Federal Cold Storage Building Demolition
There are several articles about the demolition of the iconic building being demolished in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.
Laura was driving so I got to be in the passenger seat taking photos.
I used to watch the curtain blow in the wind. Someone left that top right window open.
For years.
Last week I photographed the window with the moving curtain, wishing I’d had time to video it. Red lights don’t last long enough.
Then last night, the window is gone. Steve was driving. I photographed the missing window with the eerie curtain. And I photographed it again tonight as I was driving over the RD Fleming Bridge again and got a quick shot. Just like that, it’s demolished.
Almost all of our snow has disappeared this week but here’s my photo from Mt.Washington, a block from Grandview where I turned from the Duquesne Incline, Feb 26, 2015.
The demolished house structure appears to be the house in the old photo below but not for certain.
Here is the link to the Oct. 8, 1907 image I found at and got permission to show on the blog to compare the two views.
Photo Credit- Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection, 1901-2002, AIS.1971.05, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh. Thanks to the Media Curator, Miriam, for granting permission.
The facades were to be restored and preserved but looks like they’re slated for the wrecking ball.
Demolition not preservation.
What happened to the Historic Commission plan to preserve the facades?
We’ve seen lots of development lately and that’s not all bad but there sure are a lot of BOXES going up and the photographs show what we will lose when they raze this entire block.
East Liberty PA. Penn Avenue. The same block as Zeke’s Cafe with the super coffee beans. 
It’s always expensive to restore, true. But what a loss of character for the city. Lester Betsy Ross Spinets were popular instruments.
Okay I can see this former PNC bank building now empty going but what about the character and history of the rest of the buildings?
It was late when I left for home cause I went to photograph the girl’s softball game and
because the Bigelow Blvd. ramp was closed, I had to follow a lengthy detour.
I found myself in bumper to bumper traffic at a standstill on one of the most awful roads- Route 28. It is ALWAYS under construction.
And there I saw this abandoned boat along the busy highway.
It took my mind of my impatience at not being home yet, having to wait.
I wondered how it got there. To whom did it belong?
It’s like being in a coffee shop and suddenly understanding why someone writing a screenplay is sitting there, working. A snippet of conversation overheard. You write a script. You get ideas.
I heard the guy say to the woman at the next table, “You have a certain lyrical unexpectedness.” (inaudible response from her) Him again, ” I played in a bar last night.”
So what’s the story of the boat? And the next scene just a few feet later, a few more car lengths down?
or the next scene when the traffic stopped again. These scenes just make you wonder.
Or if I hadn’t been stopped, would I have seen them?
Taken with the iPhone. Through my dirty windshield. I was at the end of Birmingham Bridge ready to go up the hill onto Kirkpatrick Street to Centre.
Not ideal conditions but there were those four fireplace openings staring at me as I sat and watched the cars come down Kirkpatrick Street.
Different from my daily route, it was my old route from last year’s school but I’d gotten my hair cut on Carson Street and was headed home.
You might remember Jurassic Pittsburgh from April 2012 if you ‘ve been following for awhile. I took that shot of the dinosaur-like demolition machine on the way to my former school. Added it here at the end cause who has time to back and look. But this is the result of the demolition.
Below are the photos from April 2012 that I took on the way to my former school.
When I was a kid we piled in the car in NJ and drove to Illinois every summer. This is the route we took.
I drove it home to Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago on my way back from Columbus.
Route 40 The National Road. I pulled over to catch the autumn hues in the background hills along the way.
There were interesting and quirky scenes but this is the one that stayed with me for the time since I drove along this highway instead of the interstate.
Driving back from Braddock, I saw people on the sidewalk with cameras in hand.
Then I saw the demolition of a house taking place.
I turned a corner and parked and got out and took a few pictures.
I thought the first one the best as it showed most of the scene. But the progressive close-ups complete the story.
My son’s in-laws grew up in this part of Pittsburgh. I heard that the house had been empty for ten years.
It was sad to see it demolished even though it must have been in bad shape. Y0u wonder who lived there.
What happened that it became abandoned. You know there is a story.
*And I looked up the CASE excavator model # and it says it is 37, 700 pounds operating weight.
