Tag Archives: Urban Planning

Something stinks in Pittsburgh’s Strip District

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A historic building in Pittsburgh’s Strip District is being demolished. There’s no question that demolition was the only economically viable alternative for the former Federal Cold Storage Company building. I had known about the building for decades: its giant illuminated fish had been a familiar sight that I fondly recalled from living in the city during the 1990s. In 2020, a developer found the right combination of plans and financing to convert the property from an abandoned industrial warehouse into a new mixed-use development. But first, the historic building had to be demolished.

Like me, lots of Pittsburgh residents had loved the fish sign. My attachments to the building went deeper, though. I found its industrial design and history interesting and that history dovetailed with my research interests. I have written on the history of Pittsburgh’s food-related industries and the industrial architectural and landscapes associated with it. Additionally,  I had written a history of an Alexandria, Virginia, ice plant  — a related historic property type. In 2020, I learned more about the building’s history and its roles in Pittsburgh labor and organized crime history. Continue reading →

Revive the old ones

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I came across this 1937 planning newsletter article titled “Revive the Old Ones” while working on a project in the Library of Congress. Its message is as applicable in 2014 as it was in 1937.

Planning_Nov1937

Credit: American Society of Planning Officials News Letter, Nov. 1937. Library of Congress, http://lccn.loc.gov/sf81006025.

Daniel H. Burnham and Washington’s Union Stockyards

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Earlier this month PBS aired Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City. As an architectural historian I have long admired Burnham’s work. Union Station and the Mall are incredible amenities for folks like myself living in the Washington area. My interest in Burnham, however,  goes beyond the architectural and city planning spheres. When he married Chicago Union Stockyards president John B. Sherman’s daughter Margaret, Burnham became part of the extended Allerton family, livestock entrepreneurs who profited from the shipment of most of the meat animals shipped into New York City during much of the nineteenth century.

Although Burnham never went into business with his father-in-law beyond his firm’s design of Sherman’s home and the Chicago Union Stockyards landmark gate, he did benefit from Sherman’s Chicago interests and he may have benefited from Sherman’s longtime relationship with the Pennsylvania Railroad. John B. Sherman (1825-1902) and Samuel W. Allerton Jr. (1828-1914) were cousins whose families had been in business together since the first decade of the nineteenth century. Continue reading →