Investment Building

At least two decades newer than the other antique skyscrapers on the block, this one also took longer than any of them to complete. Announced as the Insurance Exchange Building in 1926 when construction began, in early drawings it was capped by a decorative cornice similar to those of its neighbors.

Then the project bogged down, until new owners stepped in and changed the building’s name and purpose to take advantage of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange next door. Its design was also updated somewhat, though not enough to compete with bolder Art Deco towers then rising in the city, such as the Koppers Building and Cathedral of Learning.

On the ground floor was a 2,000-square-foot trading hub for a private brokerage house, with a big board to track share prices and three direct wires to the firm’s New York headquarters. Brokers who arrived for the first day on April 29, 1929, had six months to settle in before Black Thursday, the Wall Street crash that closed the curtain on the “Roaring Twenties” and ushered in the Great Depression.

Shirley Austin

A former head of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange, Shirley Austin was the lead resident partner for Halsey & Co., the New York brokerage house that had its office here. Austin came to Pittsburgh out of college to be a reporter at The Pittsburg Times down the street, covering business and financial news.

Developing his expertise covering oil and gas markets, he became a stockbroker and issued a weekly investment newsletter. Austin was joined in the business by his son, James Shirley Austin — the name sometimes was used for boys, until 1930s child film star Shirley Temple put a stop to that.