U.S. Steel Tower
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U.S. Steel Tower is the tallest skyscraper in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the 33rd tallest in the United States. When completed in 1970, the tower stretched 64 floors to 841 ft (256 m) and has 2.3 million square feet of leaseable space. Its original name was the U.S. Steel Building for many years before it was changed to USX Tower in 1988. The name was finally changed back to the U.S. Steel Tower in January of 2002 to reflect U.S. Steel's new corporate identity (USX was the 1990s combined oil/energy/steel conglomerate.) U.S. Steel is the largest tenant of the building (occupying more than a half million square feet (46,452 m²) of office space).
In the initial planning stages of the building, the U.S. Steel Corporation considered making the building the world's tallest although eventually settled on 840 feet (256 m.) At 840 feet (256 m) when built, it became the tallest building outside of New York City and Chicago, though the building eventually lost this distinction to other, newer buildings in the US, namely Cleveland's Key Tower in 1991.
The tower is architecturally famous for its triangular shape with indented corners. The building also made history by being the first to use liquid-fireproofed columns. U. S. Steel Corporation deliberately left the massive steel columns exposed to the weather in order to display their new product called Cor-ten steel which is a type that resists the corrosive effects of rain, fog, and other meteorological phenomena.
Interesting features of the U.S. Steel Tower:
- The building is fed by two separate, redundant mains, one from Grant Street and one from 7th Avenue. Both are fully maintained and tested annually. There is a failover system in place, and either main will automatically meet the water demands of the building in the event of a failure. Additionally, the building has four redundant water pumps; any one can meet the needs of the building.
- The building has four redundant electrical feeds, which come from several substations. Any one feed could supply the building.
- The building has fully redundant heating and cooling systems (two boilers and two "air chillers.") The heating boilers can be fed from either natural gas or #2 fuel oil. There is no fail over, but manual adjustment of this system in the event of a supply shortage takes only minutes.
- These redundant systems have allowed the building to remain free of unplanned service interruptions since it was constructed in 1970.
It also features prominetly in the movie Sudden Death serving in scenes as a launching pad for those in the film taking the U.S. Vice President hostage.
The building's official address is 600 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219.
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