During the 40 years he worked for Koppers Co., Charlie Hawkins often arrived at work at the company's Downtown headquarters in the morning and didn't venture outside until quitting time.

	John Beale, Post-Gazette Above: Paul Georg, director of operations of Koppers Building Conference Center, organized an exhibit on the Downtown landmark. Below: An older drawing of the building. Click photos for larger image.

Everything he needed could be found somewhere in the 34 floors of the elegant skyscraper that's occupied the corner of Grant Street and Seventh Avenue since 1929.

There was lunch at the famed Paragon cafeteria, a barber shop, a florist, a shoe shiner and a Reymer's shop in the marbled lobby where Hawkins and his colleagues could take a mid-afternoon break to sip one of Pittsburgh's favorite beverages, lemon Blennd. If workers felt ill, they could visit the company nurse and doctor.

Hawkins, now 82 and living in Whitehall, joined Koppers fresh out of high school as a mail clerk in 1940 and eventually rose to division project manager who traveled to Koppers' plants all over the world before he retired in 1982. "The building was the focal point of everything that happened," he said.

For Hawkins and thousands of others who filled Koppers' headquarters during the heavy manufacturing company's heyday from the 1930s until the 1980s, the distinctive Art Deco structure was like a small city where almost everyone worked for the same company, earned such service awards as pearl necklaces and tie bars, and considered each other to be family.

But while the Koppers name still hangs in brass letters above its entrances, the tower, which this year celebrates its 75th anniversary, largely reflects the dramatic shift in the city's economy since coal, steel and oil ruled Pittsburgh's landscape The building now is occupied by approximately 50 different small businesses, mostly professional firms such as lawyers, the Allegheny County Bar Association, financial planners, and others which lease a floor or part of a floor and don't require such amenities as an in-house florist because they order flowers and fruit baskets over the Internet.

While the building underwent a makeover in the early 1990s that included new windows and elevators, wool carpets and extensive restoration of its original brass and marble features, some who have worked there since the original Koppers filled the building believe its New Economy atmosphere is no match for the past. Back then, Koppers employees ate turkey dinners in the Paragon the week before Thanksgiving and brought their families to view the 25-foot tall, live Christmas tree that adorned the lobby every holiday season.

"The business culture is different now; many people are gone in five years" from the companies for which they work, reflecting the high-turnover nature of the modern business world and the passage of an era when employees may have worked for the same company all their lives, said longtime Koppers employee Phyllis Sipe. She launched her career as a clerk in 1975 at Koppers Co. and now sells utility poles for Koppers Inc., one of the businesses that emerged after Koppers Co. was acquired by British-based Beazer PLC in 1988.

When Sipe joined the company at age 18, Koppers had so many employees it housed some down the street in the Chamber of Commerce Building on Seventh Avenue. It was long before e-mail became a standard way to communicate, so "part of my job was to run back and forth between the buildings with drawings and letters," said Sipe.

The lobby wasn't quite as plush then before the 1990s restoration, she recalls. "It was no-nonsense, but we were a no-nonsense business of railroad ties and utility poles. It was a solid business and it came across that way."

It also was conservative: The shoe shine attendant who visited executive offices throughout the day would only shine men's shoes, Sipe said.

The Roaring '20s

When Koppers broke ground for its building in 1927, the company was a thriving supplier of efficient coke ovens to such customers as U.S. Steel.

German engineer Heinrich Koppers had founded the firm 20 years earlier, and in 1915, the company landed in Pittsburgh when it established a research unit at Mellon Institute. Not coincidentally, Pittsburgh financier A.W. Mellon had bought out the founder's interests and become a large shareholder.

Business boomed with the growth of the steel industry, and the owners decided to erect what was then a modern headquarters Downtown at a cost estimated at $5.3 million. When it opened in 1929, Koppers Building was the tallest in town, only to be surpassed a few years later by another major company backed with Mellon money, Gulf Oil, which built its new headquarters on the other side of Seventh Avenue.

Chicago architects Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, with associate E.P. Mellon of New York, used polished granite to the fourth floor for the Koppers Building exterior, and Indiana limestone above that.

Perhaps the building most's striking exterior feature is the chapel-style roof, made of quarry tile covered by copper. It was illuminated beginning in the 1950s and now houses the building's cooling system.

The main entrance of the building was originally on Seventh Avenue and inside, ornamental bronze was used on the elevators and revolving entrance doors. Brass mailboxes in the shape of the building still hang on the wall near the elevators. Brass also was used to trim the door knobs of Koppers' executive offices. Workers in other offices got steel knobs.

The three-story lobby with vaulted ceiling and marble balconies originally was designed to house small retailers, all of which faced the center of the building. Among the early tenants was Economy Gas Service Co., which set up a showroom for Electrolux gas-fired refrigerators. In later years, Sunbeam used the retail space to display appliances.

Below street level, employees and the public could dine at the Paragon, now occupied by the City Deli & Catering. Also below the lobby, men got haircuts at the barber shop and women went to the manicure parlor.

In the gymnasium on the 32nd floor, Koppers employees took classes taught by a physical education instructor from Westinghouse High School. They also used the gym for indoor baseball and basketball leagues and could rent a locker for a $1 deposit. When games and classes weren't in session, the Koppers Symphony Orchestra used the gym for rehearsal space.

Heinrich Koppers visited the building on a trip through Pittsburgh in 1937, and the skyscraper remained largely out of the news until October 1973, when a 28-year-old secretary from Carrick, Mary Lee Walters, was found strangled and stabbed to death on the 23rd floor.

Walters didn't work for Koppers; she worked for accounting firm Arthur Young, which leased space there. The former Pennsylvania Secretary of the Year had gone into the office on a Saturday to finish a report for the a secretaries' association and was found dead the next day. A security guard was charged and sentenced to 10 to 20 years for the murder.

The incident sparked a wave of security reviews at other Downtown buildings, including the headquarters of Mellon Bank and Gulf Oil.

Beazer's buyout

Ownership of the building has changed hands several times over its history. Koppers sold it for the first time in 1948 to Equitable Life Assurance Society and bought it back from Equitable in 1982.

By then, Koppers was one of the largest industrial companies in the country, with its equipment installed in 99 percent of all blast furnaces in the United States. Over the decades, it had diversified into road building materials, chemicals, wood preservation products, railroad and utility equipment and by 1988, had about 11,000 workers at its headquarters and various operations.

Its road construction business caught the eye of British investor Brian Beazer who, after a heated takeover bid, bought the whole conglomerate in 1988 for $1.8 billion, or $61 a share.

Beazer quickly sold off the divisions he didn't want, including the chemicals company which was purchased by its managers. That company, now called Koppers Inc., occupies five floors in the building and has about 100 employees there and more than 2,000 worldwide.

Randy Collins, a spokesman for Koppers Inc. who also worked at the original Koppers Co., said his most vivid memories of the headquarters were the months when Beazer was trying to buy the company. Employees staged a march outside the building and cut up their American Express credit cards because Amex was owned by the investment banking firm Shearson Lehman Hutton, which helped finance Beazer's deal. Then-Mayor Sophie Masloff made headlines when she threatened to "scratch Beazer's eyes out" if they ever met.

But Beazer liked the real estate he picked up in the Koppers acquisition. His company sunk an estimated $15 million to $25 million into restoring the Koppers Building, which in 1991 earned the Building Owners and Managers Association's Building of the Year award.

In 1997, Beazer sold it for $13.2 million to a pension fund advised by Legg Mason Real Estate Services. Its current market value is $20.3 million, according to Allegheny County real estate property records.

Rents now average $18 to $19 per square foot, said Michael D'Amico, vice president of Grubb & Ellis, a real estate firm that leases the building.

"It's a piece of art," he said. "When the tenants' clients come in, they can walk them around and tour the lobby and point out things like the original Koppers clock. There's a good story behind the building." At a lavish anniversary party held last month, Rubinoff Co., the building manager, played off the Art Deco style with a Roaring '20s theme: cigarette girls in skimpy costumes served desserts; a lavish buffet included crab meat martinis; and search lights and a red carpet greeted guests outside.

Paul Georg, director of operations for the building's conference center, began organizing the event months ago and, with the help of Koppers' employees and alumni, collected enough company and building memorabilia to put together an exhibit in the lobby that showcases the building's history.

Among the treasures is an original, framed lithograph of the building, probably dating from the early 1930s, which Georg located on e-Bay and bought for $69, including shipping. "I'm saving everything now for the 100th anniversary," he said.