Lost Historic Buildings of Pittsburgh (Demolished) 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 !

I get you cant save everything but some of these building were amazing.

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.

Perfect example of destroying history. Unbelievable the damage done here.

JD there were some astounding structures demolished! Thanks. Sad.

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!!!!!!!!

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

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.

Beautiful reminisce of what made Pittsburgh! Thank You.

Allentown, PA -- yes. They demolished a large section of the historic downtown business district. Google the "center city" development in Allentown.

Great video! Sad to see such cool deco buildings replaced with trash.

Very sad to see the loss of so much on the Northside during the 1960's. This must never be repeated.

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.

There were some really nice buildings in there. It's a shame that we are losing this physical connection to the past.

Well done video.

thanks, amazing so many archetectural maevels been gone so long

Great video. Awesome message. I thought the Wabash Terminal burned down?

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

It would have been nice if the before and after pics were in this video.

what is this Gateway Center

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!

cool music, what is the name of the band?

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.

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.)

These building have a dirrerent character form todays architecture. Beautiful

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.

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.

This is a great video, they are tearing another one down as I type ,, behind PPG place

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.

It would of been nice if you showed what replace these demolished buildings.

@SMINERD I think the inside of it burned, but the structure was still intact. That is the event to preceeded the Gateway Center plan.

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.

@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.

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.

I'll put in a word for the Duquesne Garden, which was torn down around 1956.

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.

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.

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😢😢

Most of these buildings were torn Down in the 50s they were probably not replaced with shopping malls

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

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.

So sad! They were so beautiful buildings. Why you don´t respect history and old architecture? :(

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.

Exactly

It's disgusting how this city destroys history and beautiful architecture to put up UGLY buildings.

Wow that's sad

If this came out a few years later civic arena would be on this list

Why the hell would they do such a thing?

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.

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..

"THOSE WHO IGNORE HIS HISTORY UNDERSTAND NOR THE PRESENT NOR FUTURE."

It took a century to build it but less than 2 decades to tear it all down.

the more they do in pgh the worst it gets, It is a sin to tear down history..

when beauty was important in design....

Depressing and sad.

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.

Pittsburgh started disappearing in the 80's. You wouldn't like Pittsburgh very much as it is today.

I thought the Civic Arena took destroyed the Hill District?

This used to be a nice place to live...

greed combined with shortsighted stupidity rules the world, more and more!!!

tearing a little bit

Sad.

So sad

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.

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'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.

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

This really needs to

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.

Smash down a historical structure for a parking lot? Develop a subway system instead.

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.

i hate point state park it wouldve been better if atleast like 3 old buildings were kept

What about Chinatown?!?!?

St Peter Church in lower hill demolished in sixties

Two words....east liberty... enough said....

Civic Arena is next.

people...

They did the same "urban renewal " bullshit in Dodge City Kansas

You forgot the Syria Mosque.

And as we speak , they are still demolishing buildings. :(

What would Saint Andrew Carnegie do?

~ Disgusting ~

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.