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By Karen Bullock and Aldona Bird
First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh is located downtown on Sixth St. The church has a traditional Presbyterian service every Sunday at 10:45 a.m. which features Reverend Tom Hall preaching and George Tutwiler directing the music that the choir sings. Each Sunday the members and visitors of the church are able to worship inside the beautiful sanctuary, which is bordered by 14 stained glass windows, and are able to listen to the music played on the spectacular organ. The First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh is a church saturated with history. It was first established in 1773 but the first building was not built until 1787. The first building was small and made out of logs, the second building, constructed of yellow bricks, was built in 1803 and stood until 1853 when a larger building was needed. This third building was used for 50 years when construction began on the fourth and final building in 1903. The church has been through several organs. The first organ they were supposed to have was $27,000, but was destroyed before it was to arrive at the church. To replace this organ the church acquired the old organ from Point Breeze Presbyterian Church. The next organ at the church was the third largest organ in the U.S. at the time. The 4,270 pipes the organ had took up the whole back wall of the sanctuary and the chimes had their own separate room. This organ was rebuilt many times and finally a church in Bare, Vermont purchased the organ where part of it was used there. The current organ has four manuals, 77-ranks and was installed in the church on November 13, 1988. Music is of extreme importance at First Presbyterian of Pittsburgh. In addition to having the choir sing on Sunday mornings they also present special music throughout the year such as the upcoming concert, "A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols" which will take place on December 13 at 4 p.m. The choir is comprised of several dedicated and talented adults who volunteer their time to serve the church with their music. Each Sunday the choir sings two anthems and there is a separate choir, called "The Boosters," that sings during the Tuesday Noon Boost service. This short service is every Tuesday and 12:25 p.m. and is designed to keep people motivated while at work and to maintain their faith. In addition to music ministry First Presbyterian does many other ministry and outreach programs. Through prayer, financial contribution, volunteering, and mission service the church supports over 50 organizations and missionaries. These organizations and missionaries are spread from Pittsburgh to South Africa. The church also holds a Missions Conference one weekend each spring which brings together missionaries from the missions the church supports. The church also focuses on ministries within the church such as the youth and children's ministries. The youth ministry is for teens in grades 7-12 and the children's ministry is for children age five through 12. Both these programs introduce students to the gospel and helps them to develop a way to serve. The church has adult ministries that promote fellowship through small groups and bible studies for several different groups of adults. For more information on First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, visit their website at http://fpcp.org/ . |
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This is a 180 degree panorama of the University of Pittsburgh Commons, taken from the first floor on June 24, 2009. "The Cathedral of Learning, a historic landmark, is the second-tallest education building in the world—42 stories and 535 feet tall. It is also the geographic and traditional heart of the campus. Begun by Chancellor John Bowman in 1926 and dedicated in 1937, the building was realized with the help of contributions from men, women, and children throughout the region and the world. During the peak of the Depression, when funding for the project became especially challenging, school children were encouraged to contribute a dime to "buy a brick." In addition to the magnificent three-story "Commons Room" at ground level, the Cathedral of Learning also contains classrooms (including the internationally renowned Nationality Classrooms), the University's administrative offices, libraries, a computer center, a restaurant, and offices and classrooms for many liberal arts departments. Trivia tidbit: The Cathedral of Learning has 2,529 windows." *The cited information about the Cathedral of Learning was found here: http://www.tour.pitt.edu/tour-080.html |
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A truck of 4 and 5 inch balled and burlapped trees that will be planted in two East Liberty parking lots. |
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Taken inside the Library of Congress, within the Great Hall. This was my first visit to the building.
Not the greatest pano. Taken at ISO-800 at 1/125sec. f/4.5 @ 18mm |
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1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and 5 km (3 mi) of corridors.
645 MPs (519 men, 126 female) 590 Lords ...and probably quite a lot of tea. (this is a manual stitch of around 40 pictures) |
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http://www.pittsburghforest.org/arboraid2009 Artists created work from salvaged wood and incorporated light for Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest's annual fundraiser. Here is a shot of the first room just as everythingn was almost set for the event, which started just after sundown. |
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This is part of the view from the Pfannenstil Tower, originally build in 1893 on the Bachtel mountain.
You find more details on the Wikipedia pages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfannenstiel_%28Z%C3%BCrich%29 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Pfannenstiel-02.jpg Built with Panoramastudio Pro You find my panoramas with http://gigapan.org/gigapans/most_popular/?q=fritz+hanke or http://gigapan.org/gigapans/most_recent/?q=fritz+hanke |
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Photo by Ian Griffith and Matt Grifith
Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco Blue Sky The Palace of Fine Arts- a brief history "The Palace was not designed as 'a Valentine for San Francisco.' Maybeck visualized its colonnade streaming with people, finding a reward within the great doors." The task of creating a Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition fell to the architect Bernard R. Maybeck, then fifty years old and known for his innovative ideas. Setting to work on this new project, he chose as his theme a Roman ruin, mutilated and overgrown, in the mood of a Piranesi engraving. But this ruin was not to exist solely for itself to show "the mortality of grandeur and the vanity of human wishes .... " Although it was meant to give delight by its exterior beauty, its purpose was also to offer all visitors a stimulating experience within doors. In playing host to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, The Fair, which opened on February 20, 1915, San Francisco was honoring the discovery of the Pacific Ocean and the completion of the Panama Canal; it was also celebrating its own resurrection after the shattering earthquake and fire of 1906. The problems of choosing the exact site in the city had finally been overcome and groundwork had been going on for some time. Last of the buildings to be erected, on the lagoon and close by a group of Monterey cypresses, was Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts. With its exhibition hall to house the work of living artists (dominated by the Impressionists), its colonnade, and its rotunda -- plans for all of which had dazzled the Commissioners when the huge brown-paper sketch was put before them -- it fulfilled the architect's dream: it was as beautiful reflected in the water as it was against the sky. And when the Palace was completed (Roman in style although a freely-interpreted, purely romantic conception, and Greek in decorative treatment) its exceptional harmony gave it instant appeal to the public. |
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Fouts Field at the University of North Texas in Denton. Taken with a Canon G10 14.7mp digital camera. |
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University of Idaho Vandals versus Fresno State 10/7/09, looking toward the student side of the field. The Vandals lost 31-21. University of Idaho website: http://www.uidaho.edu/ Vandal Athletics website - http://govandals.com/ |