Talk:Cathedral of Learning

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[edit] A Priz

A Winner of the September 2005 West Dakota Prize

This entry, one of an unprecedented 52, has won the September 2005 West Dakota Prize, awarded for successfully employing the expression "legend states" in a complete sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wetman (talk • contribs) 19:45, 9 September 2005

[edit] Moved uncited material from article page; please replace with sources

I have moved two paragraphs here from the article. These paragraphs make anecdotal statements, using phrasing which obscures their lack of sources ("Local legend states" and "It is thought by some"). I was not able to find citations for these sources in any of the References that I had access to. These pieces of information should definitely be in the article if reliable sources exist. I hope that they will be replaced, with explicit references to each of them. Proper citation is most important in statements such as these, which can often be anecdotal, or based on urban legend. I'd be happy to discuss this issue on my talk page. -- Creidieki 02:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


  • Local legend states that to counteract this resistance Bowman ordered that the construction of the walls would start at the top floor and work their way down, so the project could not be canceled. Actually, this was practical, as the exterior walls are not load bearing in skyscrapers. This means that they do not hold weight, so the walls can be built at any time. Building the top walls first allows for ease of movement of materials and equipment during the construction.
  • It is thought by some that the Cathedral of Learning was dubbed "The Learning Tower of Pisaburgh" which is a reference to the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy
I brought back and expanded the first quote - my source is the Mark Brown text listed in the references section here. The entire article needs to in-text citate better... but for now that's the source until that kind of thing is fixed. Lyellin 18:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, a better way to address uncited material would be to use [citation needed]. This will alert anyone reading the article that the information is unreferenced and may not be true. However, it will also encourage other users to add the citation (whereas moving the info to the talk page limits who sees it). Guermantes 21:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Steam tunnels

Does anyone have information about the steam tunnels that run under Pitt's campus? Can anyone point me to information on this? --Chris Griswold(☏) 08:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MGU clearly the "tallest"

This article says the Cathedral is arguably the tallest, when you adjust for the spire on top of Moscow State's main building. However, the MGU building is 240m tall, of which the spire is 57m, so discounting that, it's still 20m taller than the Cathedral. Does anyone have different information that refutes this? --Lenin1991 14:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd assume the writer was referring to the number of floors in each building.Mwv2 22:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

The references on this page need to be fixed. --evrik 18:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tour of the Commons

I have a tour of the Commons Room in the Cathedral. Here's the link, I have no idea where to add it on the main article.

http://www.mapwing.com/explore/view_tour.php?t=1167j71j2j2j7

I'll also be adding some point tours of the International rooms when I get the time.

Clh23 19:28, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

Is there any chance a Pitt student or anyone else local could get a few new images for these nationality rooms? These are all copyrighted images and should be easily replaced - admission to most of these rooms is free. Remember that copyrighted images really should only be used if there's no way to find an alternative image. I don't think that's the case here. --Midnightdreary 04:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, the nationality rooms might deserve their own pagecp101p 00:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

How about the picture of the 1960 World Series from the top of the building? Deigo 04:59, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stories regarding Bowman's reason for the Cathedral

Pretty sure I can get a source for this, actually, but it'll require me getting documents back from someone who has them and is currently in Denver... give me a week. Lyellin (talk) 03:37, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Bowman's first day in Pittsburgh is actually described in some detail by in Albert's authoritative history of the University, when he had a cab take him to the Pittsburgh Athletic Association where he stayed, page 80, see here. If such an incident happened, and had such an impact, it seems likely that it would have been mentioned by Alberts "Pitt: The Story of the University of Pittsburgh" or Starret's history: "Through 150 Years". Neither suggest any encounter with such a clueless streetcar driver influenced Bowman's idea for a "tall building", and it seems highly unlikely that a streetcar driver would have been confused about the existence or location of the University in 1921, unless the streetcar driver was also new to the city (we can discuss this separately if need be). Albert and Starrett both describe Bowman's first concerns were with the University's debt and lack of facilities (as is mention, some of them were hastily constructed wooden buildings built to compensate for the large influx of students during WWI). Albert's describes Bowman's inspiration for a building came after 1) a meeting with Richard Mellon who advised him to talk to benefactors of the university about a "plan" instead of simply a need for money. 2) A trip he and John Weber made to eight universities to get comparative information on their facilities and from which they determined they needed 13 million additional cubic feet of space. The actual description of the initial inspiration for a "tall building", as quoted from Bowman, appears on page 85 of Albert's book. Inspiration for the actual Cathedral of Learning design came during a meeting between Bowman and architect Charles Klauder after they were inspired by listening to Die Walkure. Alberts goes into a lot of detail behind the origination of the Cathedral and that street car incident is never mentioned. Even if such a street car encounter happened, and there is no doubt Bowman "tall building" was intended to inspire the city and region, a direct connection between such an incident and his inspiration for the Cathedral seems like it would be hard to document authoritatively outside a biography of Bowman, considering Alberts' and Starrets' two histories. The street car story sounds a little like a legend to me, but I'd be extremely interested in the documentation you have regardless. BTW, I'm extremely interested in your Nationality Room handbook, especially if goes into more depth or different subject matter than Maxine's souvenir book or the web site. CrazyPaco (talk) 06:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
In thinking about this further, it may be appropriate to create a "legends" section. The untrue legend about the Cathedral being constructed from the top down could be moved into that, as well as various ghost stories (Early American, Schenley-Croghan ballroom), and, if warranted, others.CrazyPaco (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
In response to your long post - yes. What you've said there is pretty much accurate, but I want to be doubly certain that the streetcar story is not sourced somewhere - I swear it was, but I read through all of that stuff several years ago, and it's currently with a friend of mine who borrowed it all to study for the Nat Room tour guide test. I should have a decent amount of the tour guide material, plus a decent amount of the origianl books handed out regarding each room (each room when opened had a book talking about its history, reasons for certain items, etc). I'll talk to my friend tonight if I see him online. Lyellin (talk) 18:36, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry about my long post, I tend to ramble.  ;-) CrazyPaco (talk) 20:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Lol, no problem at all - I just wanted to include it all in one "i'm responding" then hit point by point. Let me see if I can track down those sources... if not, I should be able to get into the nationality rooms office in June to work on it a bit. Lyellin (talk) 21:04, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I just found the last of the sources I was looking for, and cannot confirm this, so I think we can call it 'busted'. That being said, I have some great old newspaper articles to work on the Bowman entry. Lyellin (talk) 02:09, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Croghan-Schenley Ballroom haunting

Has anyone else heard of these stories? When I attended Pitt in the 90s, a member of the janitorial staff related stories to me about how the room was haunted, frightening some of the staff to the extent they refused to clean it. I have no first hand knowledge of this and do not know of any published references supporting this.CrazyPaco (talk) 04:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I never did, and I spent a significant amount of time in the room, around people who were in the room, etc. They hold dean's meetings in their often... Lyellin (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Regardless, Wikipedia should not assert that the building is haunted. At most--if the story is current, which it seems not to be--the encyclopedia can only report that people tell the story. Tb (talk) 03:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree, it borders on original research too. I'll be interested to see if anyone else ever posts that they've heard something similar. Until there is some sort of confirmation, it should stay out of the main articleCrazyPaco (talk) 04:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
In the extra sources I just found - no mention at all. Lyellin (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I think we'd have to talk to the janitors ;-) ...did you find anything about Bowman's first cab ride....I have new concerns about it being on the page....just saw your mention above about it being busted...I'm going to take it out because of these concerns.CrazyPaco (talk) 16:32, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Beginning to feel like we should have a 'legends of upitt article' Lyellin (talk) 21:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
That might actually be interesting to tell you the truth. I actually pondered have a Ghost stories of Pitt article at one point, but we lost one of the ghosts!.CrazyPaco (talk) 23:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)