page_title: Cathedral of Learning
section_title: Croghan-Schenley Ballroom
hierarchical_section_title: Cathedral of Learning / Other notable spaces / Croghan-Schenley Ballroom
caption_attribution_description: English: Room 324 in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. Known as the Frick Auditorium, the room seats 166 and features a Nicholas Lochoff reproduction of The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca. photo by Michael G White This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 75001608 More images
context_page_description: The Cathedral of Learning is a building that serves as the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Standing at 535 feet, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and the second-tallest university building in the world, after the main building of Moscow State University. It is also the second-tallest gothic-styled building in the world. The Cathedral of Learning was commissioned in 1921 and ground was broken in 1926 under general contractor Stone & Webster. The first class was held in the building in 1931 and its exterior finished in October 1934, prior to its formal dedication in June 1937. It is a Pittsburgh landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
  Colloquially referred to as "Cathy" by some Pitt students, the Cathedral of Learning is a steel frame structure overlaid with Indiana limestone and contains more than 2,000 rooms and windows.
context_section_description: The Croghan-Schenley room, situated on the first floor of the Cathedral in room 156, is actually two adjoining Greek Revival rooms, the Ballroom and the Oval Room, connected by a hidden passageway in the Ballroom's fireplace. The rooms were originally part of William Croghan Jr.'s mansion, known as the Picnic House, built in 1830 in the Stanton Heights area of Pittsburgh. The rooms themselves were created in 1835 by the Philadelphia carver Mordecai Van Horn, and they have been regarded as being among the most lavish examples of Greek Revival designs in America.
  His daughter, Mary Elizabeth, went to boarding school in New York, but in 1842 at the age of fifteen she eloped with 43-year-old Edward Wyndham Harrington Schenley, a captain in the British military. The elopement caused a family schism. Mary would not visit often, and in an effort to convince her to move back to Pittsburgh, the new rooms were commissioned. Following the death of William Croghan in 1850, the mansion was run by caretakers with no permanent residents for some 60 years.  William S. Miller, then president of Steelwood Corp., purchased the Croghan mansion following World War II and it was soon leveled for a new housing development, but the Croghan-Schenley rooms were spared.
  In 1955, the rooms, donated by Miller, were dismantled and rebuilt in the Cathedral, except that the original ceilings had to be lowered about 8 inches to accommodate the available space.
  In 1982, the rooms were refurbished to their 19th century glory. Highlighting the ballroom are the hand-cut glass chandelier and four wooden, hand-carved Greek columns, surviving examples of western Pennsylvania's Greek classical revival period popular with those of means in the 1830s.
  The Croghan-Schenley rooms are the last extant vestiges of the estate of Mary Schenley, who before she died gave much of her holdings and property to the city of Pittsburgh—including Schenley farms, where the Cathedral sits, and Schenley Park.
  Stories tell of a ghost, speculated to be that of Mary Schenley, that is said to roam the Ballroom and Nationality Rooms. The doors to the rooms are locked every night, but furniture is sometimes said to be found rearranged by daylight staff. The swinging of the chandelier has been said to indicate her presence.
caption: The Frick Auditorium
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