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As you continue on Smithfield Street and cross Fifth Avenue, on your right is the great gray building that is the former headquarters of Mellon Bank -- a grand early-20th-century edifice converted into a retail space(Point 1).

The bank building was a Pittsburgh classic of the Industrial Age -- a long, subdued hall lined with marble columns and a grand balcony running its length from which visitors could imagine the ghost of founder Andrew W. Mellon overseeing the day's commerce.

Walk one block farther along Smithfield Street and you'll come back to Mellon Square (Point 2).

The square itself, a creation of the city's first Renaissance, was also the site of the first gathering of the American Federation of Labor. The old Turner Hall -- a palace for gymnasts in the 19th century -- was the site where Samuel Gompers and his followers met to create a union for skilled tradesmen on Nov. 15, 1888. In 1955, the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations to form the world's largest labor federation.

It's ironic, then, that this site became the beneficiary of a major infusion of cash from a family grown rich on banking, oil and industry. The square was a first-ever design by architects Mitchell and Ritchey and landscape architects Simonds & Simonds and was put there to disguise a parking garage, which lies beneath it. It became a model for urban plazas around the nation and has, over the years, been the scene of rallies, concerts and speeches by the occasional presidential candidate.

Before you reach Sixth Avenue for the long walk to the river, consider stopping into another vision of Pittsburgh's industrial heyday. The Oliver Building is a stellar example of preserved architecture, with its airy, high-windowed lobby (Point 3).

The family of industrialist Henry Oliver had the building erected in 1909 as a memorial to its founder. This being a Pittsburgh family, they saw no reason a memorial shouldn't bring in a few dollars. Its marbled halls are overseen by a large, marble reception desk with a pedestal clock behind it. Burnished brass fixtures surmount the walls, including a wonderful bas relief casting of "Commerce" on the Smithfield Street side of the building. Sadly, its twin, which once graced the opposite doorway, is gone.

Before leaving the lobby, ask one of the guards for a peek inside Elevator No. 7. It's now a storage room, but it still has the original brass furnishings from the days when elevators required a licensed operator to ferry tenants up and down the office building's 24 stories.

Exit on to Sixth Avenue and turn left. This part of Pittsburgh was originally part of a land grant from the family of William Penn, Pennsylvania's founder. That none of it resulted in the erection of a Quaker meeting house is testimony first to the principle of religious tolerance on which Penn, a Quaker, founded his colony and, second, to the fact that this area's earliest settlers weren't Quakers. They belonged to the Church of England and to the Presbyterian Church. Sixth Avenue is host to both of them.

Trinity Cathedral, the Episcopal church (Point 4), originally stood on what is now the site of the Wood Street Galleries and subway station. Its latest building was put up in 1870 by architect Gordon Lloyd. Its upper stained-glass windows are original. A fire in 1964 destroyed the older glass at ground level.

The church offers tours every Sunday after 10:30 a.m. services, and frequent concerts are given on the pipe organ.

Trinity was the home church of composer Stephen Collins Foster, a son of Pittsburgh who gained fame for his songs of the South. Foster's funeral was held at Trinity in 1864, but he is not to be found in its graveyard. He was buried at Allegheny Cemetery, Section 21 of Lot 30, which you'll have to visit another day.

The Trinity churchyard, however, does host some highly regarded bones, not the least of them belonging to Red Pole, chief of the Shawnee nation. He wasn't an Episcopalian, but as his grave says, he was considered a great friend of the local settlers.

Visitors are not only welcome at this church -- they're also fed. Since 1911, Trinity has run a lunch room for the public. It was first set up as an eating place for young working women, who were neither welcome nor necessarily safe when they ate with men in the saloons. Today, the saloons are safe, but executives, store clerks and secretaries alike are drawn to the Trinity Lunchroom, renowned for its homemade tapioca pudding.

In many American cities, the moneyed ascendancy came from the old Church of England. But Western Pennsylvania's early settlers were Scotch-Irish religious dissenters, and it helps explain the fact that one of the grandest buildings along Sixth Street is the twin-towered First Presbyterian Church (Point 5). The congregation was founded in 1773, and its first church was a log structure. Three buildings later, the Presbyterians dedicated their current building in 1905 -- a modified English Gothic building of sandstone and brightly burnished quartered oak designed by architect T.P. Chandler.

Contractors felled two 150-foot-high trees in Oregon for the ceiling supports of the sanctuary, and 13 of the 14 stained-glass windows on the side walls were designed by Tiffany studios. Tours of the church are given Sundays after the 10:45 a.m. services.

On the opposite side of Sixth Avenue stands the Duquesne Club (Point 6). There's no need to cross the street. It's the city's oldest, most prestigious club and strictly private; visitors are not admitted unless accompanied by a member.

Founded in 1873, the club is housed in a Romanesque building designed by associates of H.H. Richardson, architect of the Allegheny County Courthouse. The original brownstone was symmetrical, with twin bays flanking the entrance. In 1902, the growing club needed more space, and an addition was put onto the eastern end of the structure.

As Sixth intersects Wood, the Wood Street Gallery comes into view (Point 7). It sits atop the Wood Street T station -- the light-rail transit system in Allegheny County is called the T.

Before crossing over to explore the gallery, two floors of contemporary art installations, take a quick turn right to 612 Wood (Point 8).

This old building once housed The Pittsburg Sun back in the days when Pittsburgh had, for two decades, dropped the "h" from its name. This was the scene of near-pandemonium Nov. 6, 1916, when a Hungarian-born magician by the name of Harry Houdini dangled headfirst from the roof of the building while strapped tightly into a straitjacket.

According to accounts of the time, it took Houdini little more than three minutes to squirm free. He was lowered from the roof to the cheers of 20,000 people who had clogged the sidewalks and streets and filled every window facing The Sun building.

Past the Wood Street Galleries, Sixth Avenue feeds into Seventh Street and an array of eateries.

But first, take a quick jog at the foot of Sixth, where it intersects Liberty Avenue, and duck into the lobby of the Dominion Tower (Point 9). Originally constructed as CNG Tower, the place has an odd link to international history.

At the back of the lobby, you'll find a small shrine, with plaques honoring Tomas G. Masaryk and Woodrow Wilson. The tower stands adjacent to the spot where, on May 30, 1918, an assembly of expatriates from Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Ruthenia gathered to sign The Pittsburgh Agreement, which presaged the foundation of the nation of Czechoslovakia.

The agreement was signed at the Moose Hall, ripped down in 1984. Czechoslovakia outlived the Moose Hall by another decade. At the end of 1993, the country split into the Czech and Slovak republics.

Back on the street, walk to your left toward Seventh Street. You'll pass an open plaza with life-size, bronze sculptures of a man and two women. The statues, crafted by Boston artist Penelope Jencks, represent the connection between business and art in the Cultural District, and offer a great photo opportunity.

Turn left at Seventh Street and head toward the river, passing the Benedum and Sculpture Corner. At this point, you can, if you wish -- and who among us hasn't wanted to do this? -- perform a sort of cocktail Ping-Pong from one side of the street to the other. There is The Grille on Seventh (Point 10), which features an array of beers on tap as well as a luncheon menu with signature sandwiches ranging from sirloin steak to grilled vegetables. Across the street is the trendy Bossa Nova cafe (Point 11), which features hand-crafted cocktails as well as an assortment of tapas -- light hors d'oeuvres.

Crossing Fort Duquesne Boulevard -- careful, this is one of the city's busiest streets -- move on to what was long known as the Seventh Street Bridge -- renamed the Andy Warhol Bridge in honor of the celebrated pop artist who was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania.

This span was built between 1925 and '28 and is one of the "Three Sisters" -- identical suspension bridges that used huge pieces of I-bar steel where other bridges use cable. It is 442 feet long and 40 feet above the water. The three bridges were raised over the years as a series of locks and dams was erected upriver to keep the Allegheny navigable to inland shipping year-round. Each now bears the name of a celebrated Western Pennsylvanian. The 6th Street Bridge was renamed for beloved Pittsburgh Pirates baseball legend and humanitarian Roberto Clemente and the 9th Street bridge was renamed for pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson.

Down river, toward the Point, you will see the massive Fort Duquesne Bridge, less an engineering marvel than an urban legend. Erected between 1958 and 1963, the bridge crossed from Downtown to a few score yards short of the North Shore where, because of a dispute about where to put the ramp onto the North Side, it ended abruptly in midair. It stood, without an exit ramp, until 1969.

In the six intervening years, "the Bridge to Nowhere" became a monument to bad planning and the stuff of legend when, during the 1960s, a foolhardy driver hit the accelerator, smashed through the barriers and actually landed on the other side.

Upstream is a tamer view of city planning. On the east bank of the Allegheny, the sweeping roof of the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center reaches out to water's edge. French settlers who first explored the region considered the Allegheny and the Ohio the same body of water and dubbed it "La Belle Riviere," or "Beautiful River."

Of Pittsburgh's three rivers, the Allegheny suffered the least during the industrial era. Today it is one of the main recreational bodies of water in this half of the state. It starts at a spring in a farmer's field in Potter County near the Pennsylvania-New York border, and a day's drive upriver from Pittsburgh takes a traveler into state and national forest lands replete with hunting, fishing and boating throughout the year.

Finish your walk across the bridge and past the new Alcoa Corporate Center on your right, headquarters of the world's largest aluminum company and a place better left to the critics of architecture.

On the North Shore, Seventh Street becomes Sandusky Street. Continue one block to the intersection of General Robinson Street and you'll reach The Andy Warhol Museum, the next stop on our tour.

	GRANT STREET		WARHOL / NORTH SHORE