Editor’s note: “Inside …” is a series that offers glimpses into Pitt places that are new, revamped or rarely visited by most people in the University community. If you have an idea for someplace we should look "inside," please email it to utimes@pitt.edu.
By MARTY LEVINE
From what might be the highest spot on campus, upper-class students living in Panther Hall have unmatched views, and now that they are gone for the summer, the University Times took a look.
On the top floor of Panther Hall — the ninth floor — at the center of this long, slim, slightly cantilevered structure, a study area lets residents look out, just below, on the construction of Pitt’s new Arena and Sports Performance Center and the Petersen Events Center beside it, across Oakland and the Upper Hill. Peering from one side gives a view all the way to Downtown, the South Side and West End. From the other side more of Oakland is visible, as well as bits of the Monongahela River.
“I’ve come up here in the offseason,” says today’s tour guide, Facilities Management mechanic Paul Janetka, when each dorm door is open, their desks and beds empty, awaiting the fall. “I’ll come up here and have lunch, enjoying the view of the river.”
Across the hall an enclosed porch, used as a quiet study area, sports views of the Cathedral of Learning in the distance, fraternity row below, a crane from the new UPMC hospital addition on Fifth Avenue poking above it all and the block-long VA hospital standing starkly next door.
At the southeast end of the building, views of the South Side and all the way to Penn Hills and Churchill are possible on even a halfway-clear day, while at the other end, another large window looks out on Sutherland Hall and Trees Hall, with more glimpses of Downtown and West End, as well as the construction’s progress.
Asked about footprints on the windowsill, Janetka says these are not evidence of rooftop sightseeing — rather they are the re-entry marks of construction crews that placed cameras on the Panther Hall roof to oversee their work.
This aerial vantage has only been available since 2007. “Any student who has a suite there can just decide to hang out and study in the center study section that always has a great view,” says one of Panther Hall’s facilities managers, James Susick. In fact, every room comes with such a scene.
One place hidden from sight, when looking from Panther Hall, is nearly at campus bottom — the patio behind the School of Law's Barco Law Library. It’s where the law school often hosts smaller gatherings such as cocktail receptions following events, but law students meet, eat and study there as well.
“It’s a lovely place to soften the brutalist buildings surrounding Barco, too,” such as Posvar Hall, notes Cori Parise, the school’s director of marketing and communications.
Walking down from Panther to Barco was easier than walking up but no less hot. Maybe that’s why the Barco patio’s sand-colored tile floor and low grass border seemed somehow like the edge of a sand-dune on the fringe of a beach.
Or maybe it was just the heat talking. One of the tile-topped metal tables under the patio’s overhang provided welcome shade. The patio also features wooden benches and a gravel walkway to take you along the edge to view South Bouquet Street.
Smaller, higher metal tables with stool seats and indiscreet lighting poles also surround the patio, and potted plants fringe the entrance to Barco itself. Only a few chirp-less robins were enjoying the heat that day, but Oakland provided its own background music of air conditioner hum, large trucks negotiating Forbes Avenue and metal bouncing on metal from nearby construction sites.
So there was no beach. But it was serenity enough on a blazing day.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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