently pub-lished Cities Back from theEdge: New Life forDowntown. Aspects ofPittsburgh are featured inboth books. Roberta

Gratz came to Pittsburgh on October 7, 1998to speak and tour the downtown area, as partof our “Making Cities Work” lecture series, co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank ofCleveland, Pittsburgh Branch, and Landmarks.

So many downtowns lack confidence in the

inherent value of their existing downtownretail districts that they seek big financing and

big investment to reinvent,rebuild, and replace them.

This kills a genuinedowntown.

The replacement nevermatches the quality lost.

Pho

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A view of the Fifth and Forbes area, downtown, with Market Square in the foreground.

(Continued on page 2)

P a g e 2 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

ings do. But it is not just old buildingsand certainly not just old, architec-turally appealing buildings. A fabricbuilt over time, under different designmindsets and for different purposes, isthe most valuable asset of downtownsfortunate enough not to have their tradi-tional character wiped out by pave-overplanning. Buildings of all ages, sizes,and styles are now suitable for varieduses, convertible to innovative activity.They offer the additional advantagethat, whatever happens to the occupantof an individual building, the health of

the whole street or district does notdepend on the continued health of onecomponent. Old department stores aretransformed into mixed residential,commercial, and retail spaces. Quirkyspaces turn into eateries. Theatersbecome nightclubs. No mall can offerthat kind of variety.

Loft buildings attract residents, dancestudios, graphic artists, architects. Smallretail spaces with interesting configura-tions absorb the explosion of craft-based businesses increasingly found inpedestrian-oriented downtowns. Glass-blowers, clothing designers, furnituremakers, weavers, potters, doll crafters,

bakers, and candy makers are openingtheir own stores in front, and makingtheir goods in back or upstairs, in suchplaces. Sometimes, two very differentproducers share space. The linesbetween manufacturing and retailinghave blurred.

“The more variations there can be,the better,” Jane Jacobs, the wisest ofurban advocates, told us years ago. “As soon as the range and number ofvariations in buildings decline, the diver-sity and population and enterprises aretoo apt to stay static or decline, insteadof increasing.”

As the malls get bigger and biggerand need more and more entertainmentto draw people, and as the chains getbigger and bigger and more formula-based, the public seeks the different, theoddity, the innovation. Bigness andinnovation are rarely partners.

So many downtowns lack confidencein the inherent value of their existingdowntown retail districts that they seekbig financing and big investment to rein-vent, rebuild, and replace them. Thiskills a genuine downtown. The replace-ment never matches the quality lost.

Long-ignored but now revivingdowntown districts exhibit the characterlost in the downtowns rebuilt withmegaprojects. But this rebirth process isgradual, often slow at first, small stepby small step, ad hoc. This is both thegood news and the bad news: the goodnews because this is simply how ithappens best, the bad news because the“experts” fail to recognize and valuethis style of rejuvenation until big devel-opers or retail chains notice.

The most interesting downtownrebirth is occurring in the cities andtowns that have not malled or urban-renewed themselves into parking lots,enclosed malls, or corporate extinction.These streets and districts offer theopportunity to add new businesses anduses by filling in empty spaces, addingon to existing structures, or reconfigur-ing the interior spaces by combining ordividing. The existing fabric and someof the surviving uses are the mostimportant assets. They are the foun-dation to build on. This is whatPittsburgh has that so many other citiesno longer do. The challenge is to savewhat has not gone already and to buildon its foundation, not to destroy it.

“MAKING CITIES WORK” LECTURE SERIESCo-sponsored by Landmarks and the Federal Reserve

Bank of Cleveland, Pittsburgh Branch

PHLF News is published four times each year for the members of the Pittsburgh History& Landmarks Foundation, a non-profit historic preservation organization servingAllegheny County. Landmarks is committed to neighborhood restoration and historic-property preservation; public advocacy; historic landscape preservation; and education andmembership programs. Special issues, devoted to a particular theme or program area, arepublished on occasion.

© 1999 Pittsburgh History & Landmarks FoundationDesigned by Pytlik Design Associates

Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PresidentLouise Sturgess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editor/Executive DirectorCathy Broucek. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assistant to the PresidentElisa J. Cavalier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General CounselTom Croyle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ComptrollerMary Lu Denny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Director of Membership ServicesMary Ann Eubanks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education CoordinatorBarry Hannegan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Director of Historic Landscape PreservationThomas Keffer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Superintendent of Property MaintenanceWalter C. Kidney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Architectural HistorianLinda Mitry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Staff AccountantAlbert M. Tannler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Historical Collections DirectorGregory C. Yochum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HorticulturistRonald C. Yochum, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assistant for Public Policy and CIO

Downtown is “Hot”(Continued from page 1)

Barry Hannegan of Landmarksencourages a colleague to admire theupper stories of a building at Woodand Forbes.

On October 7, 1998, a group of busi-ness and foundation leaders metunder Kaufmann’s clock to tour theFifth/Forbes area with RobertaGratz. She stressed that hometownbusinesses reflect the personalityand needs of hometown people andare the backbone of main streets.

Don Elliott and Michael Samuels of Clarion/Samuels AssociatesFriday, September 2412:00 Noon to 1:30 p.m.Federal Reserve Bank ofCleveland, Pittsburgh Branch717 Grant Street, Downtown

During the past year and a half, consultantsElliott and Samuels have been engagedin a costs (and benefits) study for sprawl inPennsylvania under the direction of JoanneDenworth, president of 10,000 Friends ofPennsylvania, and a diverse AdvisoryCommittee of State agency and organiza-tional representatives. Funded by theRichard King Mellon Foundation and theDepartment of Conservation and NaturalResources, the study includes three ele-ments:

• a review of national literature;

• a gathering and analysis of Pennsylvaniadata and studies; and

• corridor studies in six regions of the stateto describe the impact of sprawl in actual instances.

Elliott and Samuels will discuss their find-ings for the first time at the “Making CitiesWork” lecture.

Fee: $20.00 for members of Landmarksand non-members Reservations: Seating is limited. Call Mary Lu Denny at (412) 471-5808 tomake your reservation. Payment must bereceived by Monday, September 20.

Coming in OctoberStanton Eckstut ofEhrenkrantz, Eckstut &Whitelaw “Preserving and RevitalizingDowntowns in the United States”Thursday, October 1412:00 Noon to 1:30 p.m.Federal Reserve Bank ofCleveland, Pittsburgh Branch717 Grant Street, Downtown

Fee: $20.00 for members of Landmarksand non-members Reservations: Seating is limited. Call Mary Lu Denny at (412) 471-5808 tomake your reservation. Payment must bereceived by Monday, October 11.

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e3

The City’s Position According to newspaper publications ofmid-June, the Marketplace area, asdefined by the City, is to be bounded bySmithfield Street, Oliver Avenue, LibertyAvenue, Stanwix Street, and FourthAvenue in a loosely inclusive borderwith large areas of property, notablyPPG Place and Lazarus, unaffected.(Please see the map on page 4.)

The situation at present is vague. The principal performer within the area is to be the Chicago developerUrban Retail Properties, though it hassigned no development agreement withthe City as yet.

Why Urban Retail Properties (URP)was selected as the project developer isunknown. URP brings an array of cre-dentials, but Landmarks argued for anopen-selection process. A number ofgood developers are working in down-towns, mixing old buildings with new,trying to create projects that enhancethe unique local historic context.

In anticipation of the new develop-ment, PNC Bank has purchased thegreat majority of the land between itstower (at Fifth and Wood) and LibertyAvenue on the north side of FifthAvenue. The City, it appears, willacquire most of the land between Fifthand Forbes Avenues between Smithfieldand Graeme Streets on the west side ofMarket Square, as well as a few proper-ties north of Fifth and considerableproperty south of Forbes. The city blocklong associated with the New DiamondMarket, Murphy’s and Donahoe’s might(or might not) go to Nordstrom’s—ormight turn into a twenty-four screenmovie theater.

Indeed, we seem not so much to havea plan by the City as a recurrent patternof hopes whose specific contents keepchanging. We are told that the resultwill be an addition of 500,000 to800,000 square feet of entertainmentand retail space to the project area for a“24-hour downtown,” or one at leastthat keeps late hours. Emphasis at firstwas on “national” chains as tenants,with established local businesses disre-garded. However, to some small degree,Landmarks and others seem to have cre-ated a change of policy—or stated atti-tude—that would give distinctively localbusinesses an equal place in occupyingthe land.

The cost of development appears tobe over double that estimated a yearago, from a possible low of $175 millionto more like $400 million. The City,Urban Retail Properties, the State, theUrban Redevelopment Authority, andthe Strategic Investment Fund might allput money into the project, and the landacquired by the City might pass as a giftto Urban Retail Properties, or might not.

Our IdeasEncourage Local BusinessesThe history of this project has thus farfavored “national” chains for this his-toric center of the city, complementingthe anchor department stores, again“national,” with restaurants, shops, andentertainment places whose names areknown nationwide. Our hope, on thecontrary, is for a distinctively local char-acter for the project area, strengtheningthe businesses that have been doing wellthere and encouraging the opening ofnew businesses by local entrepreneurswho have been doing well elsewhere inthe Pittsburgh region. One might go toextraordinary lengths to keep what isthere already, as happened in Bostonwhen the famous old Durgin ParkRestaurant was built around in thereconstruction of the Quincy Market. (It is worth noting that a large complexof historic buildings was adaptivelyreused for local and national shops inthe reconstruction of Quincy Market.)

Give Market Square a Traditional RoleMarket Square, the old “Diamond,”dates back to 1784 and the Woods-Vickroy survey for the Penn family.Until the demolition of the lastDiamond Market house in 1961,Market Square has been a positive pointof concentration for the city. Recently,planners have been at a loss to find arole for it, yet the presence of NicholasCoffee Company and adjacent enter-prises and the use of one quadrant as arallying place give Market Square an airof positive use.

Market Square may indeed becomemore of a late-hours place, as seems tobe hoped. With the recent introductionof rocking chairs and tables, more peo-ple are enjoying the Square as a place to enjoy a meal and relax. We maywonder, too, if it may not be possible, asit was in the beginning, to buy foodthere. Suppose the New DiamondMarket, not too long ago extant in theMurphy Company block, were to berevived and extended, in good weather,into Market Square itself? In its mer-chandise, such a place would supplyordinary goods to an anticipated resi-dential population as it arrived, andspecial delicacies for downtown workershomeward bound.

Restore Significant ArchitectureWe believe that some facades and someentire buildings within the project areahave useful lives still before them and, ifrestored, will provide a sense of rejuve-nation to the area. Restored, they willimpart a mild and pleasant shock to

those who have passed them all theseyears: obviously old, yet so fresh, soready for many years more! Behind suchfacades, which tend to be small-scaled,might appropriately go the establishedPittsburgh businesses, leaving the newchains, more demanding of space, to thenewer and larger buildings.

Redirect the Public InvestmentThe City, rather than spending largesums of money on acquiring all proper-ties in the proposed area, should acquireonly those buildings that may be use-fully demolished for new construction,and should provide facade restorationgrants for all the significant buildings. In order to qualify for such a grant,building owners would have to agree tojoin (or require their retail tenants tojoin) a master marketing and uniformhours program. Signage appropriate tothe architectural styles of the buildingswould also be required. This proposalwould allow for the creativity of manyarchitects and would, undoubtedly, costless than $400 million.

Demolish Only When NationalLeases Are SignedWe strongly urge that no buildings bedemolished until actual leases are signedwith national retailers that require clear-ance. We would point out that PlanetHollywood, All-Star Cafe, and FAOSchwartz were originally touted aspotential national retailers forPittsburgh’s project. However the Wall Street Journal recently hasdescribed Planet Hollywood as havingfinancial difficulties, the New YorkTimes has said that All-Star Café inTimes Square is for sale, and theBusiness Press has noted that the Dutchretail owner Vendex NV may sell FAOSchwartz because it is a “sore point inthe earnings report” with sales down“sharply.” National tenants do not nec-essarily mean stability in the future.

Develop a Marketing and LeasingProgramThe City should, on a performancebasis, pay a developer to develop a total

plan: locate local and national tenants;provide shop design and consultation;oversee building restoration and newconstruction; and develop and imple-ment a marketing plan and a uniformhours plan. A diversity of owners andarchitects would enhance the quality ofthe project as true urbanism.

Develop HousingIn place of some proposed nationalretailers that are readily accessible in themalls, first-rate housing within the areashould be developed by the City. Retailwill develop if the customers are there.

Our Fundamental PrincipleIf we develop a Pittsburgh retail centerusing national tenants in ways thatsupport our local entrepreneurs, appointa variety of designers both local andnational, and restore our fine architec-ture to create a uniquely Pittsburghcenter—not a repetitive national stereo-type by an out-of-town shopping centerdeveloper––we will compete much moreeffectively at much lower cost both withour own suburban markets and withother city centers. Allegheny Center,based on a national stereotype model, is a failure. Station Square, based on our principles of urban planning, is successful. The Cultural District down-town, anchored by the restoration andadaptive reuse of a number of historicbuildings along Penn and LibertyAvenues, is flourishing.

Why can’t we learn from history,experience, and practical success as we work to revive the Fifth/Forbescorridor?

Marketplace at Fifth and ForbesThe City wishes to upgrade Pittsburgh’s central retail area of downtown: a laudableaim. However the plan, as Landmarks understands it, would call for the City toacquire by eminent domain almost all of the buildings within the Fifth/ForbesAvenues and Wood Street/Market Square area. A significant number of historicbuildings would then be demolished so that the City could turn the cleared propertyover to Urban Retail Properties—a Chicago developer.

The City plan, called “Marketplace at Fifth and Forbes,” would use approxi-mately $100 million in public dollars, and existing businesses would be dislocatedin favor of national retailers.

Landmarks believes that the way to make downtown retail viable is to restore thesignificant older buildings, permit the demolition of insignificant ones for newconstruction (though in some cases preserving the facades), and anchor the projectwith a combination of national and local tenants in unique Pittsburgh venues.

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P a g e 4 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

The Shape of Things toComeThis plan represents the entire area thatwe believe may be targeted by the City ofPittsburgh for redevelopment as theFifth/Forbes corridor.

The Pittsburgh History & LandmarksFoundation and Preservation Pittsburghhave evaluated all the buildings in theFifth/Forbes corridor and have made recommendations for preservation andadaptive reuse, all the while leaving ampletracts available for demolition and newconstruction. Development based on theserecommendations as shown in the accom-panying plan will retain much of the character of the area, because familiarlandmarks will be saved and the historicscale will be preserved. Our position onfacade retention has been flexible, recog-nizing that such a practice has been successful in other cities only where theenlargement of the new building behindthe historic facade has been designed withsensitivity. Our proposals have addressedthe unanimously shared goal of maximumvariety in the new district, but we havegone further than the City and UrbanRetail Properties in encouraging the salvaging of some buildings slated fordemolition for reuse as housing.

town can continue to rely on what wecan find still here in the center core; but,if this new development is to be aregional shopping mecca it must offerwhat is unavailable anywhere else.

Landmarks has been deeply con-cerned about the City’s plan to demolishten or twelve blocks in order to createan entire new shopping and entertain-ment district, and we have urged thatdistinguished buildings and the scale ofthe area be respected and retained—along, of course, with the small, locallyowned businesses that give the corridorits present life.

The mix of history and shoppingdemonstrably does work in smaller,peripheral neighborhoods, the “MainStreets” of current urban planning.

We see it here in the South Side, inBloomfield, and in Squirrel Hill.Preservation is a variable; it is mostevident along Carson Street, but it alsoplays a role in Bloomfield. Along Forbesand Murray, it may hardly yet be afactor; the old buildings continue toserve a variety of purposes. All suchflourishing neighborhood commercialcores grow and change incrementally;any extensive planning interventionkills. We have seen the blight of centralplanning attack McKeesport, EastLiberty, and, above all, old Allegheny,which has all but disappeared under thedead and alien presence of AlleghenyCenter.

Somewhat similar peripheral centerscan be seen around other older cities.

Portions of Georgetown, as vital as onecould want in regard to retail, display astimulating mix of well-restored olderbuildings, surprisingly housed big-boxretailers such as Staples, with tactful andzestfully designed new infill. In Boston,what is possibly the finest combinationof old and new buildings with primaryand upscale specialty retail coexist in alarge and exhilarating area in the Back Bay which is roughly defined bythe Boylston-Newbury Streets corridorthat significantly includes not only aNeiman Marcus and a Marshalls buttwo first rate grocery stores. Here, as inGeorgetown and in our own localexamples, there is a large residentpopulation that has easy and quickaccess (often on foot!) to all these

The central issue of this PHLF Newsand the essential problem of the City’sproposed redevelopment of the Fifth/Forbes corridor in the downtown is therelation of historic preservation to retailvitality. We will leave aside questionsabout the quality of the retail operationsbeing solicited by Urban RetailProperties (URP) for inclusion in thisproject. It clearly makes little sense tobring to the center of the city, at con-siderable public expense, those retailchains that are ubiquitous in the subur-ban malls, only to have the profits sentto headquarter offices in distant places,or even abroad. Downtown can use afew conventional national name storesfor the benefit of those who live inPittsburgh, and for the most part, down-

Pittsburgh at the CrossroadsBarry Hannegan

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East Carson Street on the South Side. Forbes Avenue near Murray, in Squirrel Hill.

Recommendations for Preservationin the Fifth/Forbes CorridorPrepared by Pittsburgh History & LandmarksFoundation and Preservation Pittsburgh.

Sixth Avenue

Liber

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Stan

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Fourth Avenue

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Market SquareForbes Avenue

Oliver Avenue

Presumed boundary of demolition area

Buildings and facades to be retained

Buildings to be converted to housing

Facades to be retained and restored

Facades to be retained if at all possible

Fifth Avenue

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e5

consumer goodies.Many small cities have purposefully

retained their historic images and char-acters in order to improve the quality ofthe citizens’ life and foster a touristeconomy. A chief example here mightwell be Charleston, South Carolina,which, admittedly, has an unbeatableadvantage as a place to live and a placeto visit. The City government did notscrap its heritage but enriched it so thatboth citizen and visitor would immedi-ately see they were not in Montgomery,Alabama. Portland, Maine has used itsnineteenth-century buildings and dis-tricts as a bootstrap to create an attrac-tive and lively city center: one that,however, seems to cater more to thevisitor than to the resident.

And here is indeed the rub. Moreoften than not, historic districts and theneighborhoods that have most benefitedfrom preservation do not provideprimary retail. Even in one of our ownolder neighborhoods, Homestead, thenecessities of life appear to be increas-ingly taking refuge in large new, rela-tively isolated buildings, easily reachedonly by car, leaving the historic EighthAvenue to house less urgent commercialpurposes.

Cities that bear the greatest resem-blance to Pittsburgh—Baltimore,Cincinnati, and Milwaukee—all areconfronting problems much like ourshere. The extreme instance is Baltimore,where the City proposes the demolitionof the entire western half of what is leftof the traditional commercial core of thecity. The planned evisceration ofBaltimore gained it the dubious distinc-tion as one of the eleven most endan-gered sites in America. Lost in this oblit-eration would be the famous LexingtonMarket and the buildings that housedthe four department stores that onceprovided upscale shopping. Arguingthat the city’s population can no longersupport fine stores, the advocates of thisradical new plan want to introduce big-box retailers, vast parking lots, and

townhouse developments. All this is thedreariest possible imposition of anunthinking suburban pattern on the cen-ter of the city. Heritage Baltimore, chal-lenging the economics of the City’s plan,has come up with a vivid counter-pro-posal that would save well over a hun-dred threatened historic structures andbring some variety and zest to a restoredcommercial core.

Cincinnati seems just to be holdingon. There have been losses in the depart-ment store situation, and there is apersistent notion that retail should beshifted to the riverfront with all its newsports facilities, thus abandoning thehistoric retail and commercial corewhich still retains a good deal of vitality.A standoff between the Mayor, appar-ently favoring new development at anycost, and an opposed City Councilseems to offer the best hope that therewill be time to find a right solution.

Until recently, Milwaukee enjoyed asplendid downtown. However, theMarshall Field department store (whichhad taken the old Gimbels building) wasclosed, thus destroying one end of a fineshopping district that ran along thecity’s main thoroughfare, WisconsinAvenue. The beginning of commercialdecay has apparently prompted a grandnew plan for the city that wouldenhance the attractions to tourists at theexpense of its usefulness to its owncitizens. In the course of this change-over, any number of older existingstructures in the heart of the city wouldbe demolished.

What all this means is that Pittsburghis up against a very difficult situation forwhich the stock solutions entail muchloss with little assured gain. We havehere the opportunity to create a newphilosophy of center-city renovation, todevise a method that will give us thevividness and prosperity that tradition-ally distinguish the urban core. Thisshould build on what we have, botharchitecturally and commercially, to

ensure that we do not lose our identityand sense of place, any more than welose the small, individual shops andservices that should define and sustainthe city’s life. By encouraging locallyowned businesses that know ourmarket, we will keep the profits work-ing in our region.

During its first and greatestRenaissance, Pittsburgh showed thenation how a major city could re-createitself. Now we have the same greatchance to provide a model for otherequally troubled, equally determinedcities across the land to regain a truequality of life.

Pittsburgh, in its 241st year. The great natural amphitheater formed by the confluence of the three rivers has been the setting forthe high drama of the City’s history. Will the violence of the Fifth-Forbes redevelopment prove to be Pittsburgh’s last act?

Looking up Fifth Avenue toward Wood Street, in the late 1940s. G. C. Murphywould be at the extreme right, while several of the small buildings at the far left arestill in relatively good condition. These we have urged should be preserved for theirhistoric design qualities and incorporated into whatever is done in the course of theredevelopment of Fifth Avenue. What can all those people be doing crowding thesidewalk in that fashion?

Photo by Jim Judkis

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Pittsburghers) will not set foot in thecity unless the citizens contribute theirtax money to destroy a city treasure.

I magine, for a moment, that no commitment to the destructive

process has yet been made. There arecertainly other options that couldrespect the cultural value of the space.A valuable function for a revitalizeddowntown would be served, but in away based on the building’s uniquequalities rather than trying to mimic thespatial homogeneity of suburban devel-opment. Mellon Bank may have tovacate the space but it should not walkaway uncaring from its past.

Retail is a likely and compatible reuseoption for the Mellon Bank space. Themain floor is all on one level, immedi-ately adjoining Fifth Avenue andSmithfield Street, both active retailstreets. Significant amounts of spacebetween the columns and the outerwalls could be fitted with mezzaninesthat provide additional retail spacewhile maintaining views to the windowsand not detracting from the great

P a g e 6 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

From October 1922 through March1924, Mellon Bank constructed “A Magnificent New HeadquartersBuilding” on Smithfield Street. It wasbuilt on the site of the bank’s previousoffices, which had been housed in acollection of smaller buildings acquiredthrough the years as the bank expanded.The bank’s deposits had reached 100million dollars that year, and AndrewW. Mellon remarked that the new build-ing marked “a success beyond our mostambitious dreams of those early years.”

The building was constructed “to state architecturally the clean, open, lofty, yet dignified image of theMellon Family,” according to the bank’sofficial history. Newspapers declared thebuilding to be “a fitting symbol of thestability, enterprise, and sense of publicresponsibility characteristic of the organ-ization it housed.”

For seventy-five years, the buildingremained remarkably little changedfrom its original appearance. Built toimpress its competitors, reassure itsdepositors, and attract new customers, it accomplished these goals with verveand style.

The exterior is entirely sheathed ingranite, conveying strength and stabilitythrough a simple, almost severe use of acolossal order of pilasters stretchingalong all three facades. In the middle ofthe main elevation, monumental bronzedoors stand behind two Doric columns.The structure, only four stories high,commanded an entire block ofSmithfield Street in the heart of thebusiness district at a time when other

banks were including fifteen to twentyfloors of offices above their bankingrooms to provide additional income.

Through the enormous bronze doorsand companion doors on Fifth Avenuelay the great central banking room. This space was at the core of the bank’sbusiness and the means by which it wasremembered. Few commercial enter-prises of the day so relied upon architec-ture as an instrument of business. Thegreat room, 160 feet long and 62 feethigh, impressed and reassured its cus-tomers with the beauty and audacity ofits twenty-four marble Ionic columns(brought from Italy of course), eachweighing 28,000 pounds, lining all foursides of the room. The space was filledwith light from a skylight and hugewindows along three high walls. But thiswas no mere showpiece, no receptionparlor as an introduction to the spacewhere the real work of the organizationwas done: this was the workroom of theorganization. Tellers lined one side ofthe great hall, while bank officersworked at desks along the SmithfieldStreet side of the space and the ownersof the bank—yes owners, not hiredmanagers—worked within view inadjoining offices.

The building and the organizationmet its biggest test on March 4, 1933, asthe panic phase of the Depression set in.The Governor of Pennsylvania declareda banking holiday, and many banks didnot open that day or ever again. MellonBank opened as usual. The bankrecorded 10,000 people in the bank onthat day between 9 a.m. and 12:15 p.m.It is unlikely that the space was builtwith this scene in mind, but againaccording to the bank’s official history“all customers were satisfied and R. B.Mellon, President of the Bank, was infull sight and in charge.”

Today we are reassured of ourdeposits by pixels on a computer screen

and something called FDIC, which is, ofcourse, just ourselves again as taxpay-ers. In 1933 nervous depositors werereassured by the professionalism of thetellers, the presence of the owner whosemoney was at risk, and this magnificentspace.

The space is anachronistic in today’sbanking business. You can get a higherinterest rate on your savings from amutual fund whose sole contact (andformulaic friendliness) with you will beby electronic blips. But while the build-ing’s past use is no longer viable, whatof its cultural and artistic significance? It remains. Now tax dollars are beingused to rip out the marble columns and fill the space top to bottom withmultiple sales floors, obliterating all thequalities of this spectacular space.Smithfield Street’s Grand Hall is disap-pearing. The space was built at a timewhen the owners and the employeeswere Pittsburghers. What Mellon Bankbuilt to serve its own goals contributedto the greater glory of the city. NowLord & Taylor (not owned by

A Great Space and Departed HopesEllis L. Schmidlapp

Ellis L. Schmidlapp, president ofLandmarks Design Associates,Architects, is a guest contributorto this Special Issue.

The Mellon Bank Building at Smithfield Street and Fifth Avenue.

Fortune magazine featured the interior of the Mellon Bank Building in October 1967.

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e7

central space. A small portion of thecentral space, perhaps 15%, could alsoaccommodate new floors if these werecarefully inserted. Indeed, there are twofloors above the main space that couldbe reused.

Mellon Bank could yield area on thelower floors of its adjoining office build-ing to provide additional retail space tobe reached through the banking room.These measures would both preservespatial character and create a distinctiveretail space, different from competitors’offerings.

Cities compete with suburban loca-tions by providing taxpayer subsidies tomake up for their high tax and regula-tory policies. (Unfortunately, it appearsthat the developer is planning to mimicthe generic suburban retail experience.)The city will never compete with thesuburbs in ability to provide huge areasof chain retail surrounded by free park-ing. A better strategy competes throughthe unique quality and real character ofurban structures and is therefore goodfor the whole region, rather than oncemore copying happenstance design inthe exurb.

The Mellon Bank space was unparal-leled in the region and matched in fewother places in the world. It was a greatClassical basilica of light and marble; abuilding half its size would haveimpressed the previous AmericanCentury. The soaring space is mostimmediately impressive by its display ofcolossal white marble columns, but the

walls are almost entirelysheathed with two- to four-inch thick slabs of whitemarble. There is simply nocomparison between thegenerous use of the mostluxurious materials avail-able in the early twentiethcentury and the half-inchslivers of marble glued toconcrete or gyp board thatimpart “character” intoday’s retail establish-ments. Further, the MellonBank interior is testament tothe skilled workforce thatmanufactured, fabricated,and installed the steel, mar-ble, bronze, granite, andglass that make up thebuilding.

Back to reality. The banking room has

gone. What a travesty that itis now destined to beobscured with concretefloors, tile ceilings, andacres of gyp board. I expectthat there will be paper thin“touches of elegance”added—just as in new storeseverywhere.

Great BuildingsMake Great CitiesBarry Hannegan

New York is always a case apart. Its vastness and the scale of itsresources, problems, successes,failures, and self-image all make it an unlikely model for mere middle-size cities. Yet, recently, the powersthat be in Manhattan have providedthe entire country with a superbexample of the value of historicpreservation. The recently com-pleted restoration of Grand CentralTerminal has brought to life andlight, again, one of New York’s trulygreat spaces. It is no longer a dirtyrailroad station (Pittsburghers maywell ask what that is), but a glitter-ing vastness of infinite grace andpower, to which visitors and resi-dents alike are drawn. Once there,they enjoy upscale shopping; thedelights of the venerable andrestored Oyster Bar; provocative,sumptuous art exhibitions; and the possibility of abundant railcommuter service.

The irony is that the New YorkCentral Railroad, whose very heartwas the Grand Central Terminal,has been dead and gone for almostthree decades. Yet its image, at leastin New York, is vivid and vital in away that exceeds even the glory ofthe NYC in its heyday. But here, inPittsburgh, Mellon Bank, stillamong the living of the corporateworld, has seen fit to divest itself ofits historic heart and turn it over fordestruction to an alien group, thusdepriving Pittsburgh of an integralpart of its heritage and of a trulymarvelous building.

Grand Central’s main concourse.

Position onlyDuquesne Incline Ad

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Right and below:Interior demolitionwas underway inearly July.

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Above and right: details of the greatbanking space.

P a g e 8 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

Pittsburgh’s dense fabric is stillfilled with such variety despitethree major campaigns of clear-

ing in the last half century that haveemptied the areas of the Lower Hill, ofthe Point, and of the multi-block terri-tory of PPG Place. Faced, now, with afourth onslaught of demolition in theFifth/Forbes corridor, we might pause tolook at some of the smaller downtownbuildings that are witnesses to change,chance, survival, and the continuing ifdwindling retail vitality of the down-town. It is the smaller buildings ontwenty or thirty-foot frontages that tes-tify to change and the fluctuation ofarchitectural taste as applied to storefronts. The larger commercial buildingstend to retain their integrity, even aftertheir function has been entirely altered;the former Frank and Seder Building,opposite Kaufmann’s on Smithfield,continues to make a sober and refinedcontribution to its setting even thoughits original department store occupant islong gone.

The wide-spread practice of re-cladding the first story or two of afacade in order to bring it into line withthe presumed notion of what will seemup-to-date to the consumer tends verymuch to discourage us from seeing whatsuch ostensible remodeling has cost usin architectural quality. To look upwardis to see another city altogether, one that more generously gave a sense ofsubstance and commitment.

A recent pilgrimage through thedowntown, motivated by theFifth/Forbes plan with its concomitantdestruction of much good historicalbuilding, brought to our attention anumber of interesting, sometimesmoving, architectural palimpsests thatwe record here in pocket descriptionsand evaluations.

242 Forbes Avenue Since this excursion is all about the fluxof the city’s landscape, we might startwith an example of facade remodelingthat has already begun to disappear. Theaccompanying photograph was takenseveral decades ago when the buildingmight be said to have attained its ripeststate. And what a wonderful maturitythat was! Reading from the top down-ward, we see two stories, probablysurvivors of the original building, of themost rampageous design. They defyhistorical characterization, at least as to

sources, but are, rather, great demon-strations of the untutored inventivenessof, I should think, the 1870s. Especiallydelightful are the paired dentils thatserve as brackets under the ends of thewindow labels on the top floor—archi-tectural buck teeth.

The facade’s second story was likelyadded around 1910 when, perhaps, thebuilding was pushed outward to theproperty line, allowing for the intro-duction of the unexpected, felicitousbalcony. This early twentieth-centuryremodeling is a handsome example ofClassical, particularly Roman, design asit was understood at the time, and thecomparison of the console bracketssustaining the balcony with their earliercounterparts beneath the cornice at thetop is an instructive and amusing exer-cise. The ground level facade defiesdescription—there’s nothing there. Thisresurfacing of some time around 1960must have obliterated the lower portionof the c. 1910 design and introduced avacuousness and cheapness to the side-walk level that has sadly characterizedthis sort of commercial updating. Isthere such a category as the ParticleBoard Style?

More recently, all of the architecturalrelief ornamentation of the upper floorshas been removed, thus destroying a fine documentation of Pittsburgh’sdowntown commercial vitality duringthree phases of its history. This facadewill disappear altogether under theheadache ball for the new Fifth/Forbesdevelopment.

610–12 Wood StreetHere again are three successiverecords of the commercial desirabil-ity of this central downtown site.The surviving building, dated 1880,was for its time a high-rise clothed ina variation of the Eastlake-GothicRevival style. In the 1920s the lower-most two floors were reclad in aroutine but able version of the sparer

kind of Classicism favored at the time.Much more recently, the street level ofthe facade has been overlain above theplate glass window with large panelsthat are little more than a screen onwhich to display aggressive graphics. Isthe choice of a cheap, easily manipu-lated material (particle board or not) forthe renovation here and on ForbesAvenue yet another manifestation of athrow-away material culture?

215 Fifth Avenue Belonging to a larger parcel of realestate now owned by PNC Bank, theformer FloydBuilding is one ofthe finest survivingnon-ecclesiasticalexamples, even iffragmentary, of theHigh VictorianGothic style in thecity. It exhibits, ingeneral, the inci-sive, muscularqualities of thatstyle, and in particular, it is a fine

demonstration of what the Victorianswould have called PermanentPolychromy, that is, the use of a varietyof colors but relying only on materialsthat were inherently of a particular hue,using no paint and no misrepresenta-tion. Just look at those upper two sto-ries when you are next on lower FifthAvenue. There are four or five visibletints (the grimy condition makes certainreading difficult), including the blue oftiles set in the very gable. A much lessgood example of this type of Victoriandesign still stands at 107 SmithfieldStreet, but this facade, in spite of itsgreater integrity, is humdrum indeedcompared to the Fifth Avenue building.

Solid, hard, high-minded, colorful,beautifully ordered and articulated, eventhe remnants of the Floyd Buildingwould bring joy to the heart of JohnRuskin. This bit of decrepit facade isone of the great treasures of the down-town.

634 Smithfield StreetHere’s an example of a building, really apair of them, that normally one wouldwalk by without taking any notice. Itpays to stop now and again and justlook. These two units may have startedlife as identical twins, but parted com-pany long ago. The right-hand facade iswhat interests us at the moment. Longhome to various furniture stores, thebuilding is now nearly effaced, not somuch by the flimsy overlay of the lowerstories, but by a uniform coat of dark

A Tale of Two and SometiBarry Hannegan

Over time, great cities experience episodes of massive physical renewal, inevitably

presented as sweeping improvements to the setting and quality of the city’s life.

Rome’s Via Giulia, with its Renaissance imposition of order on a medieval city,

London’s speculative residential squares of the eighteenth century, the wholesale reg-

ularization of traffic patterns of Paris under the Second Empire, and Manhattan’s

Lincoln Center all readily come to mind as vast set pieces of planning and architec-

ture. And, yet, for every one of these, the visitor to or resident of those cities could

offer a counter image of irregularity, variety, and surprise in neighborhoods that

have simply grown and changed according to much more discrete forces. It is in just

such neighborhoods that one finds the vibrant richness of commercial enterprise that

tempts and rewards the partaker of urban life.

In addition to showing one of Pittsburgh’s major department stores, this postcard alsogives us a good idea of what the Floyd Building originally looked like (see the far right).

242 Forbes Avenue

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e9

brown paint, an entirely anti-architec-tural color when it comes to traditionalmasonry forms such as these. Ignore thecolor, and the building reveals itself as arefined, rather dry, and slightly sinisterexercise in facade design of 1896. Theentire surface, which is not all thatextensive in light of the narrow verticalwindow strips which are the chief artic-ulating element, is neatly incised with apattern of rustication, a traditional tech-nique of enlivening masonry which heregives the surface attractive crispness andscale. A solitary architectural feature ofnote is the aedicule window surround atthe center of the second floor. The streetlevel facade seems not to have sufferedmuch if any from modernization, andthe entire building, cleaned and shorn ofthe recent shrouds of panels and per-functory roll-top awnings, wouldachieve a reticent elegance.

320ForbesAvenueElegant possibly,reticent surelynot, is the build-ing that bears thename “ROYAL”across its frieze.Again, our

appreciation is limited to the upperfloor; how many reworkings the facadeat street level has undergone is anyone’sguess as is, regrettably, the originalappearance of that area. What does stillvery clearly emerge here is the vision ofa rich, festive, even slightly swaggering

building that well evokes an Edwardianflavor to counteract the prevailing dour-ness of Pittsburgh’s turn-of-the-centuryimage. The design is of real interest. Inits somewhat finicking embellishment ofalmost every architectural feature, itrecalls cast iron facades of the 1850s,but the delicacy here, much heightenedby the choice of white glazed terra cotta,is akin to the taste for eighteenth-century refinement just around 1900.The architectural vocabulary is, Isuppose, ultimately Renaissance, andthere are vague intimations of theVenetian sixteenth century. The glazingpattern in the fine, round-toppedwindows is worth noting since it repeatsin somewhat simplified form thewindows of the Chapel of the Chateauof Versailles of c. 1700. The Royal andits eye-catching companions just furtherup Forbes (nos. 322 and 330) were tohave been included in the Fifth/Forbesdemolition area, but a recent, apparentshrinking of that project fortunatelymay have saved these facades for a bet-ter fate.

307–09ForbesAvenueAlmost certainlydoomed by theproposed newcommercial cen-ter, this building,like so many ofour older, semi-neglected build-

ings, does not invite casual attention.The condition here is shabbier thanusual, and the varying treatments of thesidewalk level of the facade are a com-pendium of bad ideas. However, if youcan see through the disfiguring fireescapes to the upper floors, you will belooking at what is probably the finestexample in the downtown of archaeo-logical revivalism in architecture. Thisreasonably intact upper area is a veryclose and fine evocation of Parisiandesign of c. 1780. It may be that therewas in fact a specific model taken by

our unknown Pittsburgh architect; I donot know. However, whoever he wasand whatever his source or sourcesmight have been, his building amplypreserves the standards of the academicarchitectural practice of the earlierdecades of our century when a designer

could be fluent in a number of stylisticlanguages. Lest it be thought that adher-ence to a Classical canon limits varia-tion and creativity, we have only tocompare the use of the Ionic Order herewith its appearance on the adjacentBolan’s Candy Store at the corner ofWood and Forbes. That, too, is Ionic,and also Parisian, but it is the Paris of1900 that that delicious little cornerbuilding evokes.

804 Penn AvenueFor the sake of a bit of relief from thesebifurcated facades, we should take awalk through the Cultural Districtwhere a number of commercial build-ings of eighty and 100 years ago are stillflourishing intact, at least as far as theirfacades are concerned. This one, prob-ably built just about a century ago, is apeacock among its neighbors since it is

entirely faced in a rich grass-greenglazed terra cotta. Much the greater partof the elevation is given over to glass,either in large sheets or small panes heldby iron muntins; the terra cottaenframes all these with a delicate butsumptuous scaffolding. The sensualquality of the terra cotta is not limitedto its color; at street level, the verytexture and luster of the material invitescaresses. When did you last hug abuilding?

413 Wood StreetSince the whole point of this issue of thePHLF News is the relationship of retailvitality to architectural preservation, we end this highly selective survey offacades with an example of an idealsituation. Weldin’s stationers has been afixture downtown as far back as onecan remember. A locally owned busi-ness, it understands the market which itserves, and that is the operative word,with attention and cordiality; membersof its sales staff become acquaintancesto be saluted both in the store and inpassing along the city’s sidewalks. Andjust look at the Weldin’s building! Thepresent facade is a replacement ofaround 1905 on an earlier existingstructure. The unknown architect wasrather fashionable in his design since hegave Pittsburgh a faint but perceptibleecho of McKim, Mead, and White’sNew York Herald building of1895–1900. Whether old hat or cuttingedge, Weldin’s exemplifies the contractbetween retailer and customer, an orna-ment for the city in return for the city’spatronage.

imes Three Cities

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634 Smithfield Street

J. R. Weldin Company, stationers, at 413 Wood Street.

804 Penn Avenue (center)

P a g e 1 0 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

Somewhere in all the discussion aboutthe future of the downtown, there oughtto be a more extended consideration ofthe paucity of shopping opportunitiesfor food. The photograph to the right,probably a document of the 1950s tojudge from the prices posted on theEconomy Market and from the quaintsummer attire of the pedestrians, tells uswhat no older Pittsburgher needs to bereminded of; we could during much ofthe city’s history buy our provisions inthe downtown, more than likely instores either on Market Square as wasthe case with the Economy Market, ornearby, in McCann’s just a bit furtherdown Forbes, for example.

Since the closing of the market in onecorner of the old G. C. Murphy enter-prise, there is really no place to do one’smarketing in the center of the city. Thepresent version of Murphy’s still vendspackaged foods and household items,while several of the larger drug storesalso offer foods with long shelf lives.However, both Murphy’s and two of thelarger drug stores fall within the area tobe demolished for the new Fifth/Forbescommercial district. Their loss would beserious, leaving only Nicholas CoffeeCompany on Market Square for certaincomestibles, the dwindling food offer-ings on Kaufmann’s seventh floor, and ascattering of smaller drug and conve-nience stores as suppliers of take-homefoods. Hardly a balanced diet.

Much is being made of the possibilityof enticing people to live in the Triangle.Not much is said about where theymight do their marketing. The Strip istoo distant, for the most part, to be aviable source unless one were to go by

car. To live, say, in Firstside and to driveto Smallman Street is to make a mock-ery of city living. Until there is adequateshopping for food in the Triangle, wecan forget about developing any signifi-cant downtown population.

As a commuter passing through thecity daily on my trips between StationSquare and North Oakland, I constantlyregret the absence of an adequate greengrocer and butcher somewhere near mypoint of transfer from one bus route toanother. To be able to pause on thehomeward journey to pick up a vealchop and a bunch of water cress, orperhaps an already prepared dish of thekind abundantly offered in enterprisingfood stores, would both simplify andenrich life while providing the kind ofurban living experience that Pittsburghentirely lacks.

To Market,to Market,to WhatAvail?Barry Hannegan

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Diamond and Ferry Streets are now Forbes Avenue and Stanwix Street. McCann’sis now the Kossman Building.

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e1 1

The Diamond—also called Market Placeor Market Square at various times—waslaid out in 1784, when the Penn familyin Philadelphia had their “manor”adjacent to Fort Pitt surveyed. In themid-1790s, it became the location of thefirst Courthouse, since Allegheny Townwas not ready for its intended role ascounty seat. The Courthouse becameincreasingly jostled by the neighboringmarket stalls, was replaced in its role bya Courthouse on Grant Street in 1841,deteriorated badly, and eventually wasdemolished in 1852.

The Diamond’s character, rather openthus far despite all the building, nowchanged. Two tall market houses witharched windows stood alongsideMarket Street; Diamond Alley (laterDiamond Street and now ForbesAvenue) apparently never had passed allthe way through, and was not to do sountil the buildings of the 1850s weredemolished around 1910.

The mid-1910s saw the remarkableDiamond Market many of us remember:four isolated building masses on theground floor, two building masses,parallel to Market Street, above, with asystem of arched enclosed bridges sothat the third and uppermost floor was under one roof. This system letDiamond Street pass through the Square and intersect with Market Street.

In 1961 this peculiar structure camedown too, and yielded to not much ofanything but pleasant openness, trees,gaslights of dubious cuteness, pavementsof self-conscious variety, and a place forconcerts and rallies. With no emphaticarchitecture inside its boundary (about260 by 275 feet wall to wall), the Squareseemed rather shapeless, its surroundingbuildings of not much interest in them-selves and of no particular consistencyin height.

Two decades after the space wascleared, though, the enframing architec-

ture received some remarkable addi-tions. PPG Place, centered around a neatand despotic square of its own, arrivedto loom over one side of Market Square,this informal place of the people, as analien presence; PPG Place was begun in1979 and finished in 1984.

In 1982 or thereabouts, moreover, arefacing of the building row includingthe Nicholas Coffee Company estab-lished quite another tone. If one uses thefrozen-music image for architecture,PPG Place might be something cold andacademic, and these restaurants andstores around Nicholas somethingrather like Leroy Anderson. The tallestof these 1980-ish facades, though, havea height that seems right for the Square,say forty or fifty feet.

The terra-cotta front of Lubin &Smalley on the opposite side is fifty-sixfeet high, and one might hope that,though PPG with its more-or-lessseventy-foot heights is past prayingabout, any new construction might welllimit itself to about fifty feet.

Sometimes one wishes for some

The DiamondWalter C. Kidney

central feature to strike a grand note inthe middle of this space, where nowthere is merely an occasionally over-worked village crossroads. But the lastsuch feature, the Diamond Market, wasnot all that practical-looking. Perhaps acoherent frame to a space basicallyempty would suffice, or perhaps MarketStreet within the Square might be foundexpendable and yield to a market hallall along one side of Forbes, an attrac-tion to bus-bound workers and anincreasing number of downtownresidents.

Around 1800, when the Circuit CourtJudge came to town, he rode to theCourthouse clad in scarlet, preceded bya blind and barefoot drummer feelinghis way through the street mud. Onehopes that the character of the oldDiamond will not revert to suchextremes, but still that it will be a taste-ful yet a homely and informal place.

The Diamond and the first Allegheny County Courthouse, painted from memory after its demolition in 1852.

Market Street in 1893 looking north. A market house (left)and the City Hall of 1854 occupied the old Diamond.

The old Diamond Market was demolished in 1961.

Frozen music, classical and pop: PPGPlace (above) and the 1980-periodshops (below) on Graeme Street.

P a g e 1 2 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

The promised (or threatened, dependingon your views) revitalization of theretail situation in downtown Pittsburghserves to call attention to just howlimited and perfunctory the remainingstores are in our metropolitan core. A recent trip to New York was partlymotivated by the need to do a bit ofshopping; socks from Bloomingdale’sand a hearth rug of Kashmiri originfrom a large and elegant new Indianemporium on East Sixty-fourth Street,not to mention a new faience cup formorning coffee from a tiny, long estab-lished shop on upper Madison Avenue.

The current agitation over hoped-forappearances of Lord & Taylor,Nordstrom’s, Tiffany’s and the like,serves, too, to rustle the dry leaves ofmemory, bringing back to the light vividsnippets of what it was like to shopdowntown when it was truly the retailcenter of the tri-state region, and thecenter of a fine trolley and bus system.The rueful pleasure of this excursioninto life in Pittsburgh of a half-centuryor more ago should not obscure the coldfact that that world, with its richnessand variety so far as retail was con-cerned, is irretrievably lost. The way we(or most other Americans) live now isantithetical and actually hostile to thetradition of commercially active cities, atradition of some eight millenniaentirely repudiated and destroyed in amere generation.

Since I began writing this article onthe threshold of spring, perhaps themost relevant memory is of Horne’s andits great vernal display of floweringspring bulbs. Tulips and hyacinths,daffodils, scilla and whatever, werebanked in massed plantings throughoutthat vast street-level floor. They werenot there just for seasonal decoration; asales attendant would provide the gar-dener-shopper with an order formwhich listed every single species andvariety on view, and beside each entrythere was space where you could indi-cate how many of such and such a tulipbulb you wanted. The completed orderform (I have still one filled out by myfather some time in the late 1940s) wasreturned to the attendant, and the nextthing one knew was that the entire orderarrived from Holland in late Septemberfor planting. What could have beenmore exhilarating or easier? The experi-ence surely beat by a mile those dubi-ously tinted photographs in even thebest dealers’ catalogues, and nothingcould replace the natural perfume thatfilled the store.

Any reference to Horne’s, of course,obliges one to mention the Tea Roomwhich, in its heyday, conferred an ele-ment of glamour on the process of bothshopping and lunching. I wish I couldrecall just when it was redecorated witha rather good group of Victorian paint-ings. At that undetermined time, thoseitems would have been obtainable fornext to nothing and yet succeeded ingiving an air of comfortable richness tothe surroundings.

However, when it came to lunch, inthe years of my earliest shopping trips tothe downtown, it was to Donahoe’s thatI was taken. I think we always used theFifth Avenue entrance, and I do seem torecall a broad but steep flight of stairsthat turned ninety degrees at a landing. I certainly remember the brilliantimpression of glazed white tile revet-ments, just as I happily remember bakedham sandwiches served on outrageouslysoft white bread. That would be fol-lowed by a chocolate sundae, and thenthe stairs had to be navigated again.Vaut le voyage, without a doubt.

For a while, the first block of OliverAvenue, long since lost to PNC Plaza,was a smart little enclave. It was therethat one could stop in at the StudioShop, one of the major sources forintroducing Scandinavian design toPittsburgh in the immediate post-WorldWar II years. There were also elegantand understated examples of Japaneseceramic art, and the entire shop, at leastin retrospect, embodied the best of thespare, high-minded aesthetic of thoseyears. Perhaps the chief pleasure,though, of the Studio Shop was theopportunity to chat with its owner,Diana Kaplan, who seemed to share thesame qualities as the refined yet hospit-able merchandise her store offered.

At the very opposite pole of the shop-ping experience was Schoyer’s second-hand book store on Market Street nearFourth Avenue. The business disap-peared some while before the buildingitself, seemingly a relic of pre-Great FirePittsburgh, succumbed to the gargan-

tuan PPG complex. The store filled thefirst floor and basement of what hadsurely been a private house when new,and the arrangement of the merchandisewas little more than stacks and shelveswith narrow aisles weaving here andthere. The basement was dank enoughthat I doubt that any book stored therehad a long life. The atmosphere wouldmake present-day Skleder’s look likeBorder’s in comparison. Nevertheless,the store was a wonderful huntingground, and I still have some obsoletevolumes on Egyptian and Central

American archaeology that I foundthere. Also from that musty trove andstill on my own shelves is a group of SaxRohmer’s lurid novels, for which I had agreat appreciation. Best, perhaps, werevery early copies of the NationalGeographic Magazine, dating from atime when it was still a scholarly journalwith few if any photographs and those,of course, in black and white.

If one wanted new books, and onedid indeed, there was the book depart-ment at Kaufmann’s, presided over by

(Continued on page 14)

Memoirs of aDisgruntledConsumerBarry Hannegan

Looking down Fifth Avenue from William Penn Way, at 11:15 o’clock on a summer’smorning some forty years ago. A portion of Kaufmann’s Department Store appearsat the left, followed by Frank & Seder’s at Smithfield Street. Notice that Kaufmann’sused the roofs of its entrance marquees to stage lush jungles of summer greenery. Ithas been some time, I think, since a commercial operation in the city’s center madesuch a gesture of ornamenting both itself and the streetscape, merely for delight.

433 Fifth Avenue, probably in the early 1920s. This typical small shop front reveals the origins and meaning of the expression,“window shopping.” One can discern several pairs of spats being offered for sale, but not a single pair of jogging shoes!

P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e1 3

The staff of Donahoe’s Butter Department! Donahoe’s, with its colossal order of Corinthian columns, looking above Forbes Avenue, then DiamondStreet, in the early 1920s.

Below: Inlaid tile signage guided the shopper to the right department forvarious food stuffs. The dining room lies behind the elegantly dressed windows on the second floor. Right: Revco now occupies the ground floor of the old Donahoe’s Building.

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Why not restore Donahoe’s? The groceryand cafeteria are still fondly rememberedby many Pittsburghers.

P. T. Donahoe,owner

P a g e 1 4 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

Arthur Bergholz and Nan Husted.Nestled away under the balcony andfitted out with pecan(?) paneling andshelves, the atmosphere was ratherclubby, an ideal environment in whichto browse and to chat with any of thestaff, who were most knowledgeableand seemed to have all the time in theworld to discuss books and publishing.That department for decades had thereputation of being the best place of itskind between New York and Chicagofor book lovers; perhaps the Bibliophilescould persuade the May Company toplace a memorial plaque somewhere inthe present wilderness of ties and shirts.

If Horne’s offers a memory alwayslinked to spring, the old Kaufmann’sprovides one best appreciated on one ofour miserable winter days, the grimnessheightened in memory by the dirt anddark of erstwhile Pittsburgh. Just insidethe first floor of the department store, atthe corner of Smithfield and Forbes (ex-Diamond), there was a small nook thatheld a rack-like fixture in which weredisplayed small bunches of woodviolets. These were kept presentable bya constant mist of cool water that mustsomehow have been collected andrecycled. However, the technology wasincidental; the vision of those fragile,perfumed distillations of a world soremoved from the reality of Pittsburghin winter was nearly hallucinatory. The memory of that vision must serve—where, now, in all of WesternPennsylvania would I find fresh violets?

Memoirs of a Disgruntled Consumer(Continued from page 12)

Food, food, beautiful food, as it was displayed and sold, in Donahoe’s great first-floor market.

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P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9 P a g e1 5

by the Mayor’s office at the time.If we look at the record of the past

fifty years of demolitions, of neighbor-hood annihilations, of tragic losses ofbuildings removed for “sustainedgrowth and prosperity,” we see a recordof dwindling prosperity here, an agingpopulation, and the flight of youngpeople. Three Renaissances have notstemmed this unfortunate tide. Dr.Mehrabian’s report of several years agoto the Allegheny Conference, which sta-tistically verified how much we havebeen sinking, has been followed now bya series of further reports, all indicatingthat our skyline might look beautifulbut prosperity and growth for all ourcitizens is not occurring.

We believe that recognizing and usingour existing resources, whether it bereusing buildings or involving a muchbroader public in the planning process,will improve the fundamental economyof Pittsburgh.

I remember well when I was told theNorth Side Market House, the DiamondMarket House, the Old North Side PostOffice, and the Carnegie Library,together with hundreds of houses in theNorth Side, the Hill District, EastLiberty, and Wilkinsburg were expend-able for our “growth and prosperity.” Ilook at the tragedies of AlleghenyCenter. I look at the tragedies of the HillDistrict and of East Liberty. I listen tothe words used today to support theFifth/Forbes retail project and a numberof other projects in the city. I heard thesame words in the 1950s and the 1960s.We took an opposing position on thoseprojects then and I believe that we havebeen proven right.

The plans for Pittsburgh in 2000 arealmost identical with plans forPittsburgh in the 1950s. Our position isalso still the same. The difference is thatthere is a half century of evidence nowavailable to determine which positionhas more credibility.

We agree that downtown retail needsimproving, but we also believe that thebest way to arrive at a good solutionwould be the approach we used atStation Square:

1. Assess all of the architectural andother designed-environmentresources of the area for their valueand possible reuse, and study thehistory of the development of thearea.

2. Discuss the needs and possiblesolutions with a wide variety of

Pittsburghers who now use ormight be attracted to the retailcore.

3. Recognize that unique Pittsburghqualities will attract people, not astandard set of national stores thatmight or might not stay in businessin spite of public subsidies.

4. Attract Pittsburgh investors who,when they receive profits from thesuccessful project, will be herespending and investing their moneyin our city, not sending it to aremote and faceless headquarterselsewhere in the nation, or inEurope or Asia.

5. Allow for a variety of owners andarchitects to create genuine urbanvitality.

6. Interview a variety of developerswho have a track record in creatingsuccessful downtown revitalizationprojects, and appoint one devel-oper to implement the overall con-cept of the project, seek local andnational tenants, develop a market-ing and leasing program, and pro-vide store design assistance. Thedeveloper should be paid as resultsare produced, but does not need toown all the property.

7. Anchor the Fifth/Forbes corridorwith the restoration of the greatMellon Bank interior, a marketflowing onto Market Square—perhaps the revival of Donahoe’smarket and restaurant—and aCity-funded facade restoration program.

8. Attract successful local retailers tothe area and encourage retailers tolocate in the historic buildings aswell as in newly constructed ones.Create housing in both historicbuildings and new ones.

Such an approach, we believe, willreduce the public cost considerably andgreatly improve the chances for success-fully revitalizing the Fifth/Forbes corri-dor. The commercial element in theTriangle will grow into something new,well-suited to the modern city, yet not atotal replacement of what we haveknown.

We, as shoppers and customers, willcontinue coming to the best of the famil-iar places and we will get to know someof the new businesses. As Pittsburgherswe will enjoy the sight of familiar archi-tecture made fresh again, and our citywill continue to feel like home.

C A L LT OA C T I O NFifth and Forbes RetailDevelopment Project

Would Boston demolish FaneuilHall to build a Gap?

We believe in the future of Pittsburgh.However, we feel that there is ampleevidence from development efforts hereand across the nation in the last half-century that the future is best securedby coupling the historic resources ofour past with a vision of and planningfor the world as it may be in the nexthalf-century.

While we believe in the value of ourhistoric resources, we do not believe inthrow-back solutions, reviving the prin-ciples of projects of the 1950s that haveproven themselves failures.

In the second half of the TwentiethCentury in Pittsburgh, there were fourmajor commercial and mixed-userenewal projects, three of which wereplanned by the City, its UrbanRedevelopment Authority, and itsDepartment of Planning, and oneplanned by our organization.

The “official” renewal projects werethe gutting of North Side to constructAllegheny Center, the massive demoli-tion and street eliminations in EastLiberty, and the dream of building anArts Acropolis by demolishinghundreds of houses in the Lower Hilldistrict.

All of the official projects had theblessing of and ample funding fromlocal and Federal government; all failedto fulfill their intentions. All arehuman, economic, and architecturaldisasters.

Station Square, developed with noCity or County money, less than onemillion dollars of grant funds from theFederal government, and $4.5 millionUDAG loan funds (repaid), was fre-quently predicted to fail. But it didn’t.We reused and adapted historic build-ings in an industrial environmentwithout erasing that entire environ-ment. We capitalized on the riverfront,a concept overlooked until then, as aplace that people could enjoy. Ourwork was financed with private capitaland grants from the AlleghenyFoundation, a Scaife Family Trust,which took the big risk with us.

The results are in. When we soldStation Square in August 1994, therewere 3,000 jobs, 134 businesses, and aseries of attractions that brought threemillion visitors a year to the site, themost visited site, in fact, in WesternPennsylvania. To the City and Countythat had been asked to make no invest-ment in it, we were delivering fourmillion dollars a year in parking andreal-estate taxes, a number confirmed

If you have concerns about the

proposed Marketplace at Fifth

and Forbes, please write to any or

all of the following individuals.

Please send a copy of your

correspondence to Arthur P.

Ziegler, Jr. at Landmarks,

One Station Square, Suite 450,

Pittsburgh, PA 15219. Or fax a

copy to Arthur at 471-1633.

Governor Tom Ridge225 Main CapitolHarrisburg, PA 17120

City CouncilThe Office of City Clerk510 City-County Building414 Grant StreetPittsburgh, PA 15219

Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewLetters to the EditorStation SquarePittsburgh, PA 15219

Pittsburgh Post-GazetteLetters to the Editor34 Boulevard of the AlliesPittsburgh, PA 15222

Already lost: the historicWood Street buildingsbetween Oliver and FifthAvenues were demolished in1997 for the construction ofLazarus Department Store.$48 million of public moneywas used to develop the site for Lazarus, and thecompany refuses to tell the taxpayer investors how the department store isdoing. During the day, wehave never seen more than eighteen people on the first floor.

We Believe in PittsburghArthur P. Ziegler, Jr.

P a g e 1 6 P H L F N e w s • A u g u s t 1 9 9 9

The May Company, owners of Lord &Taylor, left its mark on Pittsburgh earlierin this century, too.

In 1927, Pittsburgh architect BennoJanssen and his partner William Cockenredesigned the first floor of Kaufmann’sDepartment Store and created—inEdgar Kaufmann, jr.’s words—a “boldart deco” masterpiece. The opening ofthe remodeled first floor in 1930 was a"spectacular unveiling . . . that resem-bled a movie premiere," according toone news account.

The multi-million dollar remodeling(new escalators alone cost one milliondollars) was an artistic and technologi-cal triumph. Edgar J. Kaufmann wrote:“The world was searched for materials,new and proper for decoration . . . . Thefinal choice fell upon stainless ‘whitebronze’ for metal work, black carraraglass for columns, the beautiful avodire[light yellow hardwood] from Africa.”

8,230 separate pieces of blackCarrara glass—forty tons—developedby Pittsburgh Plate Glass (a variation ofthe white, marble-like glass PPG hadcreated as a substitute for the famedItalian marble) encased the structuralcolumns. The tops of the columns weredecorated with strips of light that illumi-

nated and defined the edges ofeach column, rising to and

spreading across theceiling in a grid—a

“linear lightinginstallation” composed

of 10,000 Westinghouselamps.

The floor was black andbrown terrazzo—a mixtureof marble chips and tintedmortar—laid in fourteen-inchby twenty-nine inch diamonds edged with one-eighth-inch brass. A recentlyinvented metal alloy of cop-per, zinc, and nickel that was

harder than bronze andexhibited a “peculiargold-like sheen” was usedon elevator doors, the

railings around the mezzaninelevel arcade, and the frames of tenmurals, approximately seven feet byfourteen feet, that illustrated “TheHistory of Commerce,” commissioned

Two Interiors Destroyed:The May Company Déja VuAlbert M. Tannler

for the space from NewYork muralist BoardmanRobinson. Cut andengraved glass in a leaf andberry pattern was designedby French artist BernardSauveur Akoun for theArcade Grill and fabricatedby artisans from his studio.

In 1946 Kaufmann’s wassold to the MayDepartment StoresCompany; EdgarKaufmann remained presi-dent of and continued tomanage the Pittsburghstore until his death at theage of sixty-nine on April15, 1955.

Five months and twelvedays later (September 27,1955) an article in thestore’s employee newsletterdeclared “First FloorRedecorated—FamousBlack Glass ColumnsLightened”:

Kaufmann’s famousFirst Floor columns ofmarble and blackCarrara glass have beenenclosed in wood,painted and coveredwith vari-colored fab-rics in pastel shadesincluding pink, natural,turquoise, grey and off-white. The elevator banks andwalls surrounding the centralService Desk have been coveredwith grey fabric. This vast redeco-ration plan conforms with the restof our expansion program, creat-ing a light, spacious atmosphere.

Existing fixtures on the FirstFloor were refinished and the topledges have been covered withwhite rubber.

An Art Deco masterpiece and Pitts-burgh landmark was obliterated for thesake of pastel shades and white rubber.

Portions of this article were published in thePittsburgh Tribune-Review Focus magazine, March 22 and September 27, 1998.

Only bits and pieces of the 1930 design remain inKaufmann’s, downtown, to remind us how extra-ordinary the interior once was. Several of the pieceswere displayed at the Carnegie Museum of Art in“Merchant Prince and Master Builder: Edgar J.Kaufmann and Frank Lloyd Wright.” Here weshow the drinking fountain and stair railing ofstainless “white bronze” (left). Below: the elevatordoors. Right: entranceway grille.

The first floor of Kaufmann’s, downtown, designed in 1927, completed in 1930, and destroyed in 1955.

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