Grant Building
- Architect
- Henry Hornbostel
- Year
- 1929
- Style
- Art Deco
- City
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Collection
- modern pittsburgh
The Grant Building is a 40-story, 485-foot Art Deco skyscraper at 310 Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh, designed by Henry Hornbostel and completed on February 1, 1929, at a cost of $5.5 million. Its rooftop tower doubled as the broadcast antenna for radio station KDKA, which made the first commercially licensed radio broadcast on election night in 1920 and moved its studios into the building's third floor in 1934.
the building
Morse code beacon. A radio antenna rising 100 to 150 feet above the roof carries an aviation beacon that flashes P-I-T-T-S-B-U-R-G-H in Morse code, visible up to 150 miles away on clear nights. Relay malfunctions have occasionally scrambled the message into garbled sequences, most recently fixed on July 27, 2009.
Facade materials. The Art Deco exterior is built from Belgian granite, limestone, and brick.
KDKA studios. The building's rooftop tower served as the broadcast antenna for KDKA, which aired the first commercially licensed radio broadcast on election night, 1920. On November 2, 1934 -- the station's 14th birthday -- KDKA moved into new studios on the Grant Building's third floor.
the style
The Grant Building's Art Deco design gave Pittsburgh a soaring, beacon-topped skyscraper for the boom-era skyline of 1929, its granite, limestone, and brick facade rising to a distinctive antenna tower rather than a plain roofline.
More on Art Deconearby
- Pittsburgh City-County Building
- The Salvation Army Building
- Allegheny County Courthouse
- Frick Building
- Old Allegheny County Jail
- Kaufmann's Building