I visited Pittsburgh for the first time as a tag-along on a business trip that my girlfriend had for a client meeting. We were staying at the Wyndham Grand Downtown, and had a decent view from a high floor room. I was looking over the area from our room’s picture window when I noticed this small park (above) off to the side, with the strange markings in the grass. Is it just me, or does this look like a purposely-made exclamation point?
I did a search for “Pittsburgh park exclamation point,” and see that there is a “Point State Park” on the other side of the Wyndham Grand, so this exclamation point area is technically not part of Point State Park (so named because of its location at the point where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers join to form the Ohio River). In trying to see if there was a connection between the exclamation point and Point State Park, I did learn some interesting things about the park that I wish I had known when I was there.
One interesting tidbit was that Point State Park was opened in August 1974 after construction was completed on its iconic fountain (which I didn’t take a picture of, but you can see it here). The Pittsburgh city planners settled on the current design after rejecting an alternative plan for a Point Park Civic Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright had some funky ideas, as you can see in his drafted plans here, and his proposal included a circular building more than 1,000 feet in diameter and 175 feet tall, which would have contained an opera house, a sports arena, three movie theaters, and a convention hall. But Pittsburgh said “no thanks.” Frank Lloyd Wright’s proposal actually sounds (and looks) pretty cool to me.
It’s still a beautiful park in its simplicity, allowing for long walks with views across the rivers on both sides of the point. Maybe the exclamation point is in response to the surprise that Frank Lloyd Wright was rejected!
Here’s another view from the north side of Point State Park, this time looking across the Ohio River at Acrisure Stadium (formerly known as Heinz Field), home to the Pittsburgh Steelers and the college Pitt Panthers. I love the way the lights reflect across the water, it makes me think of Van Gogh’s painting “Starry Night Over the Rhone.”
