A peek into private places
Doors Open Pittsburgh provides free tours of landmarks
On the 48th and 47th floors of Downtown’s BNY Mellon building, the marble foyer, gold carpets, British watercolors and spectacular views speak of old, Gilded Age money in the executive suite, board room and dining room.
From their oil portraits, four Mellon masters of the universe watch over some of these elegant spaces. There’s the man with the mustache, Andrew W., secretary of the U.S. Treasury and founder of the National Gallery of Art; Richard King Mellon, a driver of the city’s first renaissance; philanthropist Richard Beatty Mellon, who funded East Liberty Presbyterian Church and the bank’s founder, Judge Thomas Mellon. The Grant Street building may be called BNY Mellon, but there is no mistaking who led the original financial enterprise.
Over the weekend, hundreds of people were expected to tour those rooms and 39 other sites during Doors Open Pittsburgh, a two-day event that allows free access to architectural landmarks and normally private spaces.
Instead of making a reservation or obtaining a ticket, visitors downloaded a map with all 40 sites from doorsopenpgh.org, chose which buildings to tour and showed up.
are familiar with Doors Open, having visited buildings in North Grenville, a community south of Ottawa.
“We get into places that we never get to see,” Mrs. MacMillan said, adding that they also toured embassies in Toronto because of a Doors Open program there.
As he greeted visitors in the main room of Dollar Bank on Fourth Avenue, Archivist Robert Presutti told them that for many years, a live Christmas tree was hung from the massive brass chandelier that illuminates the vast space.
Inside First Lutheran Church on Grant Street, Emily Weimer of Point Breeze showed people how to ring three bells called faith, hope and love. The bells, which have hung in the church tower since 1995, came from St. Paul’s German United Evangelical Church, a North Side building demolished in the 1970s.
“I’ve been a member here my whole life. I thought it was a great event, and I wanted to be a part of it,” Ms. Weimer said. First Lutheran is undergoing a historic restoration and new tile is being laid in the sanctuary.
The interior of First Presbyterian Church impressed Kathy Ervin of North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County, and her friend, Susan Filer of Peters.
“We thought it was gorgeous,” Ms. Filer said. “I used to go to Boys and Girls Club in that church. There used to be a bowling alley in the basement.”
The best hideaway on the tour is tucked into the basement of Tenpenny Restaurant at 10th Street and Penn Avenue. Behind a sliding oak door and down a tiled staircase is where the Penn Society’s 350 members socialize and meet to sample bourbon, scotch and wine. With its leather sofas, exposed brick, mirrored walls, wooden wainscoting and individual liquor cabinets, it’s a cozy bar and lounge that’s perfect for private parties.
For more information, visit doorsopenpgh.org.