Pittsburgh’s First Westinghouse Building

Longtime Pittsburghers probably remember the Westinghouse Tower along the Monongahela River at the corner of Stanwix Street and Fort Duqusne Way.

Designed by noted architects Harrison & Abramovitz, the 23-story structure opened in 1970 and served as Westinghouse Electric’s headquarters until 1999, when corporate re-structuring caused the company to move, first to Monroeville and subsequently to Cranberry.

Over the years since, the building at 11 Smithfield Street has attacted other owners and tenants and remains an active tower in the Golden Triangle.

But you may be surprised to learn it was not downtown Pittsburgh’s original Westinghouse office building!

This photograph shows the first Westinghouse Building in downtown Pittsburgh.

As indicated on the historic maps that follow, the ornate, 10-story brick and stone structure stood at the corner of Penn Avenue and Ninth Street for some seventy years, from the mid-1880s to the mid- 1950s.

Here’s a postcard of the building, which apparently used the previous photograph.

Here is a detail from the 1882 Sanborn map of downtown Pittsburgh. The lot designated 95 is empty.

Sanborn map from 1882

On the next Sanborn map which was completed in 1890, lot 95 is now occupied by the Westinghouse Building. Anecdotally, George Westinghouse proudly referred to it as “his building.”

Sanborn map from 1890

Here’s the Westinghouse Building shown on the 1910 Sanborn map.

Sanborn map 1910

And on the 1923 Sanborn map, the building is also designated as Westinghouse AirBrake Company.

Sanborn map 1923

By 1930, the hand drawn Sanborn maps were replaced by aerial photographs, which show only building rooftops and provide no identifing information.

Still the Westinghouse Building remains.

Though increasingly blurry, the 1950 aerial image still shows the building is still there.

Aerial map from 1950

Here’s the aerial map from 1993. Though it’s pixilated, the image now shows an empty lot where the Westinghouse building once stood.

Sanborn map 1993

The Google map from 2021 shows that space is a parking lot.

Google 2021

Here’s a closer look from the Google map of 2023, which identifies the lot as Phil’s Parking.

Penn and Ninth 2023

Finally, here are two recent street view photographs of that corner of Penn and Ninth.

And that space on the right side of the top image, that is Pittsburgh’s new Arts Landing.

The odd thing is that although the first Westinghouse Building clearly ccupied a prominent corner downtown for decades, our research has not been able find any other images or references to it in any of the other usual research places.

If you have either, please let us know.