Lost Historic Buildings of Pittsburgh (Demolished)
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- čas přidán 4. 11. 2010
- For more Pittsburgh Photo Tours, visit: historicpittsburgh.blogspot.com
These are Pittsburgh's lost buildings. They are the ghosts of Pittsburgh's romantic, historic past. We can't visit them now. We can only be haunted by the everlasting effects of "progress" that deemed these buildings disposable. The next time you walk down Smithfield Street, remember the Old Post Office and City Hall. All we have in their place is a parking garage and a small black building that looks like a shoebox.
"Urban Renewal" efforts of the 1950s and 1960s attempted to remold America's old urban city centers into suburban-like office parks, and in the process destroyed countless irreplaceable historic buildings and neighborhoods forever.
To put a wrecking ball through a beautiful piece of history is a travisty. In 5th grade i have vivid memories of going in the 100 yr old audotorium,to see shows at school,i remember the huge red velvet curtains, the beautiful woodwork, the marvalus wooden red velvet seats. At the age of 5 i don't remember 1 show i saw, but oh how i remember the huge building. When i was 7, i sat at the park across the street & watched a huge wrecking ball bust it to dust in 5 minutes.
I agree, something is lost when this happens.
That is really sad, it's too bad that the U.S cities. can't be more like European cities that treasure and respect their unique and beautiful architecture. Once it's gone, it's gone, and can never be replaced.
maynardcat how is that a European thing? Every nation preserves some of their buildings its not a European thing.
Yep, we should be more like Europe who demolished the entire historic city of Immerath including the Church of St. Lambertus which not only was in perfect condition, but was the only known example of a church from that era with a twin bell tower façade for the purpose of building a coal strip mine. 🙄
There are plenty of American cities that still have old historic buildings and have had many restored.
Cities in America are not highly valued because American culture is about the suburbs.
so sad, I know the town I from in Wisconsin did a lot of that "urban renewal" crap in the 60's and 70's fortunately people in Oshkosh had some brains and stepped in and put a halt to a lot of the destruction that was going on. What people fail to understand is that everytime we do this we loose a bit of history everytime, sure you could tear down a building and rebuild it exactly the same if you wanted to, but the one crucial part you can not recreate is the lives that were lived in these buildings the joy, the sadness the, heartache. Thank god for preservation committees and the national register of historic places.
I agree with you totally.
This video made me really, really sad. It's so devastating to see the architecture like this going to waste only being replaced with modern glass and concrete jungle... :/
The one building they could have saved in my mind was the North Side Market House. What a wonderful building with character! With the stadiums and development making its way to the North Side 35 years later, it would have been a destination location for unique shopping experiences, much like the strip district offers. It makes me sad every time it see it. Parking or lack thereof killed that building.
The downtown Diamond Market House was another gem. Also gone, replaced by a park.
Jenkin's Arcade was the very first Indoor Mall in the World, And it was torn down . We used to Love roaming around inside admiring all the different stores . I know buildings become brittle and need torn down . But most can be preserved !
JD there were some astounding structures demolished! Thanks. Sad.
I get you cant save everything but some of these building were amazing.
Perfect example of destroying history. Unbelievable the damage done here.
Wow! This is terribly sad! So many beautiful structures! Unreal!
This made me so sad to see what has been torn down before I was even born in 1965. I have visited Pittsburgh alot as a kid & through my adult life, & in those 50 odd years the city has changed dramatically, & not always for the better, as far as I can tell. Wiping out working-class neighborhoods & replacing them with more modern (& higher priced) condos & apartment buildings is such a shame. I loved when some of those neighborhoods had more cultural flavor, rather than being loaded with a bunch of yuppies. I'd planned to retire in Pittsburgh, but slowly over the last 15 years, every neighborhood that I liked & could have afforded to live in has changed SO much. Plus the places I could afford are now way out of reach for me to rent. It's a shame.
As much as was demolished in Pittsburgh quite a bit does still remain . It’s often used now in period piece movies because it does retain a lot of its old buildings . But many of those old buildings just couldn’t be renovated / updated to modern useful buildings . They were never built for the mechanical requirements of todays buildings
Beautiful reminisce of what made Pittsburgh!
Thank You.
The reason there are not beautiful artitechure today is because we don't have the craftsman like they did in the 1920,s and 1930,s and I am just 11. And I wish I had a foundation and dont, destroy old beautiful buildings!!!!!!!!
And architects!
I’m totally agree with you! It’s always sad that those magnificent historical buildings are torn down and replaced by some lifeless stupid skyscrapers or worst CARPARks!
Gniam Jin Hong Smash those old buildings down, they are fookin shite!
FrostGaming I disagree. These old buildings were cold, damp, and didn't meet modern building codes. Smash them to pieces and replace with better construction.
It is also a political calculation. Globalism and its architectural foreshadwoing in the International Style is all about cutting people off from their roots, history and culture.
Back in the days when a parking lot was more lucrative than maintaining a "gawdy" old building. We've almost learned our lesson since then.
Great video! Sad to see such cool deco buildings replaced with trash.
Allentown, PA -- yes. They demolished a large section of the historic downtown business district. Google the "center city" development in Allentown.
Very sad to see the loss of so much on the Northside during the 1960's. This must never be repeated.
oh don't worry, buildings like this will probably never be emulated again. The best we can hope for at this point is to keep the ones we still have!
thanks, amazing so many archetectural maevels been gone so long
the wabash terminal and the exposition hall should certainly have been left alone,and I really hate that the point bridge(1927-1970) was demolished,Pittsburgh has lost much of its character.As far as more ''modern''buildings go,I love the Koppers building and the Gulf building.Thanks for these photos,I enjoyed seeing this.
Well done video.
It would have been nice if the before and after pics were in this video.
Great video. Awesome message. I thought the Wabash Terminal burned down?
There were some really nice buildings in there. It's a shame that we are losing this physical connection to the past.
These building have a dirrerent character form todays architecture. Beautiful
its a shame as so many of these buildings would be iconic structures in the city today! Especially the post office, city hall, and wabash building
Please correct me if I'm wrong but I think the Nixon Theater was demolished after 1965 when my family moved to Pittsburgh. I saw "The Sound of Music" movie there, upper balcony.
Correctamundo. Nixon Theater was there when I left the burgh in 1968.
You are wrong. The Sound of Music played at another spectacular theater- The Warner on Fifth Avenue, demolished and replaced by Warner Center. You gotta see it to believe how bad it is. (I saw the Sound of Music there also)
Hmmm. I was a kid but somehow remember being on the 2nd balcony looking at Maria twirling around! I guess I wouldn't be a good witness in court if I were called to swear to this!
Just Having Fun Maybe I'm wrong and the SOM played at both theaters.
I specifically remember seeing it at the Warner. It was a double date, and the mother of the girl in the other couple was our chaperone and driver. The Warner had a balcony but not a second balcony. (We had dinner at Stauffer's)
I was born in '57 and I saw The Sound of Music at The Nixon. I'm sure of it. I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I think. I had forgotten about The Warner, khc161. If I'm not mistaken, I think I saw Elizabeth Taylor's, Cleopatra, there. Streisand's Hello Dolly, too. "Dahntahn" was for special movies. Everything else, I saw in the long-gone, sweet Crafton Theater.
This is a great video, they are tearing another one down as I type ,, behind PPG place
This is shameful. Once destroyed, these treasures are gone. When they were tearing down the mansions on the Northside, my dad fished out a beautiful leaded glass door...from the trash! He said there were no intact stained glass windows because they were just being broken out!
Many of the photographs originate from the Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections. This project is a collaboration of the University of Pittsburgh, the Heinz History Center, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and many other local libraries and historical societies. New images are added every few months. (I was unable to post the link as part of comments.)
In Minneapolis we have also had many cool old buildings demolished for modern monstrosities! I would of liked to visit those old buildings in Pittsburgh but all we have now is pictures and postcards or maybe silent movies if we are lucky.
When our country rips down our history it always makes me cry.
+Dawnten 2015 Yes it is sad. At least St. Paul has kept most of their old buildings and now the city is getting more visitors
Randy The Wild Horse The last time I was through St. Paul it was beginning to snow and beautiful.
In the future I will visit there more often and ignore Downtown Minneapolis because now its very boring there.
cool music, what is the name of the band?
Radio Dept.
It would of been nice if you showed what replace these demolished buildings.
The Courthouse and old jail are still downtown. The old jail which is connected to the courthouse via the bridge of sighs has been converted into Family Court, but the outside remains the same. The old morgue behind the county office building is still there and in use. The outside remains untouched but inside has become the administration building for Allegheny County Health Department.
I'll put in a word for the Duquesne Garden, which was torn down around 1956.
@SMINERD I think the inside of it burned, but the structure was still intact. That is the event to preceeded the Gateway Center plan.
It was the mindset/social values of the era when these buildings were torn down, that contemporary buildings were new technology, w/vintage never "in vogue" at that time. Progressive construction makes sense in general terms, however today, vintage is recognized as an art form and valued as such, also as a form of recycling, responsibly valued in 2024. Sad to say, is that all that is/was lost, can never be brought back to be admired for its grand stately presence and sturdy old school construction. Realistically not all could have been saved from era specific urban evolution requiring upgraded social services.
It is appalling the destruction that was done to American cities especially in the 50s and 60s in the name of "urban renewal". I visited Pittsburgh in 1968 - I probably wouldn't recognize it now.
The old post office being replaced by an ugly metal parking garage is almost too hard to bear. Downtown could have been an incredible place to live, work, and shop, and now it's a wasteland.
@beyondtheforest
The fire at the Wabash terminal was quite coincidental and providential to Pittsburgh.
The city wanted to tear down the buildings but couldn't acquire the property. Once the buildings burned, the city condemned them and built Gateway Center.
what is this Gateway Center
Thye're not clear-cutting Allentown are they? I was there not that long ago and I thought they still had a nice collection of buildings downtown even after the loss of the Hess dept. store buidling. They just needed a little TLC.
Exactly
Agreed. Other examples include the decision to demolish a huge chunk of the East Wheeling Historic District in Wheeling, WV, and the also demolish most of the downtown business district in Allentown, PA.
Wow that's sad
greed combined with shortsighted stupidity rules the world, more and more!!!
Most of these buildings were torn Down in the 50s they were probably not replaced with shopping malls
Depressing and sad.
It's disgusting how this city destroys history and beautiful architecture to put up UGLY buildings.
Sad😢...historic architecture is something to be revered. Not simply condemned and demolished, only to be replaced by another cookie cutter office tower, "mixed-use" mega apartment structure or worse yet ~a parking lot. Oh the great architecture and history America has lost😢😢
There's a building in Canary Wharfe East London, built in 1980's, but looks like these buildings in Chicago or New York. Has period charm but plans are to demolish the substantial building for something utterly bland. London is going through a phase of demolition of anything 1980's. Including Post Modern architecture. English Heritage have saved a large post-modern house from destruction.
Wrong right off the bat. The first city hall was demolished and replaced by a W. T. Grant. It did not become Sak's until much later, probably the late 70s or early 80s.
I think it is a crime to destroy these buildings that are works of art, and they are irreplaceable ... and they are part of the history of the city
If this came out a few years later civic arena would be on this list
This used to be a nice place to live...
It still is
the more they do in pgh the worst it gets, It is a sin to tear down history..
A damn shame..many could have been refitted...but that was the 50's and 60's
New is MODERN..
Well, alot of the new structures ( In EVERY large city in the U.S.)
Are now being demolished and were disliked from the start..
Except for some effort to build something new useful to the Pittsburgh's community, as it could be a new campus, I see in the big part of the demolitions above the consequences of someone's greed and bribing. Am I wrong?
Here, in Sassari, Sardinia, in another part of the world, we had the same problem, and still we have got 'em.
Sad.
when beauty was important in design....
tearing a little bit
So sad
Why the hell would they do such a thing?
"THOSE WHO IGNORE HIS HISTORY UNDERSTAND NOR THE PRESENT NOR FUTURE."
So sad! They were so beautiful buildings. Why you don´t respect history and old architecture? :(
The Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi___ Great song.
But this the way that is going, maybe faster then we would like. It is all about the dollar. What a shame.
Try Joni Mitchell, 1970.
Counting Crows covered it 32 years afterward.
I thought the Civic Arena took destroyed the Hill District?
The Civic Arena is one of those buildings that should have NEVER been touched. I know money changed hands somewhere, and that's why it happened. I am so sick of greed running everything... and I do mean... EVERYTHING.
Randy, The Lazy Comic Ok Randy. And WHAT exactly would your plan have been for the Civic Arena? It was in shit shape and once Consol was built there was no need for two multi-purpose arenas across the street from one another. It WAS a building plain and simple. it was 50 years old. HARDLY a historic landmark. People around here want to designate EVERYTHING a historic landmark that's 50 years old. It's a joke. They tore down the Forum in Montreal, Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Chicago Stadium and several others that had a much richer history than the Igloo.
William Wheeler The arena was the first of that type of arena in the world, which made it worth saving. I agree, the city saves way too much crap as HISTORIC, but some things should be kept. The arena's history is much more than just the shitty pens.
The Pens play good... The Civic Arena was a shithole... Good riddance.
Now its time to work up Centre Ave and either renovate or demolish all those crapholes too.
Did you see what is happening in Lawrenceville? Its coming back and the rifraf can't afford to live there any more. YAY!
It took a century to build it but less than 2 decades to tear it all down.
Such beautiful and large buildings! This happens all over the country. This is why we are running out of space for our trash. This is why we are running out of resources. This is why the planet is dying.
This really needs to
Wabash terminal is the biggest crime to me, but I don’t think I ever saw the picture you used, all the ones Id seen had the domed top the Wikipedia picture has
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabash_Pittsburgh_Terminal
That's what I mean by 'almost' There are still bad decisions being made to this day such as the razing of half of Brantford, Ontario's well preserved downtown in 2010 for an unplanned future development. The mayor literally said the worst thing they could do was have a plan. It's all driven by greed.
How long did it take the geniuses to realized that they were replacing these jewels with crap. I don't think the "leaders" could differentiate between beauty and smoke, so they got rid of both. But it's still an amazing place, as it processes armies of po'boys for New York and L.A..
Pittsburgh started disappearing in the 80's. You wouldn't like Pittsburgh very much as it is today.
Pittsburgh's population in 1960 was 686,000. That's more than twice what it is today. It was the third biggest corporate HQ in America back then. Even if those buildings were still standing, they'd be as empty as Detroit's abandoned railway station. And, as far as those areas near the Point, the Wabash Terminal burned before it was torn down, and that area is a flood plain. It is far better suited as a beautiful park that has become the signature of our home town. Yes, much of the urban renewal was a failure (East Liberty was destroyed), but Mellon Square, the Point, and many other projects were great successes. And a city exists for its people, and not for architectural fetishists. HP is great, but a city is, first and foremost, a living thing.
*population in 1950 was 686,000.
Population of the city might be halved but the city itself is a pretty small percentage of the whole metro, and not only is it still a major corporate headquarters, but many people are moving back in and renovating the old buildings. Plus there is international migration due to all of the universities and their spin-off companies.
St Peter Church in lower hill demolished in sixties
build them all back as they were
It amazes me how we constantly replace masterpieces which are beautiful and meant to last with junk that is inferior, throwaway, but larger. Our cities are sterile wastelands built for automobiles with people as only an afterthought. I hate to see the great old buildings wasted wantonly especially since we no longer have the architectural talent and the building techniques to even approach the quality of what we are losing. For the most part, architects are arrogant drones so indoctrinated into a corner that the only thing they can design is the same old Marxist glass box. Every once in a while someone pretending to be daring will lop off a corner or something, but its still the same damn box everywhere, all covered with that mirror glass all reflecting all the other nearby glass boxes ad-barfeum. In an alleged college town near here (Ann Arbor) the university that proclaims itself an apostle of the "New Urbanism" is ripping down historic superior buildings like they think they will grow back. In their place rise medical and academic ghettos housed in buildings cleverly designed to be as bland and goofy as possible. New urbanism is supposed to use diversity in use and historic human-scaled buildings to produce a lively human-scaled environment. This is not being practiced anywhere I know of. I wish I just didnt give a damn like most people.
WOW! I AM SO RIGHT!
Brian Jensen older historic buildings were built better and stronger, also art deco. Comparing two high end hotels in pittsburgh 2010 Fairmont and 1916 William Penn. It shows how much more work they did on the older buildings and how much better they were. they dont make them like this anymore. Save the older buildings
patricknedz There is a series of wonderful photos of the construction of the William Penn, from start to finish. Will see if I can find them as I just viewed them the other evening.
Charlene Vanness Here is the link. go to browse images and you can view them all. William Penn is near & dear to my heart.digital.library.pitt.edu/images/pittsburgh/wmpennhotel.html
Couldn't agree with you more. At least some of the old great american cities (like Pittsburgh) have retained some of those glorious old buildings built by the great industrialists of the past. Where I live, Toronto, they managed to gut every last one of them and replaced them with dullest most sterile crap this side of Siberia. Pittsburgh is beautiful, but one thing I didn't like was the lack of foot traffic downtown; they destroyed some of the residential districts downtown that would have added some colour and vibrancy to some of the stately buildings one finds there.
Smash down a historical structure for a parking lot? Develop a subway system instead.
people...
i hate point state park it wouldve been better if atleast like 3 old buildings were kept
What about Chinatown?!?!?
Two words....east liberty... enough said....
They did the same "urban renewal " bullshit in Dodge City Kansas
Civic Arena is next.
flightsimulatorace The Civic Arena was an old shit hole.
You forgot the Syria Mosque.
what? oh no.
You forget the old vestiges in Iraq destroyed by Pentagon terrorists in their bombing 'campaign'!
And as we speak , they are still demolishing buildings. :(
~ Disgusting ~
What would Saint Andrew Carnegie do?
D=
Aww this is Terrible
Hey, I know. Let's all live in caves. After all, they're beautiful and constructed well.
Where is, arguably, the most horrible of the demllitions, Syria Mosque?
Sad.