Grant Building

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Information
Grant Building
View of the Grant Building, the orange brick building at right
Status	Complete
Constructed	1930
Height
Roof	485 ft (148 m)
Floor count	40

The Grant Building is one of the major distinctive and recognizable features of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The tower is located on and named for Pittsburgh's Grant Street corridor where most of the city's major corporations and government offices are located.

The Grant Building was completed in 1930 and it has thirty-seven floors. It rises 485 feet or 148 meters above downtown Pittsburgh. The art deco building's facade is built with Belgian granite, limestone, and brick. It was famous for a radio antenna that rose roughly 100–150 feet from the roof of the tower which had an aviation beacon that spelled out P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H in Morse Code. The beacon could be seen as far away as 150 miles on clear nights. A smaller version of the beacon, still flashing out the name of the city, remains to this day.

The tower on the roof also served as the broadcast signal for the world's first radio station KDKA Pittsburgh.

[edit] References

Toker, Franklin (2007). Buildings of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh: Chicago: Society of Architectural Historians; Santa Fe: Center for American Places ; Charlottesville: In association with the University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2650-5.