Fourth Avenue Historic District

Fourth Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh is lined with banking houses and office towers built between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dollar Savings Bank, built 1868-1871, is the oldest building in the district and is Italianate in style. Pittsburgh's first skyscraper of this group, the Peoples Savings Bank Building, rose fourteen stories above its banking rooms in 1901. Union Trust Company and Colonial Trust Company show Beaux Arts and Neo-Classical facades, with Colonial Trust designed by Frederick J. Osterling. Fidelity Trust, Times and Marine National Bank buildings from about 1890 are Richardsonian Romanesque. Oil money from Michael Benedum and Joseph Trees, then steel wealth, drew many banks here, and by 1908 Pittsburgh held more banking money than any city except New York. The district's buildings are largely stone and terra cotta, and their close spacing creates a dense streetscape.