While the Golden Triangle of Pittsburgh has a lot of great architecture, it does not have a lot of open space. And unfortunately, the highway builders got to the waterfront before the open-space planners.
However, what they do have is being renovated. Market Square is attracting new development, and even the mirror-glass curtain wall of the PPG centre is being replaced along the sidewalks (no doubt over the architect’s objection if he was still alive) so that potential customers can actually see inside.
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The historically significant Mellon Square Park (map here) is under renovation – said to be the first modernist park built on top of a parking garage, arguably one of the first ‘green roofs’. The square is surrounded by a fine collection of buildings from the early 20th-century – and one other modernist landmark: the 1953 Alcoa Building (now the Regional Enterprise Center, right). The first skyscraper with an all-aluminum façade, it was a radical building for its time with many original features, now looking worn and tired. It and Mellon Square make those of us of a certain age painfully aware of how quickly the cycle of change and decay can affect human enterprise. And humans.
There is one big exception to any criticism that downtown Pittsburgh lacks open space, and it’s a very big exception indeed: The Point.
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During the ‘Pittsburgh Renaissance’ in the 1950s, the site was cleared as part of the Gateway urban renewal project (you can see the slab office and residential towers in the centre). Here’s what it looked like before:
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Which also gives you an idea why Pittsburgh is known as the City of Bridges: 446 to be exact, three of which look to be identical in distinctive Pittsburgh yellow:
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The one closest to the stadium is closed to traffic on game days, allowing pedestrians to walk across the river and right into the bleachers. Given their redundancy, the drop in population (and presumably traffic), and the fact that Pittsburgh has the largest number of deficient bridges in the States – excessive Motordom in action – perhaps more of them will become pedestrian crossings.
One doesn’t get the sense, however, that the city is working its way toward more sustainable transportation strategies. Cycling, for instance, is growing but modest, though the city has some unique bike parking downtown: repurposed containers.
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Nonetheless, the parking lots look full:
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… and the transit insufficient. (But I welcome more informed commentary from those who actually live there.)
My favourite surprise: the waterfalls under the convention centre – brilliantly lit in LED, with a pedestrian walkway curving its way in between:
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My only regret: caught in a rainstorm and umbrella-less, I retreated before getting a chance to see the Giant Rubber Duck, here on its first visit to a North American city (more here).
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