Secret Pittsburgh

Address: 436 Grant Street, Pittsburgh PA

Hours: Monday - Friday  8AM - 4:30PM

Website http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/government/index.aspx

Admission: Free, although site has heavy security {including metal detectors}

Transportation: Bus, car (street parking)

Access: Heavy security, including metal detectors

Pittsburgh’s original courthouse was a wooden structure first used at the end of the 18th Century. Less than twenty years later, plans for a more impressive building were underway. Polished gray sandstone with a domed cupola, the second courthouse was built on the corner of Fourth and Grant Street. After a fire hollowed out the courthouse in 1882, Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson won the competition to design a replacement. The final, lasting design of the courthouse is built around an interior courtyard that allows natural light to reach most of the rooms in the building’s four stories. 

Visually striking and innovative for its time, the Allegheny County Courthouse has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is one of Pittsburgh’s most iconic sites. A 2007 survey, America’s Favorite Architecture, found the courthouse ranked 35th. It’s not hard to see why: the site features a Romanesque Revival style that looks like a gothic castle come to life. A clock-tower looms over symmetrical towers, and the Bridge of Sighs (a bridge designed after the Bridge of Sighs in Venice that connects the prison to the courthouse), and a courtyard water-fountain. There have been several alterations and restorations since the third building’s construction; what was once the basement is now, after the street was lowered in the early 20th century, the entrance. Even with the restorations, the Courthouse looks like a building outside time, untouched by the modernizing trends and styles of the past two hundred years.

The jail was officially closed in 1995 and now serves as a home for the juvenile and family sections of the Common Pleas Court. The re-adapted facility is open for tours upon request, but be advised: as a government building, visitors must undergo extensive security measures including, but not limited to metal detectors and a restriction of cell phone activity.