Long Description:
The 20-story Frick Building, SW. corner 5th Ave. and Grant
St., designed in Neoclassic style by D.E. Burnham & Co. of
Chicago and erected in 1904 by Henry Clay Frick, the coke magnate
and steel master, has a main lobby embellished with a stained-glass
window, Fortune and Her Wheel, by John La Farge.
Frick laid the foundations of his fortune through the
establishment of coke ovens. By the time he was 30 he had amassed
$1,000,000. His vast coke and railroad interests eventually brought
him into association with Andrew Carnegie, the steel king. Their
relationship was marked by intermittent conflict over labor
policies and business management. Shortly after the bloody
Homestead strike of 1892 Frick was shot and stabbed, though not
fatally, by Alexander Berkman, an anarchist. Frick died in 1919
leaving an estate valued at $120,000,000.
--- Pennsylvania, A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940
From
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frick_Building">Wikipedia:
"The Frick Building is one of the major distinctive and
recognizable features of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United
States. The tower is named after Henry Clay Frick, an industrialist
coke producer who created a portfolio of commercial buildings in
Pittsburgh.
The tower was built directly adjacent to a building owned by
Andrew Carnegie, on the site of Saint Peter Episcopal Church. Local
legend states that Frick, who is rumored to have feuded with
Carnegie after they split as business associates, had the building
designed to be taller than Carnegie's in order to encompass it in
constant shadow.
The Frick Building was completed in 1902 and originally had
twenty floors. A leveling of the surrounding landscape that was
completed in 1912 caused the basement to become the entrance, so
some sources credit the building with twenty-one stories. It rises
330 feet (101 meters) above Downtown Pittsburgh. Its address is 437
Grant Street, and is also accessible from Forbes and Fifth
Avenues.
The building's architect was D.H. Burnham & Company.
The top floor includes a balcony around the perimeter of the
building, a high, handcrafted ceiling, and heavy, elaborate brass
door fixtures. Originally, H.C. Frick used it as his personal
office and as a meeting place and social club for wealthy
industrialists. On the 19th floor was Frick's personal shower. At
the time, no other shower had been built that high above ground
level, because water could not easily be pumped that high with the
technology of the time. The shower, non-functioning, still exists
on the 19th floor today. The 20th and part of the 19th floors are
now used as offices for Carnegie Learning."
From the City of Pittsburgh
"http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/wt/html/frick_building_-_1901-_02.html">web
site:
"The construction of the Frick Building, a severe Greek
Classical structure of steel encased in limestone and granite,
marked the beginning of corporate dominance on Grant Street. The
columns at the base were originally at street level before the
lowering of "the Hump", the steep hill at Grant Street and Fifth
Avenue, in 1912. The lowering of the entrance made the marble lobby
even more impressive by making it two stories tall. Daniel Burnham
and Company, a nationally-known Chicago-based firm, designed a
total of seventeen buildings in Pittsburgh - many commissioned by
Henry Frick, the coke and steel magnate - including the Union
Station at Grant Street and Liberty Avenue.
The lobby of the Frick Building is a two-story, T-shaped space
sheathed in white marble and designed in the Beaux Arts Classical
style. Contrary to the effect at the Courthouse, the lowering of
the lobby floor caused by the lowering of Grant Street in 1913
created a more impressive space than the original lobby, which was
at the level of the elevator mezzanine. In the front section of the
lobby, the ceiling is coffered with boldly veined marble panels,
and striking marble stairs climb both sides to the mezzanine.
The American sculptor Alexander Proctor created the bronze lions
in the front windows. The rear lobby, which extends from Forbes to
Fifth Avenue, is presided over by a marble bust of Henry C. Frick,
the industrialist who commissioned the building.
The stained glass window, which has been damaged in the past,
was designed and made by the noted artist John LaFarge."