42 stories, facts and figures you should know about Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning
While working on the latest edition of Pitt Magazine, a celebration of the Cathedral of Learning on the 100th anniversary of its groundbreaking, we were inundated with stories: about the people who built the structure and those who have studied there for decades, historic research breakthroughs and athletic achievements, and so many other tall tales about the University’s favorite building.
We couldn’t begin to tell them all, but here are some of our favorite fun facts, figures and anecdotes — one for each floor (and in no particular order).
1. Charles Zeller Klauder, architect of the Cathedral, Heinz Memorial Chapel and other campus buildings across the U.S., left a wide-reaching legacy in brick, stone and steel. But he also left a living legacy in the Klauder triplets, who graduated from Pitt in 2022 and studied in the very building their great-great-great-uncle designed.
2. The 535-foot Cathedral is the world’s second-tallest university building, trailing only the main building of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. The Cathedral is also among the tallest Gothic Revival (or neo-Gothic) structures globally. During construction — its frame in place, but interior not yet finished — the Cathedral was Pittsburgh’s tallest building from 1929 to 1932, until completion of downtown’s Gulf Tower.
3. The Cathedral’s name reportedly came from a Scottish employee of the architect Klauder named John McMahon, whom Chancellor Bowman said called the building a “Cadral of Larnin.” Bowman reluctantly adopted the name only when it caught on and he recognized its public relations value. (An alternate telling has the name coming from Charles D. Armstrong, a cork company president, at a Board of Trustees meeting.)
4. In 1907, architect Henry Hornbostel, the designer of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, won a national competition to transform Pitt’s campus into a grand academic acropolis. He wanted a collection of stately classical buildings perched above the city, echoing the temples of ancient Greece. The design reflected the ideals of higher education at the time: permanence, order and intellectual achievement. But it never came to fruition as architectural tastes shifted and, in the 1920s, Chancellor John G. Bowman championed a radically different idea.
5. In 1925, when tasked with how to fund Cathedral construction, Chancellor Bowman found a solution that was as much about inspiration as fundraising. Working with Marcus Aaron, president of Pittsburgh’s Board of Education, Bowman launched the now famous “buy a brick” campaign. Nearly 97,000 schoolchildren from Western Pennsylvania each contributed a dime, often accompanied by letters describing how they had earned the money through chores, odd jobs and hard work. The $9,700 raised was only a small portion of the Cathedral’s eventual $10 million cost. Yet the campaign’s true value was symbolic. Each child received a certificate recognizing them as part of the “fellowship of the builders,” and their names were preserved in a permanent book of donors.
6. What does the Cathedral have in common with the Empire State Building, the Washington National Cathedral and the Pentagon? All are covered in Indiana limestone. Durable, workable and consistent, limestone from the Salem formation that stretches across several Midwestern states became known as the “nation’s building stone” after a series of fires in the second half of the 19th century ushered in a limestone building boom.
[Read more about how the Cathedral became a symbol of awe and inspiration.]
7. Over the decade or so that it took for the Cathedral to go from concept to completion, a number of other Pittsburgh landmarks representative of the city landscape also took shape. Downtown’s Gulf Tower opened in 1932, while the iconic Three Sisters bridges also were part of the build-up. The Seventh Street (Andy Warhol) and Ninth Street (Rachel Carson) bridges were completed in 1926, while a rebuild of the Sixth Street (Roberto Clemente) bridge was completed in late 1928.
8. In Alumni Hall, you can visit a gallery of 365 paintings of the Cathedral by Félix de la Concha, who used his plein air style to capture the landmark from both recognizable and unusual vantage points across the city.
9. The iconic, colorful style of pop artist and Pittsburgh native Burton Morris has been a fit for, among others, the Olympic Games, the Academy Awards, Heinz, Chanel, Coca-Cola and Ford. But he sees his take on the Cathedral as a career highlight. While Morris’ six-foot Cathedral showpiece is on display in Hillman Library, the building had long been a fixture in pop culture, including comic books, custom LEGO creation and more.
10. Imaginative sparks fly in the basement of the Cathedral. The Understory, open to all Pitt faculty, staff and students, is one of three spaces run by the University’s Center for Creativity. Launched in 2016, the center established spaces across campus for creators to connect, collaborate and explore beyond the boundaries of traditional classrooms. Visitors to the Understory can record a podcast, mend clothing, practice dance in the rehearsal/performance space or even borrow an electric violin to play in one of the four practice rooms.
11. Also in the basement, the Richard E. Rauh Studio Theatre is a classic black box performance space with all the trappings of a regular theater: box office, seating, stage and lighting grids. It serves as a home to Pitt’s Department of Theatre Arts-sponsored shows, student-directed laboratory productions and play readings.
12. You may know the Cathedral’s most recent pair of feathered residents, Carla and Ecco, but did you know the skyscraper has been an ideal habitat for the once-endangered peregrine falcons for nearly 25 years? “Look at this building,” said passionate local birder Kate St. John. “You can literally see for miles from up there.”
13. The Pittsburgh campus is home to more than 3,150 trees, including the ginkgo and scholar trees on the Cathedral lawn, some of which have provided the Pitt community shade and an emotional respite for more than 50 years. The plot also holds a Newton Tree, a direct descendant of the original Flower of Kent apple tree under which Sir Isaac Newton purportedly discovered gravity. The Newton Tree was presented to former Chancellor Patrick Gallagher in 2015 by the National Institution of Standards and Technology.
By the numbers
14. The 14-acre plot of land that houses the Cathedral, Heinz Chapel, the Stephen Foster Memorial, walkways and lawns was originally known as Frick Acres.
15. Early plans had the Cathedral soaring to 52 stories — roughly 280 feet taller than it stands today. Coincidentally, the Commons Room height measures 52 feet from floor to ceiling.
16. It would take a bit more than 67 stacked Cathedrals to get to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, considered the deepest oceanic abyss on Earth at approximately 36,000 feet.
17. Lifelong Pittsburgh resident Danny Chew is said to have scaled the 764 steps inside what he calls the “Tower of Pain” in just 3 minutes, 38 seconds.
18. The Cathedral of Learning holds 2,319 rooms and 2,454 windows.
19. Roughly 20,000 people were inoculated with the polio vaccine in the Commons Room in 1957. Jonas Salk, who led Pitt’s Virus Research Laboratory, and his team developed the vaccine.
20. If laid out side-by-side, the Cathedral’s 616,348 square feet of interior floor space would be large enough to cover almost 11 football fields.
21. Surely the paranormal would make its presence known in a building as old as the Cathedral, right? At least that’s what The Pitt News, the University’s student newspaper, reported in 2008. An article that year relayed that a custodian, Floyd Clawson, came face to face with a ghostly apparition. Clawson was quoted in the article saying, “You open the bottom door, and it looked like a shadow darted out of the room.”
22. Anita Kapp Herman (A&S ’49) is turning 100 in September, just 11 days before the Cathedral’s centennial celebration — but it’s not her only connection to the treasured landmark. Her father, Harry Kapp, worked as a carpenter on the Cathedral’s construction crew, and Herman met her husband, Dick (A&S ’52), tabling for her sorority in the building’s basement.
23. A nonviolent, seven-hour sit-in at the eighth-floor computer center in 1969 showcased the Cathedral of Learning as a site for campus and community good. The transformative direct action led to the launch of groundbreaking research and recruitment initiatives, programming tied to community development in African American neighborhoods and what eventually became the Department of Africana Studies in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
24. A time capsule in the heart of the Commons Room was a gift of the graduating class of 1937 — conveniently celebrating Pitt’s 150th year and the recent completion of the Cathedral. Inside the sealed capsule is a copy of the 1937 yearbook, an edition of The Pitt News, signatures of the graduating class and faculty and other items. The capsule and its contents were planned to last untouched for up to 500 years.
25. The Cathedral structure may be made of stone and steel, but the light streaming through its stained-glass windows lends the first-floor alcoves a feeling of peaceful contemplation fit for a cathedral. Charles J. Connick, the internationally renowned artist behind the windows — those in Heinz Chapel, too — began his career in Pittsburgh.
26. Despite its name, the Cathedral itself carries no religious connection. While the nearby Heinz Memorial Chapel, built to match the aesthetic of its skyscraper neighbor, is a place of worship, it is itself officially nonsectarian. “The Heinz family and University always meant for it to be open to anyone,” chapel manager Corinne Bechtel (BUS ’04) said in 2024. “Any religious organization on Pitt’s campus can hold free services.”
27. The English Room, dedicated in 1952, is home to several World War II relics salvaged from England’s House of Commons. The Parliament building was one of hundreds of structures felled during the German-led London Blitz. Included in this space are shards of glass incorporated into the room’s stained-glass windows and a fireplace original to the House of Commons’ Aye Lobby (pictured, right).
28. On Oct. 13, 1960, Woody Turner (A&S ’61) (pictured, above right) and at least a dozen other students found their way to an upper-floor balcony of the Cathedral, where they experienced a bird’s-eye view of Forbes Field as it hosted Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. George Silk, assigned to photograph the game for LIFE magazine, captured the unexpected perspective (above left) as the Pirates sealed a 10-9 victory.
29. Twenty-five years before the most consequential home run in baseball history at nearby Forbes Field, the Cathedral looked down upon another of the game’s mighty feats: Babe Ruth, playing against the Pirates for the Boston Braves, hit the final three home runs (numbers 712, 713 and 714) of his legendary career on May 25, 1935. The last was said to clear the stadium’s right field roof at more than 500 feet. Ruth retired eight days later.
Dates to remember
30. Chancellor Bowman drove in the final rivet to complete the steel structure on Oct. 21, 1929; a week later, the stock market crashed.
31. Though the building was still years from completion, the first class was held in the Cathedral in 1931.
32. While still under construction, an interior fire in 1932 damaged 11 stories of the building.
33. The first four of the Nationality and Heritage Rooms — German, Russian, Scottish and Swedish — were dedicated in 1938.
34. Eighteen-foot ornamental iron gates designed by Samuel Yellin were installed in the Cathedral in 1940. A verse from poet Robert Bridges is engraved in the metalwork, reading: “Here is eternal spring; for you the very stars of heaven are new.”
35. In 1943, the Cathedral served as military barracks for around 1,000 U.S. Army Air Corps cadets.
36. In part thanks to alumnus Arthur Ziegler (A&S ’58, ’60G), the Cathedral was designated a National Historical Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
[See the full timeline of important Cathedral moments.]
37. In the early 20th century, Theodor Wulf found that a mysterious energy interfering with his equipment grew stronger as her ascended the Eiffel Tower. In fall 2025, a team led by Yuvaraj Elangovan, an electronics design engineer at Pitt, took his own Cosmic Ray Tracker Equipment (pictured, above left) to the Cathedral’s 35th floor to demonstrate the physics phenomenon to the public while giving students a hands-on research opportunity.
38. Pitt chemistry PhD students Ashlyn Bohn and Benjamin Cipriano (pictured, above right) paid homage to the Cathedral with their latest discovery. CAATHy, which stands for chiral auxiliary-assisted asymmetric transfer hydrogenation, is a technique that could help organic chemists create medicines related to molecules found in snakeroot and its relatives.
39. The switch to the Cathedral’s Victory Lights has been flipped on frequently in celebration of Pitt football wins or championships by other Panther teams for more than four decades. But it was in 2016 that the intensity and reach went sky-high. A contribution by alumnus Chris Bickell (A&S ’97) allowed the University to add a dramatic blue beam, shooting straight up, to the iconic top-of-the-tower postgame glow.
40. Two distinct student groups are honored on the walkways between the Cathedral and Heinz Chapel: student-athletes honored with annual Blue-Gold and Panther athletic awards and those seniors chosen each year by the Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) honor society. ODK began selecting one or two top seniors in 1922. On Varsity Walk, famed former Panthers like Tony Dorsett and Mike Ditka are included among the athletes honored each year.
41. By 2007, seven decades of Pittsburgh industry had left a layer of soot and grime on the Cathedral’s limestone, creating dark streaks concentrated on the lower half of the building. In a seven-month effort, workers used pressurized water and a cleaning material of powdered glass to bring the limestone back to its original brightness while restoring and replacing damaged stones and mortar.
42. Even when it doesn’t get top billing, Pitt’s 42-story landmark knows how to rise to the occasion: The Cathedral’s film credits stretch back to the original “Angels in the Outfield” (1951), filmed partly at nearby Forbes Field. Decades later, filmmakers went inside the Cathedral, filming in Frick Auditorium for “Roommates” (1995), while “Wonder Boys” (2000) gave the landmark a little Hollywood lighting so it would glow more brightly during a nighttime scene. Actor Richard Gere even spent some screen time on the Cathedral lawn in “The Mothman Prophecies” (2002). More recently, the Cathedral appeared behind a fictional graduation in “Sorority Row” (2009) and loomed beyond Forbes Field in the Jackie Robinson biopic, “42” (2013).