History
The 500 block of Grant Street was for decades the site of the Carlton Hotel, Plaza Building and the "Interlude Lounge" across the street from the Allegheny County Courthouse on the current complex's southern extreme. In the early 1980s, U.S. Steel, which has its global headquarters one block north at the U.S. Steel Tower bought the land Mellon Center was to be built on and planned a 54-floor skyscraper replacing the Carlton Hotel and Plaza Buildings. The naming rights originally went to the Pittsburgh manufacturing firm Dravo Corporation and was to serve as their leased headquarters space (while still owned by U.S. Steel). After the recession of the late 1970s and early 1980s combined with the rapid deindustrialization of the 1980s, Dravo was bought out by a foreign conglomerate and its regional facilities were shuttered, U.S. Steel, having diversified into oil and other industries, sold the almost completed skyscraper on February 16, 1983 to a Connecticut Limited Partnership, the 500 Grant Street Partners, for what was then the second-largest real estate purchase in Western Pennsylvania history.
In March 2010, installation began on a new rooftop sign that will replace the old Mellon signage with the company's new triangular logo and the new brand name "BNY Mellon". The effort is expected to last until the end of 2010.
On Monday, March 29, 2010, at approximately 4:30 p.m., a maintenance worker committed suicide by intentionally falling from the roof. The worker that died, from the North Side region of the city, was a 10-year employee of the building's maintenance contractor.
Read more about this topic: BNY Mellon Center (Pittsburgh)
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“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“America is, therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s history shall reveal itself. It is a land of desire for all those who are weary of the historical lumber-room of Old Europe.”
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“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)