Dan Antion

Thursday Doors – Walking by Doors in Pittsburgh

Phipps Hall of Botany

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m milking that long vacation weekend for all it’s worth. Faith and I walk a lot when we travel and we took different streets to and from our destinations, so we had different door opportunities.

Faith is a good sport and, as many of you have experienced with your family members and friends, she has gone from being door-tolerant to becoming a door-enabler during the time I’ve been succumbing to my addiction to honing my appreciation of doors. It’s a common occurrence to hear her say: “oh, here’s a nice door” as we walk.

 

Thursday Doors is a year-round sporting event for door lovers. League Commissioner and captain of the home team, Norm Frampton runs the international Thursday Doors operation (ITD) from Montreal, Canada. The league is always open to expansion, so if you have some doors, head on over to the Commissioner’s office. There you can look at his doors and then give your ticket to the blue frog. Once inside, you can view tons of interesting and beautiful doors. I’ve also taken to clicking on an ad or two; I’m hoping it keeps the ticket prices at $0.00 CAN.

As for my contribution today, a few doors in the gallery are from Schendley Park, taken before and after our hike in Panther Hollow. The others were taken on our way to and from Heinz Field for the Steelers Family Fan Fest on Sunday. One boring, but very special door was taken inside PNC Park. Since we only go to one game every couple of years, I sprang for club-level seats.

Two of the doors within Schendley Park are on buildings that are part of Phipps Conservatory, a home for floral and artistic beauty within Pittsburgh for over 120 years. I haven’t been there since I was a child. It’s one of the few sites Faith and I need to pencil into a future visit.

I’ve described the doors, as best I can, in the captions. If you’re interested, you can click on any photo to start a slide show. If you’re in a hurry, that’s OK, too. You can get a glimpse of all of them in the collage below. I’m done with Pittsburgh for a while. I still have a bunch of baseball photos and photos from the Steelers Family Fan Fest, but I’ll dribble them in over time. Of course, I haven’t used all the doors, but you know, we need some for leftover stew in the future.

Pittsburgh Baseball Club
Inside the Pittsburgh Baseball Club. I got these seats so we’d have a place to wait out any rain delay. That came in handy, The game was delayed by about 35 minutes of heavy rain.
This is a new picture, but I may have included these doors before. Still, I like them a lot.
Inside Station Square.
I like the brick detail, the fire escape and the doors.
Black doors seem to be a good fit for bars.
Welcome to Pittsburgh
Inside the visitor center at Schendley Park
Inside the visitor center at Schendley Park
Engine Company #1 has the right color doors, but the wrong color trucks.
Phipps Hall of Botany
Back side of the visitor center. We started our hike walking past this.
Entrance doors to one of the Gateway Clipper boats.
Side entrance to Phipps Conservatory.
Schendley Park visitor center.
This is the left side of Phipps Conservatory
The Firstside Building.has a pretty nice entrance.
Riverview Place – Fort Pitt Blvd.
Walking along Fort Pitt Blvd on the way back to our car after Fanfest.

66 comments

  1. That’s a nice tour of Pittsburgh doors Dan. I especially love the Phipps conservatory and would be interested in going inside to see the floral and artistic offerings. Sounds so unique.

    Glad you had a good time with Faith in your hometown and you were smart to purchase the club seats. Who wants to sit out in the rain for 35 minutes, waiting for a game to start up? Then again, I’ve sat out in the cold and snow at Lambeau, so…

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    • Do they have anything else at Lambeau? You guys are amazing fans. Tickets at PNC Park are a bargain compared to northeast ball parks, so I probably still paid less than I would have for ordinary seats to a Red Sox game.

      We had a great time. It’s good that we both love to walk, as it gets me closer to doors. We also get to see the city in ways you can’t from a car. It’s a very walkable city and one of the most bicycle friendly (if you don’t mind the occasional hill).

      Phipps is a remarkable place. We need to get there on one of these trips.

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      • Sometimes it’s sunny and warm at Lambeau! I don’t get to a pre-season or regular season game unless someone has free tickets. Otherwise, they are too expensive for my pocketbook. I say every year that I’m going to go to Family Night, but it tends to sneak up on me and by that time, the tickets are sold out. I must set myself a reminder for next year so no one can call me a bad fan! ;-)

        My plans for next year, or maybe the year after, is to load my bike into the car and take a road trip to see my brother – stopping along the way to hit bike trails or places like Phipps. Or that might be a retirement trip…not sure yet.

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        • I keep thinking of taking my bike on a road trip. Have you ever used the rental-bikes in DC? I’m always dressed in business casual crap, but I’ve thought about it. We saw them available in Pittsburgh that weekend, but by the time we saw a rack, we were only half a mile from the restaurant and we were hungry.

          You’re a good fan. You taunt the Steelers fan, don’t you :)

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  6. I love your weekly description of Norm’s Doors. It never fails to make me smile. Botany Hall is a cute little place. Probably not so little but the entranceway is so very welcoming.

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  10. Love the doors on Engine Company #1. I like those white and red bendy doors, too. Do those have a name? I really like those. *imagines whole back of house with bendy doors*
    Phipps Hall is a gorgeous entrance! And who doesn’t love Snoopy on top of ANY house? :)
    My family’s interest in teasing me about my door addiction is greater than my door addiction. Oh, how they mock me, even as they enable me.

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  11. Fun tour Dan thanks. The Hall of Botany one totally rocks.
    So she has gone from being door-tolerant to becoming a door-enabler, eh? Keep working on her, she’ll become one of us eventually :-D

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  14. Interesting doors as usual! I love Phipps Conservatory building… I wonder what it looks like inside?

    I have to agree with you about the “proper” color for fire trucks. Not long ago our city decided to go with a bright chartreuse for its trucks. Gah! Thankfully they are back to red now… as they should be.

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  19. I haven’t been over here in a while and I’m glad to see it is a Thursday posting I read. My favorite doors are firstly, Carol’s Ice Cream doors, (NICE!), and close up coming in second is the Fire House doors. What a shame they have not color coordinated with their fire engines. That orange hurts, (sorry but it does) against that tone of red. Thank you for the tour of Pittsburg, Dan, another place I probably will not see. ☺️

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  26. I’m so glad it isn’t just me who is obsessed with doorways! .. I have lots of venetian doorway pics from my recent stay in Venice, but didn’t post them, as I thought no-one would care!

    I think I might put them together now :)

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  28. Engine Company No 1 with the two doors labeled “Medic 14” and “Rescue 2” was my very favorite set this week, Dan!
    I’m playing “catch up” and glad you never slam the door on my late responses.
    The Phipps Conservatory is a beautiful place to visit and very old, famous and better than our Franklin Park Conservatory. I would love to visit this someday. It’s not that far! Take it easy and will see you soon!

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    • Thanks Robin. I saw the comments and realized you were catching up. I appreciate your visits and comments. I need to revisit Phipps at some point. It is beautiful. I love firehouse doors 🙂

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