A lot of history has happened at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Stanwix Street. In 1849, The Joseph Horne Company chose the location to be the site of city’s first department store and built a landmark seven-story building boasting views of the Allegheny River and what would become known as the Golden Triangle.
The corner has been the site of many dramas through the years, including the 1936 flood that put the city under siege for five days. But these days, the corner is most known for the Horne’s Tree. We visited this iconic landmark in a post last year. We’re returning now because we found in the Post-Gazette archive a few new pictures, including a stunning image by former Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette photographer Andy Starnes.
Andy shot the picture on Nov. 12, 1979, when the tree was lit after a one-year absence (it was mothballed in 1978 because of a national energy crisis). Andy set his camera to a slow shutter speed and used a zoom lens to create lines of light that appear to shoot from the tree.
The earliest photo in our collection was taken in 1956 and shows the original tree that featured only lights. First hung in 1953, it was dedicated to the kids at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Incidentally, 1953 was also the year that Dr. Jonas Salk announced that he was successful in testing vaccine for polio. The year prior — 1952 — was an epidemic year for the disease with 58,000 new cases in the United States.
Other photographs show the tree’s evolution from an elegant string of lights to a more traditional green tree, decorated with massive ornaments.
Today, Light-Up night is a weekend-long celebration and the building is sits on is called Penn Avenue Place. Highmark, the main tenant, continues the tradition and a contest renamed it “The Unity Tree” in the mid 90’s. But no one calls it that. For Pittsburgher’s are a stubborn clan and the beloved symbol of holiday cheer forges on in the hearts of many as “The Hornes Tree.”
it’s a CHRISTMAS TREE! God, what happened to this country?
….shopping the poised, dignified and stately street floor of Joseph Horne Company was an elevating experience; from marble floors to gold leafed ceilings and crystal chandeliers the experience was the epitome of sophistication and retail grandeur!!!! — especially during the Christmas season when the Penn Avenue tree met you as you entered!!!
Thanks for bringing back the memories. We used to go downtown every year to see the tree and the windows. I’ve lived in Kansas over 40 years now, but Horne’s is still the model for a real Christmas.
One of the things I look forward every Christmas time are the lighting and decorations. I love walking in the city and take photographs of the buildings, christmas trees, lanterns and random strangers. I am mesmerize by the dancing lights and its colors. The snow flakes also adds to the effect of the pictures. Once my website is finished, I would love to share my photographs online.
My recollections of downtown Pittsburgh, when I was a child, are the beautifully decorated windows of all the department stores. My mother would take my sister and I downtown every year at Christmas time. I moved to Arizona in 1954. I miss the wonderful times we went downtown and the beautiful city and state of PA.
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