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The Gulf Building, designed by Andrew Mellon’s favorite New York firm of Trowbridge & Livingston (with Uncle Andy’s nephew E. P. Mellon as local architect), was the tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh when it went up in 1930–1932, and it remained the tallest for forty years, until the U. S. Steel Building dwarfed everything. Father Pitt has put together a miscellany of new stories, advertisements, and construction notices that give us a picture of the building as it was going up and the impression it made on Pittsburghers when it was finished.
“Watching Real Estate,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, October 6, 1929, part 2, p. 12.
Rumors regarding the new Gulf Building to be erected at the northwest corner of Grant street and Seventh avenue indicate that it will be the tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh. It is reported that present plans call for a 37-story structure with a wide setback at the fourth floor and a series of tapering setbacks to the full height of the tower. Gulf Refining Company officials say plans are not yet definitely decided. The site fronts 195 feet on Seventh avenue and 145 feet on Grant street.
Contractors and Engineers Monthly, June, 1930, p. 89.
Charles Scott Landers, 292 Madison Ave., New York, who has specialized in foundation work for buildings and bridges for 20 years, is at present consultant for the Pennsylvania Railroad for bridges across the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers and for foundation work across the New Jersey meadows. Mr. Landers is also preparing plans for the foundation work of two buildings in New York City, one located at 80 Broad Street and the other at 29 Broadway, and is consultant on the foundations for the new 40-story Gulf Building in Pittsburgh, which is now under construction for the Gulf Refining Co.
“Steel Contract Let for Gulf Building,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 15, 1930, part 6 page 8.
The contract for the structural steel for the Gulf Building at Grant street and Seventh avenue has been awarded to the McClintic-Marshall Company. John L. Mullen has the erection contract. The Mellon-Stuart Company are general contractors.
“Srtike Halts Work on Gulf Building,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, August 10, 1930.
A strike of 30 hoisting engineers employed by the Booth & Flinn Co. has tied up work on the new Gulf Building. The trouble also includes the Ohio River boulevard and the Westinghouse Bridge jobs but it is understood that the work has been carried on in the latter cases with non-union labor. The difficulty originated in Rochester, N. Y., where union officials say the Booth & Flinn Co. violated an agreement with the organization.
“Looking Into a City: Pittsburgh,” Fortune, December, 1930
Some of the profit on the steel erection in the new Gulf Building will stay in the Mellon Raj. For it happened that while Andrew was a director of the Pottstown Iron Co., a tall engineer named McClintic, who looks even taller than he is, and a stocky engineer named Marshall, who looks shorter than he is, approached him with the desire of setting up in business for themselves. They had just retired from the Shiffler Bridge Co. Mr. Mellon considered them, and after a typical Mellonian decision had been reached, there was born the firm of McClintic-Marshall, fabricators and erectors of structural steel. One of their earliest ventures was the Marshall Field store in Chicago, and they had so much to learn then that some of the steel was shipped to Chicago by express. Besides half of the nation’s bridges, they built the lock gates of the Panama Canal; on Manhattan were steel-erectors for the Grand Central Office Building, the Graybar Building, and are now erecting the new Hudson River Bridge, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Stone & Webster Building. In Pittsburgh, they built the Koppers Building, are now erecting the Gulf Building. The 1929 business was over $50,000,000; and of their 600,000-tons annual capacity, 240,000 can be produced in Pittsburgh. Mr. McClintic and Mr. Marshall are also part owners of the Mellon-financed Koppers companies, which are also buyers of steel from McClintic-Marshall.
American Architect, April, 1931.
The same ad in Architecture, April, 1931, p. 8.
Macbeth Galax Lighting ad in Time, October 26, 1931
From Sweet’s Catalog File, 1932, Vol. A, p. 294.
Westinghouse ad in Nation’s Business, February, 1932, p. 12.
“Vault Contract Awarded,” Bankers Magazine, March, 1932, p. 372
Contract for the vault in the Gulf Building Office of the Mellon National Bank, Pittsburgh, has been awarded to the Diebold Safe & Lock Co., Canton, Ohio. The complete vault equipment will consist of a massive vault door, vault, ventilator emergency escape, steel vault lining, safe deposit boxes and lockers.
“Long-Span Steel Framing in Pittsburgh Building,” Engineering News-Record, April 7, 1932, p. 510.
The new 37-story Gulf Oil building in Pittsburgh, Pa., is unique in that no columns occur in the rentable space in the 30-story tower portion. To achieve this result, columns are grouped around the elevator and service areas that form the core of the building, and double girders span between these columns and the wall columns, a distance of 36 ft. in the corner panels of the building. Large column loads result from this type of layout, and a special three-web built-up column section was developed as being superior to heavy rolled sections with coverplates. Among other interesting structural arrangements in the building is provision for removing some of the upper tower floors to provide two-story radio-broadcasting studios. The foundations also are somewhat unusual in that large pneumatic caissons, carrying in two instances as many as six columns, were carried to rock at about 70 ft. below the curb.
The finished building is of monumental character, faced with limestone. In ground dimensions it is 195x130 ft., reducing by setbacks (at the fifth floor on the east and west sides and at the seventh floor on all four sides) to a tower 108 ft. square. which rises to the 32d floor. Above this elevation another series of setbacks brings the roof dimensions at the 40th-floor level, below the lantern, to 55x55 ft. The total height of the building is 572 ft. Floors are of terra cotta arch construction, with 10-in. filler beams forming a flat ceiling.
The final adopted framing plan was an evolution of the structural studies, for the first architectural sketches provided only for a standardized grid layout with panels about 20 ft. square. The first revision involved elimination of the first interior column at each corner, to provide unobstructed space in these areas. This done, it suggested the further revision of moving the remainder of the columns in this first interior row on the east and west sides of the building back to the wall that surrounds the elevator shafts and service areas. The result was that all interior columns were placed either in an elevator or corridor wall, and that the rentable area of the building was left entirely open.
Basement excavation was carried to a depth of about 32 ft. below grade over the entire site. The foundations established at this elevation are unusual in that all tower-column foundations are carried to a blue shale rock occurring about 70 ft. below. grade, while the rest of the column piers and the continuous concrete wall that incloses the basement area utilize spread footings founded on a gravel formation from 5 to 10 ft. below the sub-basement floor. It was possible to support all but the tower columns on the gravel, since none of them is more than seven stories high.
The caissons for the tower columns were in general built of sufficient size to carry two columns each (Fig. 2). The exception to this arrangement occurs in the center of the tower portion where the six two-column caissons were so closely grouped as to suggest combining them. for economy in construction. Accordingly, each set of three two-column caissons either side of the north-south center line of the building was combined, providing two caissons 18x42 ft. in plan, each carrying six of the heaviest loaded columns in the building. To save concrete and to provide access to the working chamber from two airlocks, these caissons were built with two hollow’ cores. After providing two-column caissons for most of the tower-wall columns, there still remained one column at the center of both the east and west walls. that did not rest on a caisson. Instead of supplying foundations for these two columns to rock, they were supported on girders spanning between the caissons that carried the columns at either side of them.
In the framing plan of the twelfth floor (Fig. 4), which is typical of the tower floors, the grouping of the service facilities in the core of the building and the open rentable space around it are readily apparent. The largest open panels occur in the corners and are 36 ft. square, although the other exterior bays have spans longer than the average, varying from 26 to 33 ft. The majority of the long spans run in an east-west direction and are framed by double-rolled girders (in general, 18-in. sections) straddling the columns. Typical column-girder connections are shown in Fig, 6. The heavier columns, it will be noted, are built-up three-web sections of plates and angles. This type of section was developed as being more economical than one using the heaviest available rolled H-section coverplates (requiring shorter rivet grips for one thing) and provided the additional advantage of a constant depth (in this building 20 in.) from bottom to top of the column.…
The tower of the building being approximately square, wind resistance had to be provided about two axes. A wind pressure of 30 lb. per sq.ft. was used in the design. In a north-south direction there are four bents, and in an east-west direction three bents extend completely through the building. In addition, in an east-west-direction there are two bents designed for wind, which extend only about three-fourths through the building, being interrupted by stair wells. In the wind design no account was taken of the bracing effect contributed at the bottom where the tower merges with the large base of the building.
[Many more technical details, with diagrams, are in the full article.]
“Indication of New Bank Strengthened,” Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, June 17, 1932.
Construction of a large vault in the southeastern corner of the new Gulf Building, Seventh avenue and Grant street, and the installation of a night depository yesterday affirmed a report published several months ago that a new bank was to be opened there.
The reports linked the Mellon interests as sponsors of the new bank. P. H. Denton, of the Mellbank Corporation, was quoted as saying final steps in the plan were undecided.
Westinghouse ad, Architectural Record, July, 1932, p. 60.
“Madelon’s Mirror,” Pittsburgh Sunday Sun-Telegraph, March 26, 1933, Section 2 page 3
There’s a sparkle in our eyes these days! It’s not enough that a new season is at hand (for it IS, regardless of how many snowstorms it has brought in its wake)…the BIG thing on our horizon at this moment of writing is the opening of Mrs. E. A. Williams’ new flower shop in the Gulf Building! We simply went in and circulated ’round with big-eyed wonder at the beauty and practicability of it all! From the basement (two basements, to be exact) full of refrigerators and store rooms…on to the offices on the balcony, it is Perfect! Nowhere in Pittsburgh have we seen anything like it…the stone walls and floors…the pool with the ferns…the quiet dignity…and above all the Sensible Prices! Many of you will be prone to fear exorbitant prices…so just listen to us when we say that flowers may be had as low as $1 the assortment! Of course this shop will continue the sort of business it has always had…“doing” weddings and formal occasions, as well as informal affairs. It is the same establishment…they’ve even brought their art-glass window, which, many of you will remember, dates back over the 10 years they have been in business in this city! Do stop in for a peep about…in the Gulf Building, Grant Street entrance.
Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, May 1, 1933—a whole special supplement on cold things.
Ad in Manufacturers Record, August, 1933, p. 7.
“Developments in Network Systems,” Architectural Record, August, 1933.
Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company has released a bulletin describing the network system used in the 40-story Gulf Building in Pittsburgh, wherein various advantages were successfully coordinated in a manner to obtain a complete approved secondary network installation. This new development does away with the central switch customarily used to disconnect all current supply, The principle of zoning the building by groups of floors, each zone having its service switch, was adopted. This arrangement permits service in all parts of the building except the zone affected in event of fire. The concentrated light and power loads in the basement and top floor locations are supplied through conventional switchboards, one in the sub-basement and one on the thirty-ninth floor, but these boards are comparatively small, the method of zone service switches having done away with the usual large main switchboard at a substantial saving of space and cost of equipment. Copies of the bulletin giving complete details of system installation are available.
“Keeping Flowers Fresh,” Electric Refrigeration News, October 25, 1923, p. 15.
Two Servel 150 BW commercial machines installed in Pittsburgh’s new Gulf Building to furnish refrigeration to Mrs. Williams Flower Shop. Note the neat panel of Kerotest packless valves.
“PARTIALLY air conditioned is the Gulf Building, lower floors being supplied with tempered, humidified air; upper floors have natural ventilation… The various risers for the vacuum-return heating system are controlled by electric steam valves, the cycle being governed by an electric clock system based upon outside temperature, wind direction, sun effect, and experience… Fan-motor control consists of manual adjustable resistance-type secondary speed controller for 50 per cent speed adjustment”
The tower part of the building had windows for all offices, and therefore air conditioning was by opening a window.
The building is 40 stories high, crowned by a pyramidal top that terminates in a great lantern designed to glow at night with the special orange color adopted by the Gulf Refining Company. At the street level the building is 195 ft by 135 ft and above the 7th floor, where the main set-back occurs, it is 108 ft by 108 ft. The vaulted entrances from the three fronting streets, all on different levels, lead to the elevators in the center of the building (Fig. 1). The street floor is occupied by stores and the upper floors by offices. A basement, basement mezzanine, and sub-basement provide adequate space for the building machinery and working quarters, as well as storage for the tenants.
In the upper floors, above the setback, the elevators and stairways, together with spacious halls, occupy the center of the building. This provides all offices with direct outside light and window ventilation. In studying the problem of heating and ventilating it was found that these offices were of a size in which natural window ventilation could be controlled by the occupant to give a reasonably satisfactory air condition throughout the room. Steam radiators, located under the window, are hand-controlled. The conditions of heat and air for each room are therefore within the control of the occupant and are not the responsibility of. the engineer or building superintendent.…
In the lower office floors, and the street and basement floors, the size and location of the offices and stores necessitated mechanical ventilation. This consists mainly of three systems—one for the 1st to 4th floors inclusive, another for the basement and basement mezannine [sic] and the third for the sub-basement.