Keeping an Eye on Uptown: Nov. 2019
Tag Archives: architecture
Keeping an Eye on Uptown: Introduction
Inspired by my post from this summer, I decided to start a photographic series of Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood. This neighborhood is a hodgepodge of abandoned and renovated townhomes, parking lots, car-oriented businesses, corner stores, industrial uses, and new construction residential buildings. It is predicted to be on a tipping point from being mostly ignored to experiencing intense growth fueled by activities in and around the neighborhood. These activities include:
- UPMC Mercy hospital is currently building a 410,000 sq ft vision and rehabilitation center in the middle of Uptown.
- The Penguins hockey team is supposed to be finally getting off the ground with their redevelopment of the Lower Hill neighborhood, which is adjacent to Uptown.
- June 2019 saw the groundbreaking for the CAP project to reconnect the Lower Hill to Downtown over the freeway that bisected the two in the 1960s.
- The Bus Rapid Transit system currently in the planning stage will one day connect Downtown and Oakland through Uptown.
As these projects move forward, there will likely be more investment and changes to Uptown. This photographic series is intended to capture these changes by revisiting the same sites at regular intervals over the next several years.
In the coming months, I intend to release two related series to record the progress of the CAP and the Lower Hill redevelopment.
Inclusionary Wealth
Amid writing my posts about how the wealth gap manifests itself in the built environment and the morality of unequal economic investment in cities, I took another trip to Chicago. I spent most of my stay in the downtown areas within a mile of Grant Park. I love the old stone buildings, established green parks, ornate fountains, and modern glass skyscrapers with interesting architectural embellishments. Yet this trip, I felt hypocritical as I walked around soaking it all in. All these elements that I enjoy are the result of significant financial outlay that I know is not evenly distributed throughout the city. So where was my moral indignation at this display of deeply entrenched wealth unequally spread?
Chicago’s display of wealth isn’t gaudy like Tijuana or Las Vegas. The message I absorb in places like those with their flashing lights is “come on in, so we can suck all the money out of your pockets.” Chicago businesses identified their presence on the street with regular signs leaving it up to the passers to decide whether to engage.
One bar did add a layer of enticement to their sidewalk advertising. I was searching for a place for dinner, with this bar in mind as the one that looked most appealing from Google maps. I was looking around to see if there were any other better options. The smell of the burgers from this first bar convinced me that it was the best option in that vicinity. It was only after I had sat down and ordered that I realized the smell wasn’t coming from the open window, but rather it came from pipes pumping the kitchen smells to the sidewalk. Still it was a subtle inducement and unlike flashing lights it did not have a nefarious undertone.
By pumping out the smell to the sidewalk, it also felt indiscriminate. Anyone passing was invited to enjoy. This was unlike my experience in Cardiff where if I couldn’t afford the items in the business, I felt I shouldn’t be walking past in the public space. I never felt like I didn’t belong in Chicago. There were economic barriers to certain experiences, but those places that I encountered still did not feel exclusionary. One example is the lounge on the 96th floor of Chicago’s Hancock Building. The stunning views are only accessible to those who can afford a $17 cocktail, but those who can afford one only once in a blue moon were just as welcome as those who can afford one or more every night.
In Chicago, I never saw that strong line, as in Tijuana and Cardiff, that divided those with and those without financial resources. Everywhere I went, there was a mix of people with different economic statuses, skin colors, and first languages. This diversity gave me the feeling that anyone is welcome to enjoy the well-maintained investment in public spaces with or without hitting a minimum financial threshold.
Moral Economics
The strongest impression from my last trip to Cardiff was the feeling that it is morally wrong to invest heavily in touristy neighborhoods while skipping the neighborhoods of the residents. Tourists may provide a bigger return per touch point, but residents have many more touch points (including voting). Perhaps I have become jaded since that trip, but I now accept that economics and morals rarely work together.
Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood is trying a different approach to see if economic investment can be leveraged for the greater good. Uptown experienced disinvestment and decay for decades, despite being located between and within walking distance of Oakland and downtown, two of the largest economic engines in the state. Not to mention the main roads connecting these prosperous and growing areas run directly through Uptown. Zipping down Fifth Avenue from Oakland to downtown, it is easy to overlook or ignore the ruined home foundations turning back to forest, the wide-spread vacant lots and parking lots, and the intricate architectural details on the remaining old structures.
The bland brick and glass facade on Fifth Avenue identifies this building as another mid-century warehouse. Turning the corner, the decorative parapet wall and bricked over arched opening tell the story of an older, more interesting building.
One such structure was one of the many movie theaters dotting the city in the 1920s. In the 1950s, the adjacent buildings were demolished, and an addition was added to the theater to turn it into a storeroom. After a time as a plasma center in the 1980s and 1990s, the building sat vacant and dusty for many years. Now, it is undergoing renovations for its next life. This is just one of the many signs that investment is coming to Uptown.
The community of Uptown that held on through the economically rough times prepared for this moment. In collaboration with many partners, including local institutions such as Duquesne University and UPMC Mercy as well as the City of Pittsburgh, the community created a new neighborhood plan. This designated Uptown and West Oakland as an EcoInnovation District. One of the first actions from this plan developed a new zoning district, the first progressive zoning district in Pittsburgh. The goal of the plan and the zoning district is to leverage the coming economic investment to create an inclusive and environmentally sustainable neighborhood.
It will be interesting to watch this neighborhood over the next few years to see if the plans are successful at introducing some moral components to the economic investment.
Building the Bridge
I’ve walked numerous bridges and yet I didn’t try building a bridge until my fifth Architectural Dessert Masterpiece. After the near disaster of the skyscraper, this one succeeded beyond my best hopes. With a deck made of shortbread, piers of pretzels, and a non-structural suspension system of wafers and Twizzlers, this one was so structurally sound that it was a challenge to split it into serving pieces.
Reaching for the Heights
After having tackled dome-making, I decided it was time to try a skyscraper. The Marina Towers in Chicago fascinated me with their double uniqueness, which I decided to imitate in a dessert. My brilliant idea for pulling this off was to make one large, thin brownie sheet, cut out circles, stack, and ice. In theory, by far the easiest Architectural Dessert Masterpiece yet. That theory overlooked the fact that brownies, like cakes, cupcakes, and other desserts, raise more in the middle than they do at the edges of the pan. Cutting out the circles that had flat bottoms, but tilted tops, I thought I could stack them in a way to counterbalance the unevenness…I was still trying for a quick, easy masterpiece.
At first, it appeared I had succeeded, until I turned the cake around and found I had brought Pisa to Chicago…
P.S. Somehow it managed, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, to stay upright until my friends arrived and helped me devour it.
Harrisburg: Coal or Gem
I didn’t understand the pitying looks I received when I announced my fall vacation to Harrisburg. Now that it is over, I still don’t understand.
As a capital city, the downtown is quiet on the weekends, but the neighborhoods are still full of people. Even on a chilly, sleepy Sunday morning, joggers, bikers, and walkers enjoy the fresh air along the riverfront park that is part of the 20-mile Harrisburg Capital Area Greenbelt Trail. Sculptures dot the public spaces and art coats the fire hydrants and signal control boxes. Beautiful and intriguing architecture abounds. A former theater houses the largest used bookstore I’ve ever visited. Across the street, the Broad Street Market is filled with vendors of such mouthwatering temptations as Amish baked goods, hot Indian food, exotically flavored ice cream, fresh baked pretzels, and more.
A relatively compact and walkable city, I find surprising gems each time I visit Harrisburg.
Sacred Row
This is a fascinating structure I discovered on the South Side Flats. A friend and I were going around the neighborhood looking at adaptively reused church buildings. While going from one building we knew of to another location, we stumbled upon this building. From what I’ve pulled together so far, this building was built sometime between 1876 and 1884 as four rowhouses. In 1926, the Second Greek Catholic St John the Baptist Church of the South Side purchased the property. The deed described the structure as four 4-room houses. When the Second Greek Catholic St John the Baptist Church sold the property in 1959, the deed described the property as four 2-story brick party wall houses.
However, when you look at the side of the building facing 23rd St, it appears that at one time, this property was used as a church. The middle of the three boarded up openings on this side looks like it used to be a door for an entrance into a church that has been partially bricked up. From this I assume that while the Second Greek Catholic St John the Baptist Church owned the property, they renovated to use as their place of worship with a main front door and two windows.
I look forward to learning more about this structure and its history. I suspect there is an interesting story that connects this building to the 1st St John the Baptist Greek Church which is still in operation at the corner of E Carson St and 7th and the 2nd St John the Baptist Greek Church that set up just down the block at 615 E Carson St before moving to Jane St. From the pieces I’ve found so far there was a severe split in the South Side congregation that involved boycotts and arrests of arguing members and former members. I’m not sure yet how this rowhouse/church may have fit into that struggle.
Conquering the Dome
Shortly after facing the dilemma of how to create a dome for my Blue Mosque Architectural Dessert Masterpiece, I saw an gingerbread creation of Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral which used rice crispy treats to form the shape of the domes of this cathedral. I held onto this idea for almost a year in preparation for my Third Annual Architectural Dessert Masterpiece.
For this one, presented and eaten December 2012, I chose St. Paul’s Cathedral. First, because it has the perfect dome for trying the rice crispy method. Second, because St. Paul’s was a significant part of my trip to London earlier in the year. I experienced a wonderful view of the City despite minor issues with heights and major issues with claustrophobia. I successfully climbed to the top of St. Paul’s (at least as high as they allow tourists to go) and made it back down again. The first flights of stairs to come back down were particularly challenging as they were very narrow and steep with very short ceilings–it reminded me of the first and last time I went caving as part of a school trip in 8th grade, where I somehow managed to crawl through impossibly small places. The praise of my teacher, Mr. Wolfe, from that occasion was essential in helping me make it down the stairs at St. Paul’s. Thanks, Mr. Wolfe, you were my hero this time!!
In making my St. Paul’s Cathedral Architectural Dessert Masterpiece, the design was influenced by the memory of how long it took to create the Gingerbread Blue Mosque. I determined to take a quicker route this time around by baking sheet cakes and cutting them out in the shape of St. Paul’s. Again, I referred to my textbook from my Western Architecture course (see Parthenon Cake post) to determine what the appropriate proportions were in cutting out the shape of the Cathedral. To approximate the proportions in height, I made a double layer cake, plus additional layers at the towers and dome.
The dome was made using the rice crispy treat method, which ended up being much more challenging than I anticipated due to the stickiness of rice crispy treats. It did not work to try and shape the dome in my hands. I ended up using wax paper to form the shape, but found the rice crispies still stuck to the wax paper, but not as badly as to my hands. Then, I frosted the whole creation, using chocolate frosting as an accent color to suggest the different color of the domes (including those on the front towers) from the rest of the building. I also used the chocolate frosting to indicate the break in design from the lower and upper portions of the exterior walls. Chocolate Crunch Bells were used for the small domes on the front towers.
This one was easy to cut like a normal cake for eating and tasted quite good.
The World’s Tallest Church Building
Everything in Chicago is stretched–even churches. My eye was caught by this building as I looked to cross a street in Chicago and saw the steeple on top of this skyscraper a couple blocks down. I was very confused at first, trying to figure out why an office building had a steeple on top of it. Then I saw the name of the church, First United Methodist Church, carved into the side of the building. The only other indication on the exterior visible from a distance that suggested the religious use of the interior was the doorway.
This building is also known as the Chicago Temple. The congregation was founded in 1831 and has been worshiping at this site since 1838. The current building was built in 1924 and has 23 floors.
One of my souvenirs from Chicago was the book “City of the Century” by Donald L. Miller, which describes the history of Chicago up to the 1893 World’s Fair. So it doesn’t talk about the building of this church building, but it does describe the building of the Auditorium–Chicago’s multipurpose Opera House. The book notes “there was no government support of the arts in the United States, so the Auditorium would have to pay for itself” (361). As a result the theater was enclosed in a office/hotel complex.
It seemed like there might have been similar thinking in the design of this church building–as real estate was expensive downtown, covering the church with office space could help it afford its location. However, if that is why the building is mixed-use, it was not inspired by the Auditorium, which was built in the late 1880s. According the history page of the church’s website, there has been a multipurpose church building on this site since 1858. The first one was a 4-story structure with stores and businesses on the first two floors and the church above.
The new building has a two-story sanctuary on the first floor. Accounts differ as to how many this can hold (500, 1000, 1200 people). The second floor has another smaller sanctuary. Floors three and four hold the accessory rooms–classrooms, meeting rooms, etc. The parson’s house is also located in the building. The remaining floors are office space. The crowning jewel, is a small chapel underneath the steeple.
I regret that I did not take the time to stop and investigate whether I could explore the inside of the building. As I was focused on a specific task when I came upon the building, I did not even think about trying to see inside. If you are interested, I found a YouTube video that shows what I take to be the first floor sanctuary and the small chapel under the steeple.
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