Grant Building
At 40 stories and 485 feet, the Grant Building was Pittsburgh’s tallest skyscraper when it opened in 1929 — a setback Art Deco tower designed by Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood that anchored the city’s downtown skyline at the intersection of Grant Street and Third Avenue.
At a glance
The Grant Building at 330 Grant Street in downtown Pittsburgh was completed in 1929 to designs by architects Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood. At 40 stories and 485 feet, it was the tallest building in Pittsburgh at the time of its completion — a full Art Deco tower with the setback massing and ornamental program characteristic of American commercial skyscraper design in the late 1920s. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Grant Building remains a significant presence in Pittsburgh’s downtown skyline.
Key facts
- Address: 330 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
- Height: 40 stories, 485 ft (148 m)
- Completed: 1929
- Architects: Henry Hornbostel and Eric Fisher Wood
- Style: Art Deco
- NRHP: Yes
- Current use: Commercial offices
History
Henry Hornbostel was one of Pittsburgh’s most prolific architects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — a designer who worked across institutional, civic, and commercial building types with consistent technical and aesthetic ambition. His partnership with Eric Fisher Wood for the Grant Building produced a tower that engaged fully with the Art Deco idiom that had emerged as the dominant language for American commercial skyscrapers following the Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922 and the Paris Exposition des Arts Décoratifs of 1925.
The Grant Building was named for Ulysses S. Grant, whose statue stands near the Allegheny County Courthouse on Grant Street — the downtown artery that connects Pittsburgh’s civic and commercial core. At the time of its completion, the building surpassed all other Pittsburgh skyscrapers in height, establishing a new vertical benchmark for the city’s downtown and contributing to a skyline that was already one of the most dramatic in industrial America.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its architectural quality and its significance in Pittsburgh’s urban development. It has remained in continuous office use and continues to contribute to the character of downtown Pittsburgh’s street grid.
What you see
The Grant Building’s facade follows the canonical logic of Art Deco commercial skyscraper design — a lower base that mediates between the street and the tower; a shaft rising through the mid-floors with consistent ornamental rhythm; and setbacks near the crown that narrow the building’s profile as it approaches its top. The ornamental detail — concentrated at the entrance, the spandrel panels, and the setback cornices — combines the geometric abstraction and stylized natural forms that define the Art Deco vocabulary.
Standing on Grant Street and looking up at the tower, the building’s 485-foot height is most legible in the context of Pittsburgh’s topography — the city’s hills and river valleys create sightlines that allow the tower to be seen from many directions and at varying distances. From across the Monongahela River, the Grant Building reads as part of a skyline in which decades of commercial ambition are layered and compressed.
Practical information
- Current use: Active commercial office building; lobby accessible during business hours
- Exterior: Viewable at all times from Grant Street
- Photography: Best full tower shot from the south end of Grant Street or from the William Penn Hotel across the street
- Downtown Pittsburgh: The building is adjacent to the Allegheny County Courthouse, the City-County Building, and the heart of Pittsburgh’s legal and governmental district
Getting there
The Grant Building is in downtown Pittsburgh at 330 Grant Street, at the corner of Third Avenue. Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) is about 16 miles west. The Pittsburgh Light Rail (T) stops at Steel Plaza station, one block north on Stanwix Street. The building is within easy walking distance of Market Square, the Cultural District, and the Point State Park at the confluence of the three rivers.
Nearby
- Allegheny County Courthouse (1888) — H.H. Richardson’s Romanesque masterwork, directly across Grant Street
- City-County Building (1917) — Neoclassical civic building, one block north
- PPG Place (1984) — Philip Johnson’s Gothic Revival postmodern skyscraper, three blocks northwest
Sources
- Wikipedia, “Grant Building (Pittsburgh)” — architects, height, date, NRHP designation
- National Register of Historic Places nomination — architectural significance
- Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation — documentation and preservation history
- Carnegie Mellon University architecture archives — Hornbostel practice records
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