Valentine's Day, Gerri and the Alcoa Building

Photo by Katy Buchanan
I don't have a photo of the Alcoa Building in my archives, but, in the spirit of Pittsburgh's mid-century renaissance, here's one of Gateway Plaza, with the Gateway 2 & 3 buildings in the background,

I took an acquaintance out for coffee on Valentine's Day.

She's 90 and has never driven. We met several years ago when I volunteered for Mt. Lebanon Village, part of a larger volunteer organization. We ran into each other at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago.

She's a nice lady, walks with a cane due to arthritis yet still gets out to do grocery shopping and lunch with other members of the group.

I remembered from our conversations of several years ago that she worked as an artist/designer for Gulf Oil and later Alcoa, back when Alcoa had just moved in to its digs in the-then new building bordering Mellon Square in Downtown Pittsburgh. (It's apartments now.)

She had such an interesting career, working for those companies designing brochures, creating messages.

She told me that when the Alcoa Building opened, one of the major innovations was that the windows opened from side to side (interiorly), not up and down, so that they could be cleaned without benefit of exterior window washers. And in some of the top-tier executive suites, the paneling was of Philippine mahogany.

It all sounded very "Mad Men." In the end, though, she was a woman who worked, cared for her son and lived the day-to-day.

And she still gets out and enjoys life.

That was a nice Valentine's Day get-together.

Goodbye to mid-century modern

Some of my favorite buildings, albeit ones that I do not (or now, cannot) visit often have come down in recent years. Or altered past their original design to be unrecognizable.

In Downtown Pittsburgh in the 1980s and early 1990s, First Federal Bank, now long since absorbed into some financial institution conglomerate many times over, had a warm, contemporary wood and brass office at the corner of Penn and Stanwix. I loved going there. The space was so minimalist and the glass and a few plants added a gorgeous slight hue of green to the space. Gone.

In Cleveland, the Garden Center in University Circle, in the same time period, (and I'm guessing it was built mid-20th century too,) had a gorgeous terrazo floored lobby, with a glass curtain hanging under a brass stairwell that was wide and curving down to a lower level that had a spacious auditorium, simply adorned. At ground level, another glass curtain wall looked out onto herb, rose and other gardens, with fountains place unobtrusively. Gone.

In Columbus, the Ohio Union, built in the early 1950s with an expansive entrance from High Street with twin staircases inside the main entry (heading up and down) and lined with brass rails has been torn down in favor (after, of course, due consideration to refurbishing-remodeling, but no, not when there is a rich alum who wants his/her name on a new building) of what has become the bland design of the present, red brick with shiny silvery trimmings and lots of space inside for fast food joints (though to be fair those had invaded the old OU as well, which had a cafeteria that in my memory resembles nothing so much as the one featured in "Animal House." Gone.

Here in Pittsburgh, development interests are pushing as hard as they can to tear down the Civic (Mellon) Arena, a groundbreaking design when in was built in the early 1960s. The Pittsburgh Penguins want to develop the site, but have warned it will "take time." Sounds to me like it will be a parking lot. Soon to be gone.

We want to be "green" here, but only when the term applies to new buildings. Which isn't very green at all.