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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Summer getaway to Pittsburgh offers history, heritage and hidden gems
Pittsburgh may not be at the top of your list for summer travel, but it should be. With walkable neighborhoods, iconic sports teams (Hello! Steelers, Penguins and Pirates), and virtually every street corner forged by an industrial past, this riverfront city also has a dynamic food and arts scene. It's no wonder Lonely Planet named Pittsburgh as one of its Best in Travel 2025 picks – the only U.S. city to make the list. For a stay that blends luxury with a rich history, along with an unbeatable location, there's no better home base than the Omni William Penn Hotel. From the beginning, when it was opened in 1916 by Pittsburgh industrialist Henry Clay Frick, the hotel was meant to be a showplace. Inside, the two-story lobby glows with opulence, with grand Austrian crystal chandeliers, velvet furnishings and gilded details. Over the decades, it has hosted presidents, celebrities, royalty, and countless special moments -- the experience feels just as special today. One of the hotel's best-kept secrets is The Speakeasy on the basement level. Located behind an unmarked door, this restored Prohibition-style bar was once a hidden watering hole in the 1920s. Step back in time and try one of their classic cocktails, like the Bee's Knees. Thanks to the William Penn's prime downtown location, great food options are within easy reach. In the Strip District, a vibrant area known for its food markets and indie retail shops, you'll find the original Primanti Bros, a 1933 sandwich shop famous for handcrafted sandwiches stacked with meat, cheese, slaw and a heap of seasoned fries -- all between thick slices house-made Italian bread. It's a rite of passage and a Pittsburgh tradition. Beyond iconic eats, Pittsburgh's growing culinary scene is diverse. With 90 different food-filled neighborhoods, there's no shortage of delicious options. A few local go-tos: Con Alma, with Latin-inspired small plates and live jazz; James Beard-nominated Apteka, which reimagines Eastern European classics with a menu of modern, plant-based dishes; Spirit & Tales, a stylish brasserie inside The Oaklander Hotel where seasonal ingredients shine; and for sweeping skyline views paired with fresh seafood, take the incline to Monterey Bay Fish Grotto, perched on Mount Washington. Pittsburgh wears its past with pride – and nowhere is that more evident than in its museums and cultural landmarks. Steel, coal and industrial innovation may have built the city, but its art, education and philanthropy continue to shape its soul. The influence of titans like Carnegie, Mellon and Frick is still visible in the many museums and public institutions they left behind. One of my favorites is The Frick Pittsburgh Museum and Gardens. This serene 10-acre estate and museum complex is one of the city's cultural gems. Stroll through manicured gardens and explore the Frick Art Museum and Car and Carriage Museum. Don't miss the award-winning tour of Clayton, the former home of Henry Clay Frick, who was instrumental in making Pittsburgh one of the nation's greatest commercial centers. The home is the city's last fully preserved mansion of the Gilded Age. Afterwards, have a bite or a sip at the lovely garden café. From masterpieces and pop art to the top dinosaur exhibits worldwide, be sure to visit the Carnegie Museums, which include the Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center and The Andy Warhol Museum. Nature lovers are sure to fall in love with the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. With a 14-room glasshouse and 23 distinct gardens, Phipps blooms year-round, but during the summer, the outdoor gardens steal the show. Whether you're a history buff, foodie, art-and-garden enthusiast, or are simply looking for something fresh and unexpected, the 'Burgh delivers in so many ways. For more info, Thanks to new direct flights from Greenville via Breeze Airways, getting to Pittsburgh for a weekend getaway has never been easier. To plan your trip, visit This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Summer Getaway to Pittsburgh offers history, heritage and hidden gems
New York Times
24-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Henry Clay Frick Built His Collection With Passion and Patience
This article is part of our Museums special section about how artists and institutions are adapting to changing times. In the Gilded Age, when newly wealthy Americans sought to advertise their social status here and abroad, several of them turned to what had long been a practice of the established rich: art collecting. Henry Clay Frick, who made his fortune in coke and steel, had appreciated art even as a young man, particularly prints and sketches. 'Some of them he made himself,' said Colin Bailey, director of the Morgan Library and Museum and an expert on Frick. But Frick's interest ultimately turned toward higher-profile works by Europe's old masters, such as Rembrandt and Vermeer, as well as the creations of more modern geniuses like Manet and Degas. Over decades he acquired one of the finest private collections in the world and exhibited them in a Fifth Avenue mansion that is now a major museum. The Frick Collection's home, newly renovated, reopened in April in New York. With the competitive zeal that fueled his success in business, Frick vied for works of art against others who enjoyed tremendous wealth: the banker J.P. Morgan; Peter Widener, a founding organizer of United States Steel and the American Tobacco Company; and Isabella Stewart Gardner, founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 'He hated losing a painting he wanted,' said Ian Wardropper, who resigned earlier this year after 14 years as director of the Frick Collection, the museum that Frick created. Image Frick's passion for showing off extended to the Fifth Avenue mansion he began building in 1913. Credit... The Frick Collection/Frick Art Research Library Archives Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
09-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Inside the Quiet, Extravagant Expansion of the Frick Collection
The Frick Collection, a beloved New York art museum known for its essential European paintings, will reopen on April 17 after a five-year hiatus for a $330 million renovation and expansion. Its magnificence is an artifact of the Gilded Age of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Henry Clay Frick built his fortune with a rapidity comparable to today's tech moguls — and spent a considerable amount of his wealth assembling a crown jewel collection of Old Masters and erecting a suitably grand home for it. Though Frick had never been reticent about displaying his wealth, the limestone mansion he completed in 1914 was an austere Beaux Arts take on French classical city houses, designed by the American architect Thomas Hastings. In Manhattan, it stretches a full block along Fifth Avenue across from Central Park, with asymmetrical wings enclosing a garden.
New York Times
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Lavish Party Inside the Frick's $220 Million Renovation
On a rainy night on the Upper East Side, art world philanthropists, billionaire business moguls and New York socialites scurried under a canopy of umbrellas and into the newly restored Frick. Old money — the Gilded Age mansion of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick — met new money — a $220 million renovation — on Monday night at the Frick Collection's long-awaited opening gala, where swooping capes and cheek-to-cheek kisses were en vogue among the Vermeers, Van Dycks and Rembrandts. Once partygoers had dried off inside — past a marble bust of Mr. Frick himself — they popped caviar tater tots over flutes of champagne and took in the mansion's refreshed environs, which are set to open to the public on April 17. 'It's really important to have spaces where we can leave politics at the door and find common interests in something like art and beauty,' said Tai-Heng Cheng, a lawyer, legal scholar and Frick trustee who wore his great-great-grandfather's pendant. 'And we can bicker endlessly about what's beautiful, but that's OK,' he added. 'That's better than bickering endlessly about other more weighty things.' In pleated gowns and black tuxedos, couples proudly ascended the grand staircase to the newly added second floor. In the Gold Grounds room upstairs, Ian Wardropper, the museum's former director, who recently retired, explained the origin of a cluster of porcelain flowers to Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder (as in Estée). As he spoke, Mr. Wardropper was interrupted and complimented several times for his vision and persistence. During his 14-year-tenure, he considered six proposals for the museum's renovation, but he held on to see Annabelle Selldorf's lauded expansion through. Tijana Ibrahimovic, a media personality, said she was thrilled to visit the new section for ceramics, as well as to experience the 'old-world feel' of the library. But there was one feature that particularly captivated her. 'I'm excited to see the fountain in the middle again,' she said. Guests marveled at the marble steps, original to the mansion, and their natural path to 'the Piero': Piero della Francesca's 15th-century showstopper Saint John the Evangelist, cloaked in red, feet bare, with a cherry-on-top golden halo. 'What a sightline,' Mr. Wardropper said, taking brief moment to sit on a plush hexagonal bench in a former bedroom, now a homage to Mr. Frick's daughter Helen Clay Frick. Until the renovation, it had been used by museum staff. 'Seeing people walk through is such a pleasure,' he added. Spectators admired the curtains (weighty, handwoven drapery replete with thick tassels, coils and sateen balls), took iPhone photos in front of classic works (Manet's 'Bullfight' was of particular interest) and gazed upon works by Rousseau and Millet until being whisked away for dinner downstairs. Those seated in the West Gallery, the grand hall that is 'as long and wide as an airport runway, custom-built for art,' the critic Holland Cotter wrote for The New York Times in a visual guide to the reopening, were treated to opening remarks from Elizabeth 'Betty' Eveillard, the chair of the Frick's board of trustees. But a majority of the guests were scattered in gallery rooms across the first floor, where they watched the remarks via livestream on TVs stationed in each room. Ms. Eveillard announced the board's naming of the newly built Ian Wardropper Education Room, in honor of Mr. Wardropper's pursuit to expand educational programming. And the gala, she noted, looking down the long banquet tables set with candelabras, their candles flickering with faux flames (why risk burning down millions of dollars' worth of renovations?) sold out before invitations were even in the mail. The event, which was attended by more than 450 people, raised $3.7 million. 'I thank you all,' she said. 'And I say, welcome home.' The Fragonard Room became a kind of kids table — or cool kids' table — where younger patrons, including the model Ivy Getty and the Vogue editor Lilah Ramzi, gabbed and dined on avocado crab salad while surrounded by paintings of floating cherubs and ethereal children. 'We're giving gay Gilded Age for the Frick,' the theater producer Jordan Roth said, exhibiting the components of his puffy-sleeved, all-black look. 'Vintage Dior, vintage Lanvin, two-days-ago Prada.' 'Fresh paint!' the socialite Laurence Milstein chimed in, referring to Mr. Roth's new Prada. 'I was like, you know what, if there's one person who's going to understand the assignment, it's Jordan Roth.' In between courses, attendees took to the Garden Court and sipped cocktails around the fountain, under the gold hues of the stately, illuminated columns. After a main course of roasted mallard duck with pickled blackberry port jus, it was time for final remarks. Axel Rüger, the museum's director, presented Mr. Wardropper, his predecessor, with a commemorative silver tray from Christofle. 'My tuxedo and I have been in a race to see who would retire first,' Mr. Wardropper said. The evening, he continued, was a celebration of 'bringing the Frick into the 21st century.' It was the culmination, he added, of transforming a mansion that once had a team of 30 servants serving three people, into a museum and education center serving 300,000 people. 'Long live the Frick!' Mr. Wardropper concluded, and everyone in the room, flanked by two Turners on velvet-coated green walls, leaped to their feet and applauded. Suddenly, a stampede of waiters emerged ferrying miniature shipping crates made of chocolate, adorned with 'fragile' stickers and accompanied by little golden mallets. With puzzled — and then delighted — looks, guests cracked into their desserts, shattering the packages to reveal Frick masterpieces in cookie form — making collectors out of all who attended.
New York Times
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
At the New Frick, Magicians Come Out of the Woodwork
Welcome to the latest installment of 'This Old House,' the Henry Clay Frick mansion edition. The sumptuous 1914 Beaux-Arts residence is reopening to the public on April 17 after a $220 million, four-year renovation, and with a series of member events this week. For the first time in 90 years, visitors will be able to ascend the Grand Staircase to experience the family's private rooms on the second floor, the velvet ropes whisked away. The makeover will allow museumgoers to reunite with the Rembrandts, Van Dykes, Vermeers, Turners, 16th to 18th century furnishings and dine at the Frick's first-ever cafe, opening later this spring. But less evident is the A-team of craftspeople forging new traditions at the Frick: textile weavers, lighting restorers, tassel makers, woodworkers, glass artisans and painters, from Lyon, France, to Gowanus, Brooklyn, whose skills have brought fresh energy and sparkle to an aging mansion. The Frick's interiors, including the Garden Court and the Oval Room, were largely the work of the architect John Russell Pope, who was tasked with transforming the house into a museum in the 1930s. The reimagining this time around was similarly daunting. 'Mr. Frick had the best materials and craftsmanship, so we had to come up to that level of quality,' said Ian Wardropper, the Frick Collection's longtime director, who recently retired. And it was impossible to restore just one gallery. 'It's like if you redo the living room and suddenly your bedroom looks shabby,' Wardropper said. 'My job is to preserve what everyone loved about the Frick, but with new luster and polish.' Fine craftsmanship informs the expansive new addition by Annabelle Selldorf Architects with Beyer Blinder Belle, who took their cues from the historic house. 'The sheer intelligence of craft at the Frick is inspiring,' Selldorf said. 'We were committed to using the same materials and details in a slightly different way, to express the character of our time.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
