The Terror Formers

Hey everybody, welcome back for another video. Today we're going to be talking about the terraformers and our focus is going to be on downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. And it turns out there was this regrade of the downtown area and it's pretty fascinating. I'm getting some interesting revelations coming from it, for me anyway, and I'm going to share that with you. So it should be interesting. Let's get into it. Now, what happened to Grants Hill in downtown Pittsburgh? The hump cut took place. That's the name of the regrade project. It took place in the downtown area known as Grants Hill and it began in 1909 and the project was completed with the final cut in 1913. And this final cut, I think they mentioned that it removed approximately 15 feet of earth. And there are some interesting images showing the project ongoing and you can see here this line talking about how high up all the sediment the earth went. The street level was actually lowered quite a bit, as mentioned, 15, 16 feet in certain locations. Now, there are some revelations that I'm going to get to later in the video. Now, a couple buildings we're going to focus on. One is called the Frick Building, still exists. You can tell by looking at this building, after this regrade, you can see that at one point these columns, they actually touched the ground, the sidewalk at one point. So it's a really interesting example of an after and you can see it a bit better here right in the center here. This entrance is extremely elevated. These columns are well off the ground. And what we're told is that what you're seeing now was actually the basement that was uncovered after they removed this 15 or so feet of earth. Now, I think the speculation here is that this building was buried at some point in our past and the first floor was largely buried and that's actually the cause of it potentially. And I just putting a line here across the former level, street level, just to give you a better visual. But I came across an image in this building, I think they say was built in and around 1902 and this hump cut was completed, I think 1913. So I came across this image showing the building before the regrade and you can see these columns on either side of the building here and they go down approximately to the street level. But here you could see these columns on either side of this entrance. They're well off the ground here. It's my speculation that some group of people before us, they actually, after some event, what people are calling the mud flood, they probably did their own regrade and leveled everything out and made it to look like this. And then we came along after, in my opinion, and undid some of their work exposing the ground levels basically, which we're now being told their basements. That's sort of my view on what's happening. But where things get really interesting is there's another structure, the Allegheny County Courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh. And we're told this one was built or completed in 1888 and it's built in this Romanesque revival style. And these are actually two images from this regrade project. It's not the same view. I just want to mention two different views, but at different points. And there's a detail here that is revealed that I'm going to get into here shortly, which makes me think this building was indeed buried. What they're telling us is that this building, once again, it was after all this earth was taken away. What was exposed was really the basement, which they later turned into the main floor. Now, I think it was always the main floor and it was just adapted after some event. We're going to get into that detail in a second, but I want to focus in on one of the entrances to this Allegheny County Courthouse. And this is a more recent image, as you can tell. But I found an image from before the 1913 regrade and the entrance, how far it is off the ground now, you can really notice the difference. Top left here, you have the image before the regrade and this particular portion of the arch goes down basically to these steps. And over to the right here, more current image, but that same location, this arch and where those steps would have ended basically or started, depending on your perspective. Now the steps are significantly further down. So yeah, all of this earth was removed and we're told it revealed what in essence would have been a basement sub-level. But I think it was always the main level and it was just adapted at some point by a different group of people. But there is one specific detail that I think really gives away the whole plot and it has to do with rusticated masonry. Basically rusticated masonry is just an architectural technique where building stones are cut with roughened or textured faces and sharply beveled edges, leaving deep recessed joints between the blocks. You'll notice this type of architectural technique used on this Romanesque revival style architecture you can find. You can find it in Europe, but definitely in North America, fairly prevalent in certain areas. But what is interesting about it is basically you use this to display it. You don't hide this. This finished masonry, you wouldn't apply it to a basement you would never see. Something that's below ground, a sub-level, you don't see this type of finished masonry on something below ground. But there's an example here from the Allegheny County Courthouse during the regrade, the hump cut, and you can see as they were removing earth, the 15 feet or so, there already was this rusticated facade. So basically that kind of goes against what is typically done for a basement. So they basically are just saying that when the hump cut lowered the street by nearly 15 feet, it exposed the buried basement masonry. And it turns out the architect for this structure, by the way, I believe it's H.H. Richardson. But apparently, and again, this building we're told was built in I think 1888, according to the official history. So before this regrade project, 20 plus years before this project even happened, we're told that Richardson, he foresaw that this regrade would happen. So he had this masonry for this underground portion. He had it finished in anticipation that it would one day be exposed during this regrade. So that's the narrative they're going with. My view is that there was a mud flood event and it goes back further than we understand. I don't know exactly when it happened, but I've seen this exact phenomenon before. And here is another example. The building on the right, again, it's the same courthouse and everything below the line was once covered and it was this rusticated facade again. Rusticated granite facade spanning the right side of the frame is the Allegheny County Courthouse. Well, if we go to Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Halifax Armory is also an example of this Romanesque revival style. And it's this rusticated facade as well. And we're told it was built in 1899, but again, I think it's much older actually. But they've had several projects, restorations, and they've revealed during those projects, they've revealed all this rustication here and a lot of it below grade. And again, typically this would be above grade, above the ground level. But here again, you find it below grade. And if you look on the other side of the building, this is also where they found these, what we're told are these Civil War era cannons, which weigh, I think they said between 12 and 15 tons each. And they had to bring up the heavy duty equipment just to move these things. There's a lot of questions. So I think it's a completely different group of people who did this terraforming and we've sort of come along after the fact and just, we've been rediscovering a lot of this stuff. But all this at one point, this building would have been above grade. Everything you're seeing here, this rustication, this was meant to be above grade to be seen. So the street level was lower at some point. Interesting stuff and just some more shots of the current elevation on this particular side of the street here in Halifax, but interesting. So yeah, what we did in 1912-13 is we basically just undid previous regrade. In my opinion, that was done by a different group of people, in my opinion. And that's about all I have for you for today. I do want to give a big shout out to my channel members. Thank you for all your help and support. It's greatly appreciated. As well as my patrons, thank you for all your help and support as well. It's also greatly appreciated. So with that being said, until next time, take care. Bye.